Company Newsletter Article — “Late Leave — The Harmful Trend to be Solved”
Question prompt — Q6 (Learning English through Workplace Communication)
You are an autumn returns assistant. Your boss has observed that many people are leaving the office very late at night and has asked you to write an article for the company newsletter describing the situation and discussing the negative effects. Then offer suggestions to improve the situation.
The brief is a four-beat workplace article: (i) describe the late-leaving situation; (ii) discuss the negative effects; (iii) propose improvements; (iv) close. The candidate writes from the ‘autumn returns assistant’ persona, addresses fellow employees and the company, and titles the article Late Leave — The Harmful Trend to be Solved.
About 400 words. Booklet pages 6–8 plus Supplementary Answer Sheet S1. The article trails off mid-clause inside the supplementary frame — the final clause ‘you will lose more precious…’ ends before the implied closing noun (most likely time) can land.
The writing, with corrections marked inline
Legend:
red strikethrough = removed |
green highlight = added or replaced |
yellow highlight = handwriting unclear or wording reconstructed from context. The article runs across booklet pp.6–8 and onto Supplementary Answer Sheet S1, ending mid-clause at the foot of S1 (‘you will lose more precious…’).
Booklet p.6 (lines 1–23)
1Late Leave — The Harmful Trend to be Solved
2
3Piles of files, endless phone calls — this situation
4may be familiar to most of you. It is has been noticed
5that our staff, recently, tend to leave the office
6very late. The whole workload, surging as it
7sounds, sees at our colleagues even still by the office
8at 12:00 a.m. While it does show a positive sign of
9our company’s team members’ responsibility, its
10devastating effects are not negligible. In this
11article, the situation of overtime working, its impacts
12and corresponding suggestions will be discussed.
13
14Our electronic attendance system reveals that the
15leaving time of our staff has been delayed to far
16beyond the ‘normal’ 5:30 p.m. In the past few
17months, the number of late leavers has soared from
18a mere thirty recently to a figure what may astonish you.
19It is that The tide of late-leavingers ranges from
208:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m., affecting…
21
22… the rest of our employees must be informed.
23In short, the survey is the problem that it has
Booklet p.7 (lines 24–46)
24drawn much attention from the human resources
25department. Although it is understandable that some
26of our staff surely want to finish their tasks as soon
27as possible, it is essential that all of us be well aware
28of this attitude.
29
30If we leave the office too late, it goes without
31saying that working too late — loaded with tonnes
32of work — will drain much energy from our bodies.
33Tiredness and low concentration are the inevitable
34consequences. It should be noted that under such
35conditions, our working efficiency will just be
36hampered, our last personal shot. More importantly,
37the tiredness will sustain to the next day due to
38insufficient rest taken by our employees. If they are
39leaving why so late — likely jeopardising the overall
40performance of our staff.
41
42Apart from the health of employees and the
43productivity of the company, the worsening worsen family
44relationships of our employees is are no less serious.
45It is easy to interpret that leaving later means less
46time with our family members. We are not willing
Booklet p.8 (lines 47–69)
47to see that our employees intensely focus on their
48work at the expense of their family. It should be
49appreciated that any career must be based on the
50ground of family support. Losing balance to work
51simply ruins your career.
52
53With a view to tackle tackling this problem, we have two
54suggestions for our colleagues. First of all, plan a
55timetable. The current problem is that some of our
56employees may not be able to deal with this the work
57at hand systematically, making the time to finish
58different tasks exceeds exceed their expectations. With a
59timetable, one can confine the time expected to be
60used to prevent excessive lengthening of the required
61time. If the current workload is really too heavy, you
62may consider leaving at the ‘normal’
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
Supp. sheet S1 (lines 70–94) — second suggestion + unfinished closing
70… time and come back earlier to handle the work
71left on the next morning. It This ensures you can take
72enough rest, gaining power again to face your work.
73
74Another suggestion, unlike the above one which not
75concerns not just individual employees, refers to
76cooperation cooperations and mutual support among colleagues.
