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How to Create a Successful Employee Engagement Program

How to Create a Successful Employee Engagement Program

As we approach the second half of 2023, workplace culture is in a state of great transition. 

Global events, economic turmoil, and generational value shifts have disrupted the American workplace, dramatically transforming workers’ attitudes about their jobs.

The pandemic-era trends of Quiet Quitting (employees not actually quitting their jobs but being largely disengaged and making minimum effort) and The Great Resignation (employees leaving their jobs en masse) have maintained their momentum.

Although workforce participation has largely returned to pre-pandemic levels, employee disengagement has become an increasingly critical concern for employers.  It’s no wonder that employee engagement has become a buzzword in recent years.

Whether you view it as a more recent challenge for employers or simply a new name for an old problem, the issue of employee disengagement and attrition has reached alarming proportions.  

Employers concerned about the impact of disengaged employees on their bottom line are increasingly taking action to ensure the stability of their workforce.

It’s no surprise, then, that the employee engagement market is predicted to grow nearly 10 percent over the next 10 years, reaching nearly $3.8 billion by 2032, according to recent data from Future Market Insights.

Employee benefit platforms, performance management and survey tools, and engagement software solutions are being widely adopted by companies to ensure a better relationship with their employees.

What is employee engagement?

Employee engagement is the level of enthusiasm and dedication a worker feels toward their role and the goals of the organization. According to Quantum Workplace, employee engagement is the strength of the mental and emotional connection employees feel toward their places of work.  Essentially, it’s a measure of how satisfied and committed workers are to their jobs and employers.

Why is employee engagement important?

Employee engagement impacts nearly every aspect of a business.

Research shows that organizations with highly engaged employees have lower turnover, higher productivity, and higher profitability.

Engaged employees work harder and stay longer.

They also deliver a better customer experience, resulting in increased sales revenue and higher customer retention. 

Engaged employees are an invaluable asset in today’s competitive workplace. They are passionate, inspired, and committed—and they inspire others.  Without them, your business is more likely to suffer from high turnover, low productivity, poor morale, and unsatisfactory sales performance.

According to Anne M. Mulcahy, former Xerox CEO, “Employees who believe that management is concerned about them as a whole person—not just an employee—are more productive, more satisfied, more fulfilled. Satisfied employees mean satisfied customers, which leads to profitability.”

Ensuring that your employees are engaged with their jobs isn’t a luxury—it’s a necessity.

Levels of Employee Engagement

There are three levels of employee engagement:

  • Engaged. Employees who are passionate about what they do in their jobs every day.
  • Not engaged. Employees who are not proactive, complete only the tasks required, and don’t generally show an interest in what is going on within the company.
  • Disengaged. Unhappy employees who underperform, spread negativity, and often actively encourage others to avoid their work.

Even if you don’t have a comprehensive employee engagement program in place, it’s important to take action. By taking steps in even a few key areas, you can begin connecting with and engaging your employees more effectively.

Elements of Employee Engagement

What can you do to foster greater employee engagement and a more fulfilling work environment in your company?

According to Getbravo.io, companies need to support the following key elements of employee engagement to have a fully engaged team:

  • Leadership. Good management is consistently named as the most important factor in employee engagement. A positive employee-supervisor relationship is crucial for workers to feel they have direction, support, and feedback.
  • Communication. Keep employees informed with regular communication. This means regularly and promptly sharing company and departmental news, including bad news, so workers are always aware of important events and developments. Being knowledgeable and informed instills a sense of belonging and pride.
  • Culture. Seismic.com defines corporate culture as “a set of beliefs and behaviors that guide how a company’s management and employees interact and handle external business transactions.” Essentially, it’s the “personality” of your organization. A positive corporate culture means employees are treated with respect, dignity, and courtesy. Leaders are responsive, supportive, and consistent, and they model the company’s stated values.
  • Recognition and rewards. Well-defined recognition and reward systems give employees appropriate credit for effort, performance, and results. This can include everything from verbal or written thank you’s to larger companywide recognition in the form of accolades and awards. Meaningful recognition makes employees feel good about their contributions to the organization.
  • Personal and professional development. Giving employees the opportunity to learn new skills and develop their expertise is a vote of confidence that recognizes their potential and demonstrates the company’s commitment to their professional growth. Professional development opportunities might take the form of conference attendance, courses, certifications, or other types of training programs.
  • Feedback. Clear, honest feedback about their performance and results lets employees know how they’re doing and helps them better understand their role. Both positive feedback and constructive criticism help them identify their strengths and areas for improvement.
  • Vision and values. Employees want to work for and contribute to companies whose mission and values resonate with their own ideals. A clearly defined corporate mission and guiding principles inspire employees to feel they’re part of something larger that has a positive impact in the world.
  • Social corporate action. Employees want to work for socially responsible employers who contribute to their communities. Being part of a company that makes a meaningful contribution to society is an important motivator for workers and a key factor in engagement and retention.
  • Sense of accomplishment. Employees who achieve defined goals feel competent and productive. Establishing performance objectives or benchmarks gives them goals to strive for and a sense of accomplishment when those results are achieved. 

