Persuasive Writing Memo
You work in Human Resources for a medium-sized company providing a variety of business services. Your new boss, John Marin, is a strong believer in the responsibility a company has to play a role (‘give back’) in the community that supports it.
Mr. Marin has talked with you about creating a list of ways in which employees of your company can help out in the community, mostly involving volunteer work. High on the list is working for Habitat for Humanity in building homes for low-income residents of the community. Your task is to create an easily accessible list of ways that employees can be more involved in their community, and to write an email in appropriate business style to all employees, using good persuasive appeals, motivating them to become involved and giving them all the information they need to get involved.
Factors:
*The company’s work force is made up of about 20% more women than men.
*Fifty percent of the company’s employees are 30 years old or older.
*Mr. Marin has said that your company might be able to provide some incentives to encourage employees to do volunteer work.
*The average work week of an employee is 45 hours, so your employees are putting in plenty of time at work.
*Mr. Marin wants to track which employees are volunteering, and for what.
*Your company has been growing rapidly, so 25 % of your employees have worked at the company for less than two years. Of this 25 %, a high percentage are recent university graduates.
*You can make up any other details about your company or its workforce.
*Challenge: are you writing to one audience, or do you have both primary and secondary audiences? Do you have a hidden audience?
*Put yourself in the position of an employee of this company.
*What would you like to hear, and what would you not like to hear about this new policy?
*What questions would you have about your participation?
*Have you anticipated all objections?
*Are there any unstated factors complicating your persuasion?
