Business Correspondence Critique

The following letter was obtained directly from the webpage (http://www.writinghelp-central.com/termination-letter.html) _____________________________________________________________
Dear Thomas:

It is with sincere regret that I must inform you that your employment at Addison Systems Inc. will be terminated as of Friday January 31, 2006.

As you know, the Downsizing Task Force delivered their report to the general manager in late October, 2006. Among the task force recommendations was the elimination of all temporary and contract positions. Since you occupy a temporary position, your position is automatically subject to the task force recommendations.

I would like to make it absolutely clear that in no way does your termination reflect that the company is in any way unhappy with your work performance over the past 18 months. In fact, you have been highly regarded as one of our most productive contract staffers. Unfortunately, you and the other non-permanent staff that are being let go are simply a reflection of the general economic downturn in the fiber-optics industry over the past year.

In an effort to try to reduce the impact of this termination, the company has worked out a severance arrangement that will give you one week's pay for each month you worked beyond 12 months. In your case this will amount to six (6) weeks of severance pay. In addition, your medical and dental coverage will remain in effect until the end of the severance period. You will soon receive a letter from the Human Resources Department with all of the details on the severance package.

Thomas, given your qualifications and proven abilities, I am confident that you will be able to find another position in the relatively near future. If you would like, I would be pleased to write a recommendation letter for you, to help with your job search.

Sincerely,
Fred ShandlingUnit Manager
cc: R. Jackson, Human Resources ______________________________________________________________
The above termination letter was written by the management of the company to an employee of the company to inform about the termination of the job. Such termination letter that is associated with bad news are usually deemed to be more difficult to draft as the use of inappropriate words and tone may cause unhappiness in the recipient or even result in disputes.

1) Courtesy The letter is certainly courteous as it uses the words like “sincere regret” to announce the news of termination and “I would like” to clarify the reasons for the termination. The writer also expressed his concern for the recipient, as seen in the last paragraph where he wrote “if you would like, I would be pleased to write a recommendation letter for you, to help you with your job search”.

2) Conciseness The letter is quite long, but shows conciseness as the writer managed to explain clearly the various reasons for the termination. However, some of the unnecessary information, for example, “the Downsizing Task Force delivered their report … October,2006”, can be eliminated.

3) Correctness The letter adopts the correct format since it uses the formal English with the appropriate grammar.

4) Coherence and cohesion The letter links the ideas in an orderly manner. For example, it announces the bad news first, followed by the reason of the termination, the compensation that will be given and finally, the help being offered by the company.

5) Concreteness The writer did not specify how serious is the economic downturn and how it affects the company. Maybe the writer can give some figures which states the fall of the company’s revenue as compared to the previous years.

6) Clarity The writer present the ideas that he wants to convey clearly in different paragraphs. However, the sentences are rather long which may frustrate the recipient.

7) Completeness The letter provides all the information that the recipient would require, such as the reasons for the termination, the compensation that will be given and how is the company going to help. Hence, it is a complete letter .

In conclusion, I feel that the letter is well written as it avoids hurting the recipient and in fact, it emphasize that the recipient is being terminated due to the economic downturn and not due to incompetency.

Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

I would like to take this opportunity to share with everyone a personal conflict that happened between me and my classmate when I was in secondary school.

The both of us were in the same group for the project and she was appointed as the leader of the group. Being the leader, she was in charge of dedicating the job to the rest of the group members.

However, a few days before the dateline, I received a SMS from her, saying:

"I am not able to find the information for the report that I am supposed to do. Hence, all of you will have to help me with the report and finish it by today."

Upon reading the message, I was angry and upset. I felt that I have some task which was not completed yet, and she being the leader, did not even offer her help. And hence, I replied back:

“I am not able to help you because I have not finished my work too. Moreover, that is the job that you are supposed to do.”

She then replied back:

“I am the leader so my job is to dedicate the job to the rest of the group members.”

In the end, another group member came to talk to us and made us realize our mistakes. Both our tone and the words used in the message were not appropriate, and therefore resulted in the misunderstandings that eventually lead to the conflict. Fortunately, I managed to meet up with the leader and we apologized to each other to resolve the conflict.

I realized that the problem with us is that both of us were rather stubborn, insistent with our own views and refuse to budge in thus leading to the conflict.

If you were in my shoes, what would you do when you received a message like that? Would you offer your help and how would you reply her?

If you were the leader, how would you ask your group member to help you with your work?