77It is offering help actively to those who have been
78bombarded with a lot of files or phone calls. Remember,
79our company is not operated by discrete individuals,
80but as a team. Offering help not only alleviates the
81workload of others, but also boosts the morale of the
82whole team as a whole, creating a supportive atmosphere.
83It is hoped that all of us can manifest the spirit of
84cooperation to curb the problem of leaving late.
85
86However, keep in mind, : if you want to work, it is
87not worth leaving having too late as you will lose
88more precious [time]…
89
90[writing-frame ends — closing noun (most likely
91‘time’) is not written]
Marks earned: ^M1 = 18 + ^M2 = 17 = 35 / 42 (closest-pair adjusted, no D3 triggered). The 1-point M1–M2 gap is the smallest non-zero difference on the 2013 closest-pair form; both marks survive in the average. The piece is the candidate’s lower half of the booklet; Part A scored ^21 + ^21 = 42 / 42 PERFECT. Subject mark 605 / 668 ⇒ 5** overall.
Word count. Approximately 420 words against a 400-word brief — 5% over. The article fills booklet pp.6–8 (three full pages) and continues onto Supplementary Answer Sheet S1. The candidate paced the article well; the over-budget is minimal. The closing sentence trails off in the last line of the supplementary frame — you will lose more precious… — with the closing noun (most likely time) not written. This is the script’s single visible structural cost.
The structural plan: four signposted beats. (i) Opening + situation (the ‘Piles of files, endless phone calls’ lead, the electronic-attendance data); (ii) HR awareness + context; (iii) negative effects in three named domains (health, productivity, family); (iv) two named suggestions (plan a timetable; offer mutual support / cooperation). The four beats track the brief’s bullets without ever appearing as a numbered list — the candidate has internalised the brief and converted it into article-prose shape.
First Workplace Communication piece in the corpus. No prior candidate has written to the Q6 Workplace Communication elective; 2013-003 is now the corpus’s reference for the inside-the-company voice (an employee addressing the company, not a commentator addressing the public).
Word count. Approximately 420 words against a 400-word brief — 5% over. The article fills booklet pp.6–8 (three full pages) and continues onto Supplementary Answer Sheet S1. The candidate paced the article well; the over-budget is minimal. The closing sentence trails off in the last line of the supplementary frame — you will lose more precious… — with the closing noun (most likely time) not written. This is the script’s single visible structural cost.
The structural plan: four signposted beats. (i) Opening + situation (the ‘Piles of files, endless phone calls’ lead, the electronic-attendance data); (ii) HR awareness + context; (iii) negative effects in three named domains (health, productivity, family); (iv) two named suggestions (plan a timetable; offer mutual support / cooperation). The four beats track the brief’s bullets without ever appearing as a numbered list — the candidate has internalised the brief and converted it into article-prose shape.
First Workplace Communication piece in the corpus. No prior candidate has written to the Q6 Workplace Communication elective; 2013-003 is now the corpus’s reference for the inside-the-company voice (an employee addressing the company, not a commentator addressing the public).
Strengths to praise
1. The opening lead is a workplace-newsletter convention done natively
“Piles of files, endless phone calls — this situation may be familiar to most of you.” Two named-object fragments, em-dash, addressee anchor. The opening is short, recognisable, and addressed at the reader directly. It reads as professional journalism, not as student-essay prose. Markers read this kind of opening as evidence the candidate understands the rhythm of the genre, not just its vocabulary. (The same opening shape appears in the candidate’s Part A: A plain blackboard, a white chalk and a girl —; the candidate is showing the marker the device twice across the booklet.)
2. Four named data points ground the article in workplace specificity
“Our electronic attendance system reveals that the leaving time of our staff has been delayed to far beyond the ‘normal’ 5:30 p.m. In the past few months, the number of late leavers has soared from a mere thirty recently to what may astonish you. The tide of leaving ranges from 8:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m.” Data source (electronic attendance), baseline (5:30 p.m.), count (thirty), range (8:00 p.m.–12:00 a.m.). Four data points for a premise that most candidates would assert in general terms. The marker reads this as evidence the candidate is writing inside the persona, not just performing it.
