Startseite » Blog » Leichte Sprache in Industrie und Wirtschaft

Improve your internal communication:

Easy Language in industry and business

People often ask us, whether easy-to-understand language is very much a niche topic. In fact, the opposite is true. Everyone can benefit from easy-to-understand information, socially as well as economically. Here we show the benefits of easy-to-understand information for business and industry as well as how Easy Language can improve internal communication.

How comprehensible is the information that companies actually publish?

We’ll start with the hard facts. In fact, more than half of the population rely on texts in easy-to-understand language. And it’s not only people with learning disabilities who are affected.

53% of people understand texts in language levels A1, A2 and B1.
However, 68% of the information published by companies is written in the language levels B2, C1 and C2.

Thus, a large part of the information is not comprehensible for half of all people. This is shown by studies on literacy, such as the LEO studies of the University of Hamburg.

What does this mean for companies?

More and more companies are becoming aware of the importance of easy-to-understand communication. This applies to both external communication to customers and internal communication to employees.

Easy-to-understand external communication creates transparency, increases trust and reduces the workload of complaint management. Companies that communicate easily with their customers have a clear competitive advantage.

The same applies to internal corporate communication.

Internal communication is often poorly understood

Modern companies usually have many different people working for them. People with a different first language, people with different levels of education, people with different cultural and social backgrounds.

Many of them have problems understanding texts higher than language level B1. In the work environment, this is particularly problematic when it comes to important safety and work instructions.

The result of difficult corporate information can be workplace accidents, sick leave and mistakes.

Texts that are difficult to understand can lead to employees misunderstanding or not finishing the information, which leads to lower productivity.

What does that mean in numbers?

In Austria, more than 120,000 people suffer an accident at work every year.
Each workplace accident costs a company an average of € 3,300.
The resulting annual costs are around € 400 million in Austria
and around € 4 billion in Germany.

In addition to the personal tragedies, this means enormous economic damage for the companies.

3 reasons why it pays for companies to improve internal communication

Sometimes the solution to a complex problem is quite simple.

This is also the case here: With easy-to-understand information, companies can benefit in more ways than one.

We show the impact of easily understandable information with concrete examples over a period of 5 years .
Let’s imagine an industrial company with 500 employees.

1. Easy-to-understand information reduces workplace accidents

A work accident costs companies an average of 3,300 euros. If 3 accidents can be prevented per year, the company saves € 49,500 over 5 years.

2. Easy-to-understand information saves time

Employees need 30 seconds less reading time per page. The company saves a total of
5,000 working hours. With labor costs of 20 euros per hour, the company saves € 100,000
euros.

3. Easy-to-understand information reduces employee turnover

One termination costs an average of € 14,000. Preventing an average of 4 terminations every year saves the company € 280,000.

In total, the company saved € 429,500 by providing easy-to-understand information.
This does not even include costs for extended sick leave, court cases and similar costs.

Easy-to-understand information, on the other hand, only cost the company € 196,475 thanks to its collaboration with capito.

Easy-to-understand corporate communication with capito

The only question is: Where to start? Anyone who begins to deal with easy-to-understand language quickly realizes: Easy Language is anything but simple.

This is where capito comes in. With over 20 years of experience, we translate large amounts of complex information for all target groups to understand in the shortest possible time. To do this, we use the human know-how of our experts as well as the AI-supported software capito digital.

The texts we edit are characterized by their high quality. To achieve this, we focus on the target group. Representatives of the respective target group check the text for comprehensibility. Only when the content is comprehensible to them, we hand it over to the respective company. This way, our customers can be sure that their information will be understood.

By the way: Most of our translations are German, but we also work with other languages.

Many companies already trust in capito

Our clientele includes companies from large-scale industry as well as public authorities, media companies, museums and social enterprises. We develop customized products and solutions for them.

We make the effects of easy-to-understand language visible

We support companies in planning and implementing an individual package of measures and services. We also evaluate the impact of easy-to-understand information in companies.

This way, we make the positive effect of easy-to-understand information visible for companies and their employees.

All advantages at a glance:

With easy-to-understand information, companies save costs that are caused by misunderstandings and misinformation.
With easy-to-understand information, accidents, damage and consequential damage can be avoided.
With easy-to-understand information, companies can protect themselves against legal consequences resulting from work accidents.
With easy-to-understand information, companies create fast and efficient internal communication.
Easy-to-understand information increases the motivation and commitment of employees.

Sounds interesting? Then sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter! That way you’ll always be up to date. Feel free to leave us a comment if you have any questions or comments about the project.