This self-paced course helps trainers, supervisors, managers, and HR professionals reduce mistakes, save time, and strengthen teamwork using practical plain-language strategies.

  • Downloadable Tools & Templates

    Get quick-tip sheets, checklists, and before-and-after examples you can use immediately.

  • Real Workplace Scenarios

    Learn through practical examples drawn from common workplace situations.

  • Hands-On Practice Activities

    Apply Plain Language skills to real documents - emails, policies, manuals, and instructions.

What Makes This Course Work

✅ A structured, comprehensive learning experience

Across six modules, you’ll learn through real workplace examples, case studies, practical tools, short videos, and hands-on activities - all designed to help you apply Plain Language principles right away.

🎯 Guided practice with sample answers

Activities include guiding questions and sample responses so you can check your thinking, deepen your understanding, and build confidence as you learn.

🕒 Learning that fits your schedule

The course is fully self-paced, and your progress saves automatically. Start and stop whenever you need. Estimated time: 5–6 hours to complete the full course.

📝 A practical rewrite project to apply your skills

Put your skills into action by rewriting a real workplace policy. This guided practice helps you move from understanding Plain Language to using it confidently in your everyday work.

🏆 A final quiz to earn your certificate

Complete a short, graded quiz at the end of the course to check your understanding and receive your Certificate of Achievement.

Gain practical skills you can use right away.

Enroll now

What You'll Learn

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

  • Understand why Plain Language matters and how it helps to reduce workplace risks and improve business results.

  • Understand what Plain Language is, recognize its key features, and see how it helps people understand and act on information.

  • Recognize communication issues in everyday workplace messages, understand the risks they create, and practice finding and improving parts that may confuse readers.

  • Understand the difference between literacy and English language skills, and how both can impact an employee’s ability to understand information, follow instructions, and work safely.

  • Apply Plain Language strategies to real examples, improve unclear messages, and use clear communication in your day-to-day work.

Start Learning Today

Build practical communication skills you can use right away and give your team the clarity they need to succeed.

Enroll now

Course Overview

  1. Your Learning Journey Begins Here

  2. What Is Plain Language Anyway?

  3. How to Spot Communication Breakdowns

  4. Literacy and Language in the Workplace

  5. Putting Plain Language into Practice

  6. Your Turn

At a Glance

  • 6 learning modules
  • 12+ downloadable tip sheets
  • Certificate of Achievement

The Story Behind the Course

AWES has long specialized in helping workplaces improve communication, clarity, and employee success through practical, skills-based training. Plain Language at Work grew directly out of AWES’s short online Plain Language workshop, originally developed and delivered through a previous project, primarily to employers in the Banff–Jasper region. The workshop received positive feedback, which showed there was value in building a more comprehensive online course based on its core content. In response, we expanded the workshop’s core material into this self-paced online course, adding more real-world scenarios, practical tools, and hands-on activities to support clear communication in the workplace. Because this course builds on that proven workshop, we are including testimonials from workshop participants until course-specific feedback becomes available.

Feedback That Inspired This Course

These comments come from participants in AWES’s Plain Language workshop - the foundation on which this course was built. Their feedback demonstrated the value of expanding this workshop into a more comprehensive online course.

“I would recommend this workshop to colleagues and management who create documents and write policies for a group of people or broader audience. I think it would be useful for them to understand how plain language can simplify their writing and making it easier for others to understand the concepts and purpose of sometimes complex policies.”

Workshop participant

“This workshop made me realize the importance of using plain language and how it can benefit both the organization and its staff members. [In my organization], we have staff members from all over the world so this course has been particularly beneficial for myself in understanding why it's so important to use plain language. It's also resonated personally as I know I can often speak/write in a passive voice, rather than active. This has given me something to work on personally that I feel will benefit me professionally.”

Workshop participant

“I would absolutely recommend this workshop to anyone. There is always more to learn that changes the way to communicate with each other in the workplace. Being able to effectively communicate with others, as stated, helps each other and the company in the end.”

Workshop participant

“I would welcome plain language throughout our organization. Less business jargon and to the point. Helps greatly with understanding the intent of a document.”

Workshop participant

“I would recommend [this workshop] to anyone looking to make their workplace more inclusive. I would also recommend this to any friend or colleague I hear of having trouble with their communication of expectations in the workplace.”

Workshop participant

“I hadn’t given this much thought before, but as a training manager, this has proven to be a really useful tool to ensure we are being inclusive of all team members when presenting training resources and materials.”

Workshop participant

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