An example of bad business writing

Sorry to dog the English since they usually do have a better command of the English language than do Americans, but here's an example of business writing at is worst.

This was recently disseminated interoffice in an insurance setting in England:

The new Bulletins system was launched on 24 March 2008. This is information regarding how HO Underwriting will utilise the system to communicate changes. Previously, communications specific to the Regions were termed Circulars andthose to Agents were Technical Bulletins. All information will now be issued via the system as Bulletins, so to differentiate between them for the purposes of explaining how the system will be used, we will refer to circulars as "regional instructions" and Technical bulletins as "general instructions".

Regions will receive advance notice of general instructions via e-mail.When published, Regions and Agents will receive the standard e-mail notification produced by the system. If you do not receive the automated e-mails that colleagues get, please contact the Service Desk to check your inclusion in the e-mail group "Networked Group Secretaries" or "UnderwritingBulletins (Advance Notice)" (or a sub-group therein). [Editorial comment: If you didn't get it, how do you know you didn't get it?]

General instructions will be made available for everyone to read and can be accessed through the Bulletin system via the (their internal intranet).(Link on the left side of the Agents page and also on the Underwriting homepage). Some bulletins may only be relevant to the Regional Underwriters (regional instructions), in which case they will be targeted at this group so that others do not receive unnecessary communications.

Therefore, if some bulletins have a limited audience, an individual's view may not include all sequencial numbers, but you will have access to bulletins relevant to yourself. Details are included in the Underwriting Procedures manual, (accessed via the Underwriting Manuals page on (their internal intranet) under: Account Management Programme / Underwriting Bulletins : Guide to issuingUnderwriting Instructions (via the Bulletins system).

Please continue to liaise with your Region regarding clarification of the detail of any bulletins, who can then liaise with HO as necessary. Any problems accessing the Bulletin system itself can be directed to the Service Desk.

Whew! I don't know about you, but I'm lost! Can you really afford to send that kind of communication to your staff? If the information is important enough to communicate, it should be right! Business communications should be crisp, clear and to the point. People can't and won't take the time to "extract" the message from the mess.

C-Level executives obtain most of their purchasing information on line

If your business isn't advertising on line, you may be losing access to the key decision makers in today's businesses: C-level executives such as CEOs, CROs, CFOs, and CLOs.

Forbes recently completed a blind survey of 286 C-level executives and found they spend an average of 16 hours weekly on the Web, not including using e-mail. 64 percent of the respondents viewed eight or more Websites per month looking for business and financial information.

Compared to the time the C-execs spent on other resources,if you aren't making use of web advertising, you may be missing your audience.

Here is the time C-execs spent viewing other medium:

• TV 8.6 hours per week
• Magazines 6.6 hours per week
• Newspapers 6.6 hours per week
• Radio 5.7 hours per week

Should you rethink your advertising dollars? If so, please call to view our innovative HTML advertising campaigns or White Papers that have helped drive traffic to our clients' sites. We have helped dozens of financial services companies build a strong web presence. We would love to help you deliver a crisp, clear message that reaches your intended audience at a rate that is amazingly affordable.

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Upcoming speaking engagement

Nancy Germond will address the Loss Executives Association's (LEA) 77th Spring Meeting and Educational Conference in Portland, Main, on June 12, 2008. Her session, "Brain Drain in the Insurance Industry," provides proactive tips for managing, retaining and training insurance industry personnel. With more than one quarter of the U.S. population eligible to retire in the next few years, this topic is critical to the strategic management of insurance organizations.

The LEA is the premier source of education and training of property claims managers nationwide.

Nancy's articles appear in industry trade journals and her weekly column, "Risk Management for the 21st Century," appears on Allbusiness.com.

Selling workers' compensation coverage

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1) An overview of experience rating
2) Nine key concepts of experience rating that employers need to understand
3) The process of using ModMaster to compute a mod
4) Interpreting ModMaster reports
5) Communicating the 9 key concepts using ModMaster reports, and
6) Taking the next step by introducing WorkCompEdge

RiskList helps businesses manage risk

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Turn your employees into headhunters

Last week I attended a four-day Society of Insurance Trainers & Educators conference. The class size was small, about eight, but what was exciting was the level of young talent in the training.

If we are reading the trade journals, we know that our industry talent is disappearing, in part due to the current and pending Baby Boomer retirements, and in part because of our seeming inability as an industry to attract new candidates. When was the last time you heard a young person, when asked his or her career plans, say, "I'm planning an exciting career in insurance!"

But the reality is, the insurance industry offers exciting career opportunities. Here are just a few of the advantages I've found during my two-decade plus career:

• Wonderful and supportive coworkers.
• Ample training opportunities, whether at the workplace or self-directed.
• Interesting dilemmas to solve, whether during my years in claims, my years working with agents and MGAs, or my years in risk management.
• A fairly lucrative wage.

But as an industry, we don't convey these benefits. As I watched the younger participants at this training workshop, I kept thinking, "Some headhunter is missing a great opportunity here." I would have hired any of the participants in a heartbeat.

If you are having trouble attracting great talent, why not turn your employees into headhunters? As they attend seminars and networking events, ask them to exchange business cards with people they think would be a fit for your company.

While these attendees may not be in the job market right now and you may not even have a current opening, a year down the road, with growth, mergers and acquisitions and downsizing, the story may be entirely different.

When I talk with other young people, particularly women, I encourage them to think about insurance as a career path. You may want to do the same.

Performance appraisals can limit liablility

I've been very busy with my new column in Allbusiness.com.

Click here to read the latest entry.

Public sector risk managers do more with less

If you want to see risk managers who really know how to do more with less, spend a few days with public agency risk managers as I recently did in Anaheim, California. About a thousand risk managers and human resources officers, third-party administrators and those impacted by risk gathered at the Public Agency Risk Manager's Conference (PARMA) last week to discuss trends in public sector risk management.

I heard many great speakers, but the one who really stood out was Gordon Graham, a former police officer and safety consultant. He spoke about Admiral Rickover's 7 Rules of Safety Success, which I turned into a column in Risk Management for the 21st Century on http://www.allbusiness.com/. To read the column, click here.

Public sector risk managers are the unsung heroes of their agencies because they consistently figure out ways to manage the myriad problems public entities face as they try to provide services to an increasingly demanding public.

Should your organization hire a risk manager?

View my latest column in Allbusiness.com.

Your company isn't immune to employee theft

Read my latest column in Allbusiness.com.

Are auto accidents driving your losses?

Read my latest column in Allbusiness.com.

Use the rifle approach to safety

View my most recent column in Allbusiness.com.