3. Three named effect-domains organise the negative-effects discussion
The negative-effects half is organised around three domains: health (energy drain, tiredness, low concentration), productivity (hampered efficiency, sustained next-day tiredness), and family relationships (less time, at the expense of family, careers must be based on family support). The candidate signposts the third domain explicitly with Apart from the health of employees and the productivity of the company, the worsening family relationships of our employees are no less serious. Three named domains is the workplace-argument convention done well.
4. The two suggestions are deliberately individual + collective
Suggestion 1 (plan a timetable) is individual; Suggestion 2 (cooperation and mutual support) is collective. The candidate signposts the difference inside Suggestion 2: Another suggestion, unlike the above one which concerns not just individual employees, refers to cooperation and mutual support among colleagues. Individual + collective is the textbook pair of workplace-improvement proposals; the candidate has chosen complementary remedies on a single axis, not two of the same kind.
5. The slogan-line moral pivot ‘Losing balance to work simply ruins your career’
“It should be appreciated that any career must be based on the ground of family support. Losing balance to work simply ruins your career.” A two-sentence moral pivot: a generalised maxim, then a single sentence stating the moral consequence. This is the workplace-newsletter rhythm at its most persuasive — the writer steps out of the data and addresses the reader on their own life. The single-sentence moral close also appears at the end of the candidate’s Part A photo captions; the device is consciously held across the booklet.
6. Register kept consistent at the boss-prompted staff-writer altitude
The candidate sustains the ‘autumn returns assistant’ voice across the article: our staff, our company, our colleagues, our employees — first-person plural inclusive, addressing the reader as one of the company. The register holds from opening to closing (no slip into casual speech or legal-formal contract language). Markers reading workplace-communication pieces register this kind of consistent-altitude voice as one of the genre’s ceiling markers.
7. Pivot vocabulary is workplace-newsletter native
Devastating effects, negligible, drained, hampered, jeopardising, bombarded, alleviates, manifest the spirit of cooperation, curb the problem, with a view to — all workplace-argument register vocabulary, placed in their natural collocations. Particularly notable: It is essential that all of us be well aware of (subjunctive after essential that) and With a view to tackling this problem (the formal infinitive-of-purpose). Higher-register vocabulary deployed inside its grammatical convention.
Grammar notes
| Issue | Explanation |
|---|---|
(line 1) title Late Leave — The Harmful Trend to be Solved → Leaving Late — A Harmful Trend to be Solved |
Two small points. (i) Late leave is a candidate-coined compound; leave in workplace English usually means formal time-off (annual leave, sick leave, parental leave). The cleaner native for ‘the act of leaving the office late’ is Leaving Late or Late Office Hours. (ii) The Harmful Trend presumes the trend has been previously specified; A Harmful Trend is the genre’s usual indefinite opening. Neither slip is a deal-breaker; both are recoverable on first reading. |
(line 4) It is noticed that… → It has been noticed that… |
Tense. The situation is current and ongoing; the present-perfect passive (It has been noticed) is the cleaner native for an awareness-of-something-ongoing claim. The candidate’s simple-present passive (It is noticed) reads slightly time-flat. |
(lines 6–8) The whole workload, surging as it sounds, sees at our colleagues even still by the office at 12:00 a.m. → The workload, overwhelming as it sounds, keeps our colleagues at the office until 12:00 a.m. |
The page’s least-clear sentence. Two ideas have collided: the workload-as-rising-tide metaphor (surging) and the concrete attendance-time fact (at the office at 12:00 a.m.) without a connecting verb. Sees at our colleagues is not idiomatic English; the cleaner native is keeps our colleagues at the office until 12:00 a.m. The rhetorical move is fully recoverable; only the verb is the friction. |
(line 8) it does a positive sign of our company’s team members’ responsibility → it does show a positive sign of our team members’ sense of responsibility |
Auxiliary does requires either a bare-infinitive lexical verb after it (does show, does indicate, does demonstrate) or the candidate to drop the auxiliary entirely (it is a positive sign). The candidate has the emphatic-do construction in mind but has elided the verb that do is emphasising. |
(line 18) has soared from a mere thirty recently to what may astonish you → has soared from a mere thirty just recently to a figure that may astonish you |
Small clarifications. (i) What may astonish you as the object of soared to is grammatical but slightly elliptical; a figure that may astonish you attaches more cleanly. (ii) Just recently (or only recently) before thirty would tighten the time-frame. |
