My boyfriend works for the local council, and I couldn’t believe it the other day when he came home and said he’d been on a letter writing course all day. He explained that their entire office was doing this course in groups over a number of weeks. Now, knowing how many hoops he had to jump through and tests he had to take in order to be offered the job last year, I wondered why on earth the council felt the need to give him, or anyone, a course in something which they should have exhibited capability of during the hiring process.
I suppose it’s fair to say that we can all do with a brushing up of skills throughout our employment, but couldn’t they have sent round a memo with ‘new formatting’ or ‘top tips on letter writing’ etc. and be done with it? Apparently not. When he got home from the office that day, with an A4 Lever Arch file of basic English quiz questions, he revelled in testing me on what he’d learned! I have an English degree, so although I’m not immune from the odd typo, I do pride myself on having a firm grasp of the ‘correct use’ of English. I was pleased that for the majority of the trick questions, I did succeed in getting the right answer, and for those where I wasn’t sure, I was confident enough in my handle of the language to argue ‘that may well be the definition, but I don’t think that’s what anyone this century has meant by that, and language is the art of communicating meaning at the end of the day!’
So why is it that people who have been hired based on their CV’s, Education and Work History, and Interview Testing performances, still require a whole day’s worth of education on basic office skills?
The Truth
The reality is that once we’ve passed our GCSE’s, we often don’t refer back to what we learned, furiously revising for a day or two prior to the exams, only to forget it forevermore! Unless of course we have to use it every day since then. I got an A at Maths GCSE, some 12 years ago now, but having just done a pop quiz on Facebook (where I only achieved a grade B!), brought up all the terminology of averages, methods of working out puzzles, and tips for interpreting the question which I haven’t had to use for ages! I can still do typical sums, percentages, and fractions etc. as I’ve actually used these since leaving school – but I haven’t had to tell you which is the modal, median, or mean average from a group of results since I was 16, so that took some thought before making an educated guess as to the correct answer!
In the same way as not using your knowledge can make you rusty, there may be another factor affecting how up to date your knowledge is; trends! As ridiculous as this sounds, trends affect the ‘correctness’ of your work over time. For instance, many of us were taught to use to spaces after a full stop, or not to start a sentence with a preposition, or to sign off ‘Yours Sincerely’. With the rise of email, people now write ‘Kind Regards’ or any other level of regards to sign off, or simply ‘thanks’ or ‘best’ in a more informal email. Only one space is now required after a full stop! Stylistics of addressing a letter have changed, from having your address, with the date, on the right hand side, with your recipient’s on the left. Often you’ll now see everything on the left hand side. It is important whenever you take up a new role to see how things are done by colleagues, and to imitate their style, as this is likely to be the organisation’s chosen way of presenting itself. Unless you notice anything ‘incorrect’, in which case enquire with your colleagues about how to make changes.
Another influencing factor on the overall work force’s alignment in standards could be the different way the work force is made up these days. It would have been the norm in days gone by for women to take the more administrative roles, and for men to concern themselves with management and budgets for example. This has changed a lot, so there’s now a mix of younger, and more educated people in all levels within the work force. Whilst some of the older generation can be first class in their specialities, from networking with other CEOs and people management, to minute taking and dictation (skills most young workers won’t have acquired through recent schooling), they may not necessarily have the flexibility of getting to grips with new technologies or revised best practises of working. For this reason, an organisation like the council needs to treat everyone the same (and has enough budget to do so), so gives a company-wide instructive for an overhaul on the letter writing skills of its employees. Well why not? It ensures that everyone is on the same page from here on in, whatever your background, experience, or bad habits that may have been picked up.
Getting Personal
How do you feel you get on in your work place, or industry? Do you feel you’re up to date with all the latest changes in styles, or that you would still be able to do simple maths if a superior asked it of you? One of the best things you can do is to have an inquisitive mind. Simple things like trying to work out the correct spelling when word has highlighted a mistake, rather than just autocorrecting. Or trying to think of the answer to a sum rather than using the calculator straight away. Or asking colleagues how they do this or that, just to gain more insight in to alternative ways of completing particular tasks.
If you really feel daunted by tasks which others are competent at, and this prevents you from offering to help out a colleague, or to take on a particular project as it’ll require you to go out of your comfort zone, this can start to have a negative effect on your career growth! Why not invest in a private tutor outside of work to brush up your skills? Or perhaps a few of you who realise your maths isn’t up to scratch could club together and create a programme with a tutor of the essentials you feel are relevant to all of you in the work place? What’s more, many companies actually have training budgets they have to meet, but don’t successfully ascertain which employees would benefit from which training programmes, why not discuss it with your boss, as an opportunity for personal growth which will benefit yours, your colleagues, and your employer’s achievements at work? You could take up conversational French or another topic which would be useful in a business environment. You’ll probably even find that learning one thing will get your brain back in to the practise of learning, and being inquisitive, and especially learning a language will help you to think more about the English that you use also!
Bio: Hannah writes for Excelr8 Learning and others on a number of topics, from tutoring and education, to travel and property, to fitness. In her spare time she likes nothing more than spending time with friends on holiday, or in at the openmic night in the local village.