The Plain Writing Act of 2010 requires federal agencies to write "clear Government communication that the public can understand and use."
The U.S. Department of Labor is committed to complying with the law. Our plain writing webpage includes:
- An overview of the law.
- A summary of the Department's goals.
- Plain language contact information.
We had multiple plain language achievements in fiscal year (FY) 2022.
Agency Activities and Accomplishments
- In FY 2022, with support from Departmental leadership, we began finalizing an internal directive/memo advising agency heads to:
- Revise their policies and procedures to include the requirements in the Plain Writing Act and Federal Plain Language Guidelines.
- Designate a plain language coordinator to ensure compliance with the Department's new plain language policies.
- Introduce a plain language review checkpoint in agencies' internal clearance processes for all content accessible to external stakeholders including web content, print publications, and call scripts.
- Encourage staff to use plain language principles in their work by providing guidance, training, and resources.
- We continue to implement the recommendations of the Office of Compliance Initiatives' (OCI) comprehensive review of the Department's enforcement agencies' compliance assistance materials and tools to determine whether they are current, easily accessible, and understandable.
- While agencies are becoming more adept at using plain language in their compliance assistance materials, they need to continue to enhance the readability of their content by:
- Reducing technical and legal jargon.
- Addressing their audience directly.
- Using the active voice as much as possible.
- We can improve by adopting website structures that maximize usability and clarity.
- While agencies are becoming more adept at using plain language in their compliance assistance materials, they need to continue to enhance the readability of their content by:
- We continue to operate an inter-agency plain language working group to review agency material and develop resources. The working group discusses plain language efforts, creates resources, reviews material, and hosts internal and external speakers. It is now the Department's body of subject matter experts available to support agencies in developing compliance assistance, outreach, and other written communications materials.
- We launched a subcommittee of the working group to develop a 3-year departmental plain language strategic plan.
- Plain language subject matter experts advised multiple agencies on web content, reports, and other public-facing communications materials.
- We are in the process of developing a curriculum to train more in-house plain language trainers.
- We continue to host an intranet page with information and resources on plain language for all staff.
- We continue to promote and share our one-page plain language quick reference guide to all staff through our new plain language intranet page. The reference guide is easy to use and provides at-a-glance plain language tips and resources.
- An internal subject matter expert provided eight plain language training sessions across multiple agencies in 2022, covering the main plain language principles, examples, and resources.
- All new employees take a mandatory online plain language training within 90 days of starting their position. In FY 2022 through August 24, 2022, a total of 635 Department employees (federal employees and contractors) nationwide completed the training and received a completion certificate.
- We revamped the online plain language training previously offered to new employees. The training has been approved and is currently undergoing 508 remediation with the Department's LearningLink team. Our goal is to make the training mandatory for all employees annually.
- We continued to advocate for the addition of a plain language component to the annual Secretary's Honor Award for Innovation. This would allow managers and supervisors to nominate employees and teams for plain language excellence. We will continue to work toward the approval of the award category during FY 2023. We believe it will increase the use of plain language principles and encourage enthusiastic participation in training and other initiatives.
Evaluation
Each year, the Center for Plain Language evaluates federal agencies for compliance with the Plain Writing Act.
In 2021, the Center for Plain Language graded and then averaged two online pages from each agency:
- The main FOIA request page
- The main Coronavirus page
The evaluation scores include two categories. We received an A+ in organizational compliance and a C+ in writing quality. We shared these results with department leadership, communications professionals, web developers and others, to underscore the need for plain language in all our public-facing materials.