Company reputation 'damaged' by poor spelling

Grammatical errors made by employees in business correspondence could damage the reputation of a company, new figures have revealed.

Research by Ernst and Young has estimated that the UK economy loses £10bn due to employees who lack basic skills, while educational software developer Basic Writing Skills has shown 67.97% of the population would fail a basic literacy test.

However, the Basic Writing Skills study found that women tend to have a better grasp of literacy than men.

These findings follow a poll by the Chartered Insurance Institute, which revealed that 61% of bosses in the financial services sector believe graduates lack basic numeracy and literacy skills.

Creator of Better Writing: Better Business, Heather Ker, stated that employees can affect an employer's reputation through poor grammar.

She said: 'Spelling or punctuation errors convey that the writer, and the company they represent, are careless and lack attention to detail. Such a damaging evaluation can result in a loss of business.'