To develop persuasive writing skills using a memorandum format

TO : Melissa A . Wallace , Vice President Human Resources

FROM : XXXXXXXXXXXXX , Manager of Northeast Sales

DATE : DATE \ "MMMM d , yyyy " February 25 , 2008

SUBJECT : New Training Program

As you are well aware , Under Armour 's mission is To make all athletes better through science , passion and the relentless pursuit of innovation ' That is a purpose to which we all have dedicated this stage of our careers . It is this dedication that has led me to investigate our options regarding training programs

As Manager of Northeast Sales , I have recently become painfully

aware of the lack of writing skills of most of my employees . I can only assume that the situation is similar in other regions . My employees come into contact with a wide selection of internal and external customers

Poor writing skills have contributed to

Confusing instructions given between sales and production

Acceleration of customer irritability during the complaint process

Lack of clear procedures for various tasks

Breakdown in communication over performance evaluations

In an effort To make all employees better through science , passion and the relentless pursuit of innovation ' I began an investigation to determine the underlying cause for these inefficiencies . I am sure that these situations are as unacceptable to corporate as they are to me What became apparent to me was a general lack of knowledge in written communication skills

The primary areas of concern are

Proper formatting of basic business documents including

Memos

Emails

Letters

Informal Reports and

Formal Reports

Proper grammar usage

Sentence mechanics and

Research techniques

Now , I can only imagine how much time your department dedicates to developing and delivering training programs throughout the entire organization . Therefore , I would like to make my case regarding the long-term benefits of an employee training program in writing skills . I would be willing to have my Northeast Region serve as your pilot location to test the program

One immediate benefit to the Northeast Region would be more efficient communications , as employees could be taught to write grammatically and mechanically correct . They also need to be taught to write clearly and concisely . I discovered that 30 of Northeast emails are sent as a means of gaining clarification of a previous email . The number of correspondence going back and forth for clarification would be greatly reduced , which would , in turn , reduce Under Armour 's network traffic considerably

Another immediate benefit to the Northeast Region would be an improvement of customer service . Training in the use of the proper tone in our written communications would give employees a valuable tool for customer service . Customers could be dealt with in a manner that shows respect for them , even if we are not giving them what they are asking for . Acceleration of negative emotions could also be avoided by showing respect in our written communications , which could also transfer over to our verbal communication skills

Management training on proper writing and use of appropriate tone in written communications could greatly improve the quality of our written procedures and our performance evaluations...