Conducting a Clarity Audit™

What is a Clarity Audit?

A Clarity Audit is a way of gathering information about how an organization communicates, from the perspective of both management and unionized employees. It is not a test – it does not measure the respondents’ writing abilities or single out any one person. Instead, it gives you a good sense of what is happening in the organization and how to move forward to improve communications.

Seven Important Reasons to Do a Clarity Audit

1. A Clarity Audit builds support for the clear language initiative across the organization by consulting with people in a respectful way.
2. It makes the case for a clear language initiative by pointing to well-researched needs, spotting problems and identifying priorities.
3. It helps you find out what kinds of clear language projects and practices are already in place in the organization – activities that you can build on while avoiding duplication.
4. It helps you to identify champions – people you can recruit to promote the clear language initiative, build support, find resources, and act as mentors.
5. It gives you information about the ‘lay of the land’ – strategic information about what is going on in the organization that might help or hinder a clear language initiative.
6. It reveals how the need for clear language skills is linked to the need for other kinds of workplace training, such as literacy and foundational skills training.
7. It identifies the different interests and common concerns of management and unionized workers.

How to Carry Out a Clarity Audit

The Clarity Audit tool asks a series of questions that help you get a picture of what’s happening in your organization around clear language. Filling out the questionnaire also helps people in your organization to become more aware of clarity issues.

There are a number of ways you can collect your information:

• Send out a broadcast email with the Clarity Audit tool as an attachment. Establish one central email address for collecting the results.
• Post the Clarity Audit tool on your intranet as an online survey.
• Pass out the Clarity Audit tool as a group exercise when you make clear language presentations.
• Organize focus groups throughout your organization with the Clarity Audit tool as the centrepiece.
• Interview key people one-on-one to make sure you get complete information for the audit.

Analyzing Your Information

Some of the information you gather from the Clarity Audit will be easy to analyze and use to build your strategy for a plain language initiative. For instance, if the audit shows that your organization has no policy on clear language and no explicit support from the top, getting that support will be a priority.

You can summarize a lot of the information using the ranking system at the end of each section of the Audit tool. For instance, you can calculate how many respondents felt that your municipality is doing well at clear language training. If that percentage is low, you’ve identified another priority.

Some of the information can be used to help your committee decide where to invest energy for the highest return. For instance, if most of the respondents say that report writing is a big problem, then reports might be a good focus for a pilot project.

And finally, some of the information will help you move your initiative forward. Watch for people who put extra thought and energy into completing the Clarity Audit. These are your potential allies and champions. Get in touch with them and find a way to get them involved!