How to Create and Support Optimal Employee Engagement

Effective employee engagement drivers like those described above involve a commitment to larger cultural change over time.

In the shorter term, however, you can institute tools and practices to start improving your employees’ engagement levels as you work on developing those larger initiatives.

How can you translate the elements of engagement above into action that will have more immediate impact?

Here are some ways to start:

  • Connect what employees do to what they care about. Show how an employee’s work is related to the organization’s purpose.  One way to do this is through what’s called “job crafting,” a technique that revamps job descriptions to align employees’ work experience more closely with their own values and the company’s mission. For example, an insurance agent might recharacterize their job as helping people bounce back after an accident rather than processing paperwork.
  • Encourage employee resource groups (ERGs) that represent employees’ interests and goals like diversity and inclusion, wellness, or professional development.
  • Make the work less stressful and more enjoyable.  Offer employees flexible hours or the opportunity to try new work tasks to discover their intrinsic interests: for example, a job rotation program.
  • Establish volunteer activities in employees’ areas of interest to provide an opportunity for meaningful service.
  • Encourage passion projects for workers to showcase their creativity and innovation on projects aligned with corporate strategy.
  • Provide enjoyable experiences like company outings or retreats, learning lunches, sporting events, games and competitions, and team-building activities.

Employee Engagement Software

You may want to consider implementing an employee engagement software solution.

Employee engagement software has become an essential human resource management (HRM) tool to improve employee satisfaction, build engagement, and reduce turnover. Depending on your company’s size and needs, employee engagement solutions provide functions like pulse surveys, team analytics, tools for achievement recognition, and employee feedback collection and monitoring for actionable insights.  

Many also include gamification features—the application of gaming elements like teams, competition, point scoring, and rewards to inspire motivation, collaboration, and interaction. This type of software plays a critical role in enhancing the employee experience and identifying opportunities to create a workplace culture of commitment, productivity, and satisfaction.

There are dozens of employee engagement software brands. Research the many available options to determine which features are most important for your organization. A Google search will turn up a wealth of information on this topic and on specific software platforms.

This article gives a good comprehensive overview of employee engagement software types, functions, benefits, and available products.

Measuring Engagement

There’s a commonly used phrase in business: What gets measured gets managed.

Establishing practices and systems to build employee engagement is only one critical component of building a positive workplace culture. The other is measuring engagement levels at regular intervals—not just once a year.

For your efforts to be successful, you need to be able to track progress over time.

Measuring employee engagement identifies strengths and problem areas, generates data for useful insight, and helps you understand trends.

It also builds trust among employees by demonstrating that you care about their experience and opinions.

There are many different “listening methods” for collecting employee feedback.

Engagement surveys are a more formal organizational method designed to get a macro, data-driven understanding of the level of employee engagement in your company. These include:

  • Comprehensive annual or semiannual surveys for understanding how to better foster a motivated and enthusiastic workforce.
  • Frequent, consistent “pulse” surveys to measure and track specific aspects of engagement over time.
  • Short, topic-driven surveys.
  • “Always on” surveys that allow employees to submit feedback at any time.

To be effective, surveys should be designed to measure and track the specific metrics you define as part of your objective for the survey.  These typically track with the elements of engagement described above and might include:

  • Feedback
  • Recognition
  • Happiness at work
  • Work/Life balance
  • Peer and management relationships
  • Professional and personal growth
  • Alignment with values
  • Overall satisfaction

This article provides a good overview of the elements of an effective engagement survey and how to design one.

Non-survey methods can include focus groups, interviews, informal conversations, check-ins, roundtables during staff meetings, town hall meetings, feedback workshops, anonymous comment boxes, and open-door policies.  All of these are ways you can maintain an ongoing dialogue with employees outside of a formal survey process.

Make an ongoing commitment.

