The brief:
AGC is the largest glass manufacturing company in the world with a wide portfolio of other businesses in electronics, chemicals, and ceramics. Based in Japan, the company and its group companies extend into over 30 countries and regions, with approximately 65% of its business taking place in Asia. That figure, however, is evening out with global operations increasing rapidly in Europe and The Americas.
AGC approached us to draft its Code of Conduct for its English speaking employees and business partners.
The challenge: The CoC needed to be clear and concise, presenting complex topics in simplified language easily understood by both native English speakers, and learners of English. Many of AGC’s offices are in European and Asian countries where English is the primary business language, but not the first language. Transforming a dense legal issue like anti-corruption, for example, into language everyone can understand—while maintaining the company’s voice and tone throughout the entire Code of Conduct—was a crucial (and rewarding) learning experience for me.
My role:
I was lead writer for the entire CoC, which meant I worked extensively with AGC’s legal and HR teams, as well as AGC Group employees around the world. After much discussion, I came up with a style guide that integrated and condensed the company’s brand voice, legal responsibilities, code of ethics, and group philosophies into one document that guided our path forward.
A Code of Conduct, after all, is a dense, long-form, piece of content requiring accurate, informed language that both educates and engages readers.
With strategy in hand, I worked with designers at my agency to ensure all copy would mesh with approved illustrations and design work. Then, I began the actual drafting process.
During this process, we performed testing by sending out various sections of the document to group employees to gauge their reaction and determine the readability of the copy. After bouncing drafts off all parties involved, including legal, HR, and employees, I went back and revised, edited, and honed the language to meet everyone’s expectations.
The result is a hefty, 45-page Code of Conduct that delivers on all clarity and readability—maybe even entertaining?—metrics and standards of excellence.
Highlights:
One of the greatest challenges during the writing process was taking the dense legal information provided to me by AGC’s legal department and condensing, simplifying, and relaying that information back to the readers in a clear manner everyone could understand. Check out some images below for examples.
*The headlines serve as points of clarity. They immediately re-contextualize dense language into something easy-to-understand. For example, “Fair Competition and Antitrust” pairs with the headline, “Play by the rules." First, I introduced the topic and then explained it clearly in plain language.
*When we felt dense topics became too difficult to digest, or ran the risk of losing readability, we provided real-life scenarios in the form of Q&As from the perspective of the employee. This format helped guide and navigate readers through potentially slow-moving, albeit necessary, sections of the document.