(line 19) It is that the tide of leaving ranges from… → The tide of late-leavers ranges from… |
The opening cleft It is that… is over-formal for the function (the candidate is simply naming a time-range; the cleft adds nothing). Late-leavers as the subject noun is also more precise than leaving as a gerund-subject. |
(line 23) the survey is the problem that it has drawn much attention → the problem has drawn much attention |
Two small fixes. (i) The survey is the problem reads as if the survey itself is the problem, which is not the candidate’s meaning (the late-leaving is the problem; the survey detected it). (ii) The relative that it has drawn doubles the subject; either that has drawn or which has drawn is the cleaner relative. |
(line 32) drain much energy from our bodies → drain our energy |
The candidate’s much energy from our bodies reads slightly clinical; drain our energy is the cleaner native idiom. Drain energy from is grammatical (drain water from a tank) but the body-as-tank framing is the heavier choice. |
(line 36) our last personal shot → our last best shot / our best work |
Idiom recovery. The candidate’s phrase is unclear in the handwritten copy; the likely intent is our last best shot or our personal best. The rhetorical move (the candidate’s final work-quality is at risk) is recoverable. |
(line 39) If they are leaving why late — likely jeopardising… → If they keep leaving so late, they are likely jeopardising… |
Three small fixes. (i) Leaving why late appears to be a handwriting slip for so late or this late. (ii) The conditional needs a finite main clause (they are jeopardising) rather than the participial reduction. (iii) They keep leaving so late for the protasis tightens the conditional. |
(lines 43–44) the worsen family relationships of our employee is no less serious → the worsening family relationships of our employees are no less serious |
Three slips in one sentence. (i) Participial adjective is worsening, not worsen (which is the verb). (ii) Number: employee singular reads as one named employee; the article is about the company’s employees collectively, so the plural employees. (iii) Subject-verb agreement: relationships plural takes are, not is. |
(lines 49–50) any career must be based on the ground of family support → any career must rest on the foundation of family support |
Mixed metaphor. Based on the ground of blends two idioms (based on X + on the ground that X); the cleaner native is rests on the foundation of or simply rests on. The metaphor wants a foundation-vocabulary item; the ground reads as the literal soil, not the architectural base. |
(line 53) With a view to tackle this problem → With a view to tackling this problem |
The construction with a view to X takes the -ing form (the to is a preposition, not the infinitive marker). The candidate has the construction in the right place; only the verb form is the friction. |
(lines 57–58) making the time to finish different tasks exceeds their expectations → making the time needed to finish different tasks exceed their expectations |
Two small fixes. (i) The time to finish different tasks reads as a purpose-infinitive (the time in which to finish); the candidate means the time needed to finish. (ii) After the causative making X V, the verb is bare-infinitive (exceed), not third-person finite (exceeds). |
(line 71) It ensures you can take enough rest, gaining power again… → This ensures that you can take enough rest and regain the energy… |
Two small fixes. (i) It as the subject reads slightly under-specified; This ties the antecedent (the coming-back-earlier strategy) more closely. (ii) Gaining power again reads slightly off-register for the workplace context (power = energy / strength is poetic here); regain the energy is the workplace-native. |
(lines 74–76) Another suggestion, unlike the above which not concerns… refers to cooperations and mutual support → Another suggestion, unlike the above one which concerns not just individual employees, refers to cooperation and mutual support |
Three small fixes. (i) Word order: which not concerns is non-standard; the negative goes after the verb (which concerns not just). (ii) The above wants a referent (the above one / the above suggestion) to attach the relative clause to. (iii) Cooperation is uncountable as an abstract noun; the plural cooperations exists but means joint-venture entities, which is not the candidate’s sense. |
(lines 86–88) However, keep in mind, if you want to work, it is not worth having too late as you will lose more precious… → However, keep in mind: if you want to work, it is not worth leaving too late, as you will lose more precious time. |
The trailed-off closing. Three small fixes. (i) Colon after keep in mind tightens the emphatic-introduction. (ii) Having appears to be a handwriting slip for leaving (the surrounding article is about leaving the office late, not about owning). (iii) The closing noun (time) is the most likely candidate for the trailed-off ending; the writing-frame ran out before the noun could land. |
Style suggestions (where strong writing could become outstanding)
Categories:
Fluency sentence flow, collocations, rhythm.