Improving employee engagement isn’t a one-and-done proposition or another item on a to-do list. Building engagement requires an ongoing commitment to building a better workplace culture. But with focused effort, communication, and strategy—and the arsenal of expertise and tools available to help—your efforts will pay off with a more dedicated workforce and a better bottom line.

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Stacy Clifford - Copywriter

Stacy Clifford is a wearer of many hats, both literally and figuratively. Having earned a B.S. in Geology from the University of Texas at Austin in 1996, his career has covered environmental cleanup, software testing, web development, technical support, copy editing and proofreading, and martial arts instruction. He has been proofreading since 3rd grade English with Mrs. Barry, corrected every stripe of web copy for over 15 years, copy edited both fiction and non-fiction books, and written on subjects as diverse as volcanology, sword fighting, and space colonization. A fixer by nature, Stacy is a stickler for structure and form and enjoys a good challenge whipping a document into shape. When not tackling the worlds problems or teaching people how to stab each other, Stacy enjoys pencil drawing and hiking in the national parks.

Flori Meeks - Copywriter

Flori, who has more than 25 years of writing experience, began her career in suburban Detroit as a community newspaper reporter. She has worked as a neighborhood news editor for the Houston Chronicle and as a copywriter for Powell Public Relations. During more than 10 years as a freelance writer, her projects included newspaper and magazine articles, press releases, brochure and website copy, Request for Proposal (RFP) responses, and grant applications. Her clients have included Galveston Monthly magazine, Weddings in Houston magazine, Judy Nichols & Associates (public relations) and NCIC Phone Services, along with nonprofit organizations, Lifeway International and Newspring. Since joining The Writers For Hire, Flori has assisted with social media campaigns and written blog posts, articles, press releases, brochures, and web copy.

Flori has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Oakland University.

Jessica Stautberg - Lead Copywriter

Jessica joined The Writers for Hire after several years of technical writing for two Department of Defense contractors, where she created software documentation and online help, as well as material for the company websites and newsletters. Since joining The Writers for Hire, Jessica has become the company’s resident “Wiki guru,” and manages most of the Wikipedia projects. She also manages social media campaigns for several local businesses, provides copy and layout options for website projects, writes blog posts on topics that include the oil and gas industry, web hosting, and fashion, and writes articles, brochures, books, and press releases. Jessica has a Master’s in Technical Communication from Texas State, where she also edited and proofread articles for Center of the Study of the Southwest’s academic journals while working as a ghostwriter for Infobooks.com. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Southwestern University.

Jennifer Rizzo - Copywriter / Genealogist

Jennifer, also known as "Rizzo," is a Denver-based writer and genealogist with a passion for history, travel, and languages. She studied Spanish at the University of Guadalajara in Guadalajara, Mexico and also lived and studied in Ancona, Italy. She also holds a certification for International Tour Management through the International Guide Academy, as well as a Genealogy certification from IAP Career College. Since joining The Writers For Hire, Jennifer has tackled a vast array of projects—from RPFs and SOPs to memoirs and company history books— and has done many in-depth genealogical research and family tree projects. She has also worked as Project Manager for various client projects, including family history books, websites, RFPs, blogs, autobiographies, and SOPs. Jennifer is our resident historian and genealogist, and can often be found examining 200-year-old books in various archive sites around the globe. She enjoys working closely with clients, and loves any opportunity that allows her to indulge her creative side.

Peter Albrecht - Copywriter

After putting in enough time as a busboy, a cheesesteak artist, a medical courier, and a nightclub bouncer, Peter took the logical next step—securing a position at a bicycle shop. While serving as a mechanic and a salesman, his incriminating degree in creative writing from the University of Arizona got him assigned to every additional duty that had anything to do with words. Between all the wrenching and selling, Peter wrote website copy, emails, blogs, digital and print ads, press releases, articles, advertorials, and scripts for radio and television commercials. What started as a summer job evolved into an 18-year career in the cycling industry, gaining him experience in corporate communications, public relations, social media management, event planning, marketing, and retail advertising. Since joining The Writers for Hire, Peter has branched into ghostwriting, op-eds, RFPs, SOPs, and producing work for aerospace and engineering firms, public utilities, oil and gas companies, real estate developers, and the entertainment industry. At his home base in New Jersey, Peter spends his free time souping up cheap vintage guitars, admiring his dog, and talking about moving to the Adirondacks.

