Writers’ Corner
Bolstering digital communication skills for our employees
Written communications form a major part of our daily workflow, and conveying a message in the most professional way possible is always a priority. After all, everything we do at Niyo, directly or indirectly, makes an impact on our end users — our customers.
Our employees are constantly looking for ways to upskill, and in a bid to build their prowess in communications, they wanted to work on their writing skills. As a Content Team, we took to the drawing board–we needed an approach that would be engaging and more effective than hosting repeated workshops.
With Writers’ Corner, we set out to make a difference in the way our employees communicate both with our users over different platforms or just in general within the company.
What is Writers’ Corner?
The longer the time we spend out of school, the more we tend to lose touch with the rules that guide our language. More so, with instant messaging lingo forging deeper roots in our daily communication, grammar has been put on the back burner. The speed of sending across our thoughts has taken over and, with this, a pressing need has arisen to brush up on the little things that matter to keep our language polished for professional communications — and thus Writers’ Corner was born.
Apeksha Atal, Group HR Manager at Niyo, conceptualized this initiative in early 2021. While discussing the idea that led to it, Apeksha shared:
“I often helped teams edit their content, and noticed that there were a handful of questions that were coming up over and over again. Viren and I had actually discussed this a few times, and he had suggested finding a way to send out tips to the whole team. I thought it was a great idea, and consolidated the biggest recurring issues into the first few emails. Once the content team was formed, we went live and almost immediately we started receiving messages of thanks and requests for specific topics to cover!”
The idea is to keep the momentum going with periodic information. Every week, we send around a helpful little writing tidbit for everyone to read and incorporate into day-to-day life: both in and outside of work. The idea is to address some recurring questions that employees have had about writing, vocabulary, composition skills, etc.
We knew we were making a dent with these emails, when Rajat Prajapati, Product Manager at Niyo wrote to us:
“Love the initiative by you and your team. In the inbox clutter, the mail header always attracts my attention and curiosity to see if I shall be learning something new. Keep up the work.”
We believe little things can lead to big changes with time. When people make conscious efforts to incorporate these tidbits into their everyday life, they are on track to be more confident about their communications.
Impact of sharing small reads
We try to present the information in a fun way so readers can easily understand it without feeling overwhelmed, and the bite-sized information in these weekly emails has been received very well by our readers. Collecting periodic feedback from our readers gives us an opportunity to deep-dive and understand the impact and the popularity of the subject matter itself. Oftentimes, employees reach out to us with topic suggestions for future emails.
In one such feedbacks, Abilash, Customer Experience Associate — Care Team at Niyo wrote to us:
“These emails are really good and they improve our knowledge. :)
Today’s email was something new to me. Good to know about colons and dashes and how to use them.
Though these are minor things, they have a pretty big impact in the long term, when these are actually put to use.
Keep the good going!”
It reiterates the fact that these small things do make a difference, even as helpful refreshers of grammar rules that we learned during our school days and have now lost connection to at some level.
Here’s how our keen supporter Argho Bhattacharya, Marketing Manager at Niyo responded to one of our recent informative bites about Email salutations and sign-offs. Don’t miss checking out how creatively he’s incorporated our suggestions into the Email he wrote to us.
“Hi ̶T̶e̶a̶m̶ All,
I love reading what the team sends out. I strongly suggest we collate it somewhere and publish it, it need not remain internal, I am sure more people can find a use to it.
̶R̶e̶g̶a̶r̶d̶s̶ Great Work!”
No, we’re not trying to become the grammar police here, we’re just lending a helping hand. What is your opinion about the importance of grammar rules in everyday work communications — Yay/Nay? Comment below to share your thoughts with us.
Our Writers’ Corner Publication is now live on Medium, do check it out in case you are looking to sharpen your writing skills and get your grammar game going strong.
Also, do check out Niyo behind the scenes to get a sneak peek at our culture, how we do some cool stuff at Niyo, and the people who make the difference.