Authenticity places that sound student-y or translated; how a native voice would say it.
Text-type fit matching the conventions of the genre — here, a company-newsletter article.
Suggestion 1 · the ‘surging workload’ sentence is the article’s single largest friction
Fluency
lines 6–8
Original: “The whole workload, surging as it sounds, sees at our colleagues even still by the office at 12:00 a.m.”
Try: “The workload, overwhelming as it sounds, keeps our colleagues at the office until midnight.”
Two ideas have collided: the workload-as-rising-tide metaphor (surging) and the concrete attendance-time fact, without a connecting verb. Sees at our colleagues reads as a construction the marker has to re-read. The fix is to drop the surge-metaphor in favour of a single force-keeps-them-here verb, and to round 12:00 a.m. to midnight for one-word punch. The candidate’s rhetorical intent is recoverable; the execution is the page’s heaviest sentence.
Suggestion 2 · close the article inside the writing-frame
Text-type fit
lines 86–88
Original: “However, keep in mind, if you want to work, it is not worth having too late as you will lose more precious…” (article ends mid-clause)
Try: “However, keep in mind: it is not worth working too late, because you will lose more precious time with the people who matter.”
The closing sentence trails off at the foot of the supplementary sheet — the writing-frame ran out before the closing noun (time) could land. A 400-word article has to close inside the frame; closing on an incomplete clause is the script’s single visible structural cost. The fix is to budget the last two lines of the supplementary sheet for the closing sentence, not for the suggestion-2 paragraph’s tail. The people who matter would also tie the closing back to the family-relationships paragraph — closing the article on the same moral pivot that anchored its middle.
Suggestion 3 · one specific real-world example would harden the negative-effects discussion
Text-type fit
lines 30–51
Original: the negative-effects half lists three abstract effect-domains (health, productivity, family) without naming a single concrete incident.
Try: name one case anchor. “Last month, one of our team members fell asleep at his desk after a 14-hour day and missed a client deadline; the cost was a five-figure invoice.”
A 400-word workplace newsletter can carry one named-incident anchor (the way real company newsletters open with a recent specific event). The candidate has the persona (the autumn returns assistant) and the data (the electronic-attendance numbers); a single named incident inside the negative-effects half would convert the abstract argument into a recognisable workplace risk. Markers reading workplace-communication articles read concrete-incident anchoring as one of the genre’s ceiling moves.
Suggestion 4 · the ‘based on the ground of family support’ metaphor mixes two idioms
Authenticity
lines 49–51
Original: “It should be appreciated that any career must be based on the ground of family support. Losing balance to work simply ruins your career.”
Try: “It should be appreciated that any career must rest on the foundation of family support. Losing the balance between work and home simply ruins the career it was meant to build.”
The moral-pivot sentence does the most rhetorical work in the article — the candidate steps out of the workplace-data register and addresses the reader on their own life. The only friction is the mixed metaphor (based on the ground of blends based on X and on the ground that X); the cleaner native is rests on the foundation of. The closing reformulation tightens the chiasm (losing the balance ruins the career it was meant to build) — the rhetorical figure the candidate is reaching for.
Suggestion 5 · consider numbered suggestions for a workplace newsletter
Text-type fit
lines 53–84
Original: the two suggestions are introduced with First of all… + Another suggestion….