Arielle Emmett - Copywriter

Arielle Emmett joined The Writers for Hire after a 30-year career in science, technology, and international journalism education. Early in her career, during the Watergate era, Arielle was selected as a journalism intern for The New York Times columnist William Safire, and she was a correspondent for Newsweek. She has worked as an editor for Science Digest, as a reporter and features staff writer for the Detroit Free Press, and as a columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The American Journalism Review. She also has held senior editor and editor-in-chief positions at leading technical magazines and was a 10-year contributing editor at The Scientist. Arielle’s work has been published in Parents, Ms., OMNI, and Toronto Globe & Mail, among other publications. In 2011 she completed her doctoral dissertation in visual media and iconic photography at the University of Maryland. Since then, Arielle has taught science communications and online journalism at Temple and Drexel Universities, International College Beijing, and University of Hong Kong.

Erin Larson - Copywriter

With a Bachelor of Science in Language Arts from Georgetown University and 20 years of editorial experience, Erin brings a passion for words and well-crafted writing to every project. As a writer, she revels in the opportunity to create vibrant original copy and rejuvenate tired text. She has written on a range of topics, in a variety of styles, and for an array of platforms. As an editor, proofreader, translator, and trusted second set of eyes, she has helped clients from around the world enhance their writing. A self-proclaimed editorial perfectionist, Erin once canceled a credit card because of a grammatically incorrect form letter, which she edited and promptly sent back to the company. (Incidentally, she wasn’t surprised to receive no response.)

Devin Lawrence - Copywriter

Devin is a writer from Richmond, Virginia. He’s been an avid fan of fiction literature ever since he was young, and spent most of his adolescence pouring over one book series after another. Some of his favorites from back in the day include Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Ender’s Game, Ender’s Shadow, and The Edge Chronicles. He began pursuing creative writing when he was twelve, hoping to someday emulate his favorite authors. He has since spent more than ten years continuing to hone and expand the skills of his craft, graduating from Old Dominion University with a degree in Professional Writing in 2022. He has written on topics ranging from technology trends, to criminal justice, homeland security, self-defense, hiking and camping, workplace operational analysis, the challenges of eldercare, and data privacy. Creative by nature, Devin also dabbles as a graphic designer with particular interest in infographics and flowcharts.

Chris DeLange - Copywriter

Chris is a London-based writer with a strong background in HR/Learning & Development. He has held senior positions at large corporations in London as both Talent Development Business Partner and Head of Learning and Development. Chris graduated top of his class when he completed his MSc in Industrial Psychology at the University of Leicester in England. He also holds a TEFL/TESOL qualification in teaching English as a Second Language from Global Language Training. Chris is a big foody and is always exploring new dishes and creating new recipes. He became a qualified Chef in 2012 when he studied Culinary Arts at the International Centre For Culinary Arts in Dubai. He is very passionate about writing and is working on multiple team projects. Chris joined The Writers For Hire in 2022 and is settling in very well.

Morgan Pinales - Copywriter

Morgan has worked in marketing and communications for more than eight years, with a primary focus on copywriting and content creation. Throughout her years of experience, she has written and edited almost every kind of copy imaginable – magazine articles, blog posts, website copy, brochures, press releases, nonfiction books, newsletter articles, brand guidelines, and more – for both B2B and B2C audiences in a wide array of industries, including energy, technology, finance, healthcare, education, travel, retail, and more. In addition to her creative skills, Morgan has technical expertise in HTML coding and utilizing content management systems (e.g. WordPress) and email platforms, such as MailChimp, ExactTarget, and Constant Contact. With a lifelong interest in language, it is not surprising that Morgan has a bachelor’s degree in German and Linguistics from Rice University, where she studied more than eight languages. In 2011, she received her master’s degree in Advertising from The University of Texas, where she was accepted into the elite Texas Creative Program for her copywriting skills. In her free time, Morgan enjoys writing personalized picture books for friends and family.

Shelley Harrison Carpenter - Copywriter

Shelley’s love of words began in first grade, composing poems for her dear teacher and mentor, Mrs. Blanchard. Her writing career began with several years as a county newspaper reporter, where she developed a love for interviewing all sorts of people. Besides feature writing, her news beats included city government, education, and nonprofits of every stripe. As a determined “adult student,” Shelley graduated summa cum laude from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2010 where she also wrote profiles of outstanding adult students for a “Web Weekly” newsletter and edited a grant proposal for a campus office. After college, she wrote English instructional materials, website copy, product copy, and blogs before joining two construction and development ezines as a staff writer, happy to be conducting interviews for each assignment. Several years of intervening employment in corporate merchandising and HR deepened Shelley’s understanding of the workings of larger companies and the written content they require. She now loves being part of the writing teams at The Writers for Hire. When not at a keyboard, she can be seen jogging in her Southern neighborhood or found holed up with a biography, a vegetarian cookbook, or a vintage TV show.

