An excellent topic!!
I wouldn't waste my time with "training." You can't "train" a semi-literate to write cogent sentences, at least not easily nor quickly. Now, if you can convince your agency to either send these folks back to University, or bring in local experts (I'm not talking about business writing people folks), then definitely go that route. On the other hand, if the option is to show some good or bad examples via Powerpoint while 85% of the attendees are checking their Facebook accounts via their phones…..I’d find a better use of my time.
It seems to me there are several issues at work here, some of which Guardian highlights above. One glaring issue I see is the federal hiring process which flattens all higher education. The number of new hires I am seeing that have attended online higher education exclusively is appalling. Couple that with the overall rejection of Arts and Humanities in higher education (a several decades old trend that was accelerated mightily after 2008’s economic meltdown), and you increasingly have a workforce that struggles with written communication.
So then.....what is the answer?
The one I give in my office is that I've written every SOW/PWS/SOO for every contract I've done. Now to be sure, I am working at a very local office supporting local customers doing commercial contracts only. I currently have 60-70 awarded contracts I am administering and then bringing on 15-20 new ones each year. Furthermore, the dollar values I am awarding are nowhere near the 9 digits mentioned above. Yet, I did just award my first 8 digit contract a month ago, and I can confidently say that the COR for that contract had a level of literacy on par with a middle-schooler. Now before all of you impugn me with being hyperbolic, know this. I spend a week of my leave in the summer grading AP (Advanced Placement) European History tests (full disclosure: prior to getting into contracting I was teaching European History as an Adjunct Instructor at a Big 10 school, therefore doing this for a week acts as my outlet for that abiding interest). For seven straight days, eight hours a day, I sit in a convention center reading essays. I’d estimate a decent grader makes it through 1400 essays for those 7 days. The first draft of that SOW was far worse than any essay I read last summer.