Conduct a Needs Assessment (The Clarity Audit™).
A Clarity Audit is a way to include everybody in the municipal workplace in assessing the need for change in the organization’s communications. It helps to identify what and where the problems are and how best to get started.
Before you do the audit, develop a communication plan that will ensure you get a broad sample of responses from across the organization. When you collect your information, use a combination of surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one sessions to get the best data you can.
Build Awareness and Commitment.
Use the promotional tools in this kit to build a dynamic presentation that speaks to the key points, addresses common concerns, and gives concrete examples and success stories. Use the findings from the Clarity Audit™ to back up your recommendations for a realistic, achievable plan with measurable results.
Begin by presenting your findings first to decision makers, so that you can gain support and secure funding for your clear language initiative. Then fan the message out through your organization. Use your presentation to raise awareness and identify more champions and mentors for the initiative.
Develop Strategic Priorities.
Using the results of the Clarity Audit and the feedback you hear when you are building awareness, develop a list of priorities. What were the most frequent issues raised? Which areas of the organization showed the greatest need for change?
As a committee, agree on a way to rank your strategic priorities. For instance, if there are areas of the organization where clear language is critical to health and safety, is that the place to start? What about starting with departments or divisions that showed the greatest openness to change? Would that be the quickest way to get the ball rolling?
How many of the priorities you identified can you take on at once? How much time and money will each take? Are there areas where the priorities for management and unionized workers differ? Work together to decide on:
Design the Initiative.
Now that you have support and a financial commitment, you can design the details of the clear language initiative. Look at the strategic priorities you identified from the results of the Clarity Audit. Then start asking yourselves more detailed questions.
For example, are there particular document types that keep coming up as problems? If so, do you need an outside expert to do a clear language analysis of selected documents? Will you need to develop new templates for these documents? Consider selecting one or two documents, or a group of documents that are similar, for analysis. Once you have learned from that process, you can expand it to include more of your organization’s documents.
How extensive are your training needs? What training formats did people say they prefer? Will a ‘train-the-trainer’ program work – do people have time to take this on? Are you going to set up a mentoring system? What kinds of supports and costs will be involved? How fast can you roll it out?
Finally, don’t forget to define how you will evaluate the success of each component you design. Make sure you have a manageable list of achievable, measurable, time-limited results.