Melanie Green - Copywriter

Melanie Green is a Tampa-based writer and editor, with a focus on digital marketing content. She has more than 15 years of experience writing professionally, including time spent as a full-time employee of McKinsey & Company, Nielsen, and The Business Observer. She loves to write blog posts, website pages, press releases, RFPs, and whitepapers for companies of all sizes in the United States. 

She earned her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing with a concentration in screenwriting from National University in La Jolla, California, and her Bachelor of Arts in Writing from the University of Tampa in Tampa, Florida. 

Carol Kim - Copywriter

Carol Kim is a versatile freelance copywriter who specializes in content marketing, blog posts, website content, and email marketing for business clients. She especially enjoys diving into research and discovering what makes every company unique. Carol holds a bachelor’s degree from Pomona College and a Master’s in Public Affairs from the LBJ School at the University of Texas at Austin.

Carol is also a children’s book author, having written several fiction and nonfiction books for the educational market. She especially loves helping kids learn about the environment and social sciences. Her first nonfiction picture book from a trade publisher is due to be released in fall 2021. 

Martha Scott - Copywriter

Martha Scott’s technical writing career began on a contract at Houston’s Johnson Space Center. She edited papers for scientific journal publication, documents for departments across the site, and a book about a proposed crew escape vehicle. She produced a yearly booklet describing Shuttle contract cost-saving measures, the mission managers’ Flight Data Pack, and a 45-page booklet called Charting a Course to the Year 2000 and Beyond describing plans to develop additional space vehicles and prepare for manned Mars explorations. At Invesco, Martha edited and contributed to two company newsletters (online and hardcopy). She wrote software user manuals, Help files, Training and Benefits department documents, and, finally, shareholder reports. She returned to aerospace for the Shuttle Program’s last 5 years where she attended and produced detailed descriptions of presentations and subsequent discussions at the Orbiter Configuration Control Board’s weekly meetings. She also documented crew debriefings for 17 flights. Martha’s most recent experience was on Jacobs Engineering’s contract with a Texas City refinery for which she wrote and edited Engineering, Safety, Inspection, and Information Systems documents.

Suzanne Kearns - Copywriter

Suzanne knew she wanted to be a writer at the age of ten when she wrote her first story, and has spent the past 2 decades writing blog posts, magazine articles, nonfiction and fiction books, sales letters, white papers, press releases, website copy, and anything else that can be put in written form. She has written for Intuit, Avalara, NerdWallet, GoPayment, and as a ghostwriter for a few well-known CEO’s. Her work has appeared all around the internet, including on sites like World News and Reports, Entrepreneur.com, and Forbes. She loves nothing more than being presented with a bunch of data and asked to break it down into digestible content for readers. Most days you’ll find her sitting on her porch with her laptop, writing to the sound of the ocean, and marveling that life can be this stinking good.

Jennifer DeLay - Copywriter

Jennifer has a background in journalism and Russian area studies. She holds a BA from the University of Texas at Austin and an MSFS from Georgetown University. While in graduate school in the mid-1990s, she developed an interest in the oil and gas industry of the former Soviet Union and launched a free newsletter covering the subject. She then spent more than 20 years researching, analyzing and writing about related topics, working for multiple weekly publications and a private consulting firm. Her areas of professional interest also include energy and power in China, Iran and the Eastern Mediterranean, and for fun she researches linguistics, neuroscience and disability-related issues. She has experience in copy-editing and has frequently worked with both native and non-native English speakers, helping them to produce clear, easily understandable articles on complex political, economic, legal and technical topics. Additionally, she has managed many time-sensitive typesetting projects for community institutions. Jennifer enjoys writing personal essays and lives in Atlanta with her family.

Dana Robinson - Copywriter

Dana Robinson has been writing and editing professionally for 10 years, publishing her first article in 2007. She serves as Editor-in-Chief of a local online magazine and is a contributor to various Houston print publications. She honed her experience writing newsletters and managing social media for small businesses and non-profits before moving on to e-books, magazines, and non-fiction books for print. She also enjoys teaching creative writing workshops for children. Dana received her formal education at the University of Houston–Downtown, where she majored in professional writing, minored in creative writing, and was the recipient of the Upper Division Writing award for best essay. She completed internships with Writers In The Schools and The Bayou Review.

