Plain Funny

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Have you ever read a corporate manual only to find out you don’t speak “business?” Or, have you ever attempted to read a piece of legislation only to find out you’d have a better chance understanding how nuclear physics works? Better yet, have you ever had to pay a lawyer to interpret a legal document because “sense no make words?”

President and Creative Director of Firehouse Financial Communications LLC, Josiah Fisk has spent the past 11 years converting “business speech” into plain jargon. Presenting at this years Center for Plain Language Symposium at the National Press Club, Mr. Fisk explains a new technique for making employee handbooks interesting—humor.

Mimicking the sarcastic humor found in the Onion, Weekly World News, and many other tabloid papers, Firehouse creates witty stories about how employee regulations help the company, employees, and customers.

One headline reads “Man Constantly Re-Reads His Own E-mail” with the subscript “Say’s It’s To Catch Mistakes Before Sending, Not To Admire Style.” This bulletin was created by Firehouse to underlines the importance of sending the correct message to the correct person as opposed, well, anything else. “Experts Find: Acting In The Best Interest Of Costumers Is Good” was a “study” on how making the customer happy is actually a good business plan. Or my personal favorite, “Cincinnati Employee Disappointed To Learn Even Gifts He Doesn’t Like Must Be Reported,” delved into the importance of reporting customer gifts even if it’s a new litter box for your five dogs.

And once fashioned, these stories can then be e-mailed, placed in the monthly newsletter, taped to the water cooler, or embedded elsewhere throughout the company.

Once Mr. Fisk and Firehouse turned corporate policies into humorous anecdotes, 65 percent of employees were more aware of the rules, 76 percent were more aware of how their individual actions affect the company, and 81 percent were more aware that customer-client trust matters. Firehouse Financial has proven that humor can be used as an extremely useful tool in educating employees about policies and regulations that are typically considered meaningless or convoluted. Humor made the rules easier to understand, memorable, and created a “culture of compliance.” Employees no longer feel a disconnect between themselves and corporate policy.

Lance Nation is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.