Brenda Hazzard - Copywriter

Brenda Hazzard has over 30 years’ experience working as a writer and editor in the private and public sectors. She spent over 20 years working for the US Government in Washington and abroad, and spent several years working with the CIA during which she managed a team of writers producing internal briefs on international news, events, and politics. She writes on a variety of topics but loves opportunities to work on projects that cater to her keen interest in international affairs. She considers herself to be an empathetic editor, one who improves a draft but lets the spirit of the writer shine through. She has also worked on dissertations, white papers, newspaper articles, and family histories.

Adelia Ritchie - Copywriter

Adelia is a scientist, educator, technical writer and editor, poet, and blogger about her Pura Vida lifestyle in Costa Rica. She has more than 40 years experience writing professionally, including her years at Science Applications International Corp., Bechtel Corporation, Defense Acquisition University, and the Department of Defense. She earned her Doctor of Philosophy in Physical Organic Chemistry at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and her Bachelor of Science in Chemistry and Physics from the University of West Florida in Pensacola, Florida.

Carey Miller - Copywriter

Carey brings more than 20 years of writing and editing experience to The Writers for Hire. A lifelong writer and reader, she holds a B.A. in English from UCLA. Her background includes writing and editorial positions with both book and magazine publishers. She has worked as a copy editor and proofreader for major advertising agencies including Ogilvy & Mather and Rubin Postaer. Her experience includes magazine feature writing and editing as well as manuscript development and editing. A former advertising sales executive, she has crafted a wide range of business, sales, and marketing communication for leading magazine publishers including Conde Nast and Hearst. She has worked with major consumer brands including Nike, Visa, Levi’s, General Motors, Microsoft, Charles Schwab, and Neutrogena.

Coralee Bechteler - Copywriter

In the past, Coralee has been an organic farmer, a chicken herder, a zipline administrative assistant, and an ESL teacher for kids. Today, she's living her childhood dream of being a writer. She currently resides in New York with her cat (and muse) Hermes and a miles-long TBR list that gets longer every day. If she's not reading or crafting, you can usually find her pulled over on a country road writing something down or picking wildflowers. Coralee holds a bachelor's degree in English, an associate's degree in Horticulture, and multiple internationally recognized software testing certifications.

Cecile Brule - Copywriter

Cecile enjoys the challenge of discovering each client’s unique strengths and presenting them to a wider audience. Since joining The Writers For Hire, she has worked on blogs, newsletters, RFPs, end-user documentation, email, social media, sales pages, biographies, op-eds, and fiction.

Previously, she taught in Shenzhen, China and obtained an HSK3 (Intermediate Mandarin) certificate. Cecile enjoys gaming, drawing, producing short films, and growing fifteen different varieties of apples with Serenity Orchards.

Rosalind Stanley - Copywriter

Rosalind Stanley grew up on the Coast of Maine and then accidentally spent fifteen years in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains, before moving to the Midwest. She graduated from Lynchburg College in 2008 with a B.A. in Creative Writing (and a minor in Theater Performance); ever since, Rosalind has endeavored to make writing a part of her daily life, whether creative or technical, whether as a volunteer or an employee. She has tutored students, taught workshops, edited fiction and non-fiction books, and worked as a beta reader and a legal writer. She also publishes a newsletter on Substack, where she releases her own fiction serially. When not writing, Rosalind is busy homeschooling her four children and raiding the local library for new fiction.

Sean Patrick Hill - Copywriter

Sean has been a professional writer for more than 25 years, and has an M.A. in Writing from Portland State University and an M.F.A. in Poetry from Warren Wilson College. He's the author of five books, and his writing has won him grants and fellowships from the Kentucky Arts Council, the Vermont Studio Center, the Elizabeth George Foundation, and the Regional Arts and Culture Council. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky, where he also works at his photography.

Wintress Odom - Owner / Editor-in-chief

Wintress founded The Writers For Hire in 2003 after freelancing for several years as a copywriter and editor. She has overseen, edited, proofread, or written copy for over 100 clients and is happy to have maintained long-term relationships with many of her first customers. Wintress is an exceptional proofreader and editor and has a gift for organizing large projects, including large technical manuals and manuscripts. Her educational background includes graduating cum laude from Rice University in 2000, studying at Cologne Gymnasium in Germany, and graduating valedictorian from The Science Academy of South Texas in 1994.
Wintress