Try: numbered headings (1. Plan a timetable. / 2. Offer mutual support.) or bold lead-in phrases.
A company-newsletter article can carry sub-headings or numbered points in its action-items half — the convention is to make practical recommendations visually scannable. The candidate has chosen pure prose, which is grammatical and consistent, but at the marker’s upper-Band-5* the choice between numbered-list and pure-prose is genre-flavoured: an in-company memo would number, a magazine feature would prose. The 2013 brief sits between the two; the candidate’s prose is defensible but a marker reading 50 scripts in a sitting would scan a numbered version faster.
Suggestion 6 · the title could trade ‘Late Leave’ for an idiomatic compound
Authenticity
line 1
Original title: “Late Leave — The Harmful Trend to be Solved”
Try: “Leaving Late: A Harmful Trend We Must Solve” / “Late Office Hours — The Trend We Must Reverse”
The title is the article’s headline reader-attractor. The candidate’s Late Leave is a coined compound: leave in workplace English usually means formal time-off (annual leave, sick leave, parental leave), not the act of leaving the office. Reading the title cold, a marker might briefly mis-parse it as ‘late vacation-time’. Leaving Late (gerund + adverb) or Late Office Hours (compound noun) avoids the ambiguity. The candidate’s rhetorical move (the trend-to-be-solved frame) is fully recoverable.
Professional rewrite — the ‘surging workload’ opening (weak moment)
Professional rewrite — the article’s heaviest sentence, redone inside the same word-count
For comparison only, not a correction. The opening paragraph is the article’s shop-window — markers spend disproportionate time on it. The candidate’s lead (Piles of files, endless phone calls…) is workplace-newsletter native, but the third sentence (The whole workload, surging as it sounds, sees at our colleagues…) collides two metaphors and loses the connecting verb. The rewrite keeps the cinematic opening, fixes the verb-collision, and tightens the addressee-anchor — in roughly the same word count.
The student’s opening (corrected)
Piles of files, endless phone calls — this situation may be familiar to most of you. It has been noticed that our staff, recently, tend to leave the office very late. The whole workload, surging as it sounds, sees at our colleagues even still by the office at 12:00 a.m. While it does show a positive sign of our company’s team members’ responsibility, its devastating effects are not negligible. In this article, the situation of overtime working, its impacts and corresponding suggestions will be discussed.
Rewritten by a workplace-newsletter editor
Piles of files, endless phone calls — the scene is one most of us have come home from. In recent months, the office has been quietly emptying later and later: our electronic attendance log now records colleagues still at their desks at midnight. Yes, the late hours speak to a team that takes its work seriously. But the cost of those hours — on health, on focus, on family — is not negligible. This article describes what we are seeing, weighs what it is costing us, and proposes two ways forward.
What the rewrite is doing differently:
- The lead is preserved. Piles of files, endless phone calls — is the candidate’s strongest move and the rewrite keeps it verbatim. Editing a workplace newsletter means knowing what to leave alone.
- The verb-collision is resolved with a single image. Instead of the workload … sees at our colleagues (workload as agent, colleagues as object, no clean verb), the rewrite anchors the same fact on the attendance log: the electronic attendance log now records colleagues still at their desks at midnight. The data source moves from later in the article to the opening; the abstract surge-metaphor is dropped.
- The concession is sharper. Yes, the late hours speak to a team that takes its work seriously — one word (Yes,) signals concession, and speak to replaces the under-verbed does a positive sign. The concession is shorter and the contrast lands harder.
- The roadmap is anchored in three nouns. Describes what we are seeing, weighs what it is costing us, and proposes two ways forward. The candidate’s situation, impacts, and corresponding suggestions is fine but abstract; the rewrite uses verbs (describes, weighs, proposes) so the reader can see the article’s shape.
- The cost-cluster is named. On health, on focus, on family — three prepositional phrases in parallel, foreshadowing the three effect-domains the article will discuss. The candidate’s devastating effects are not negligible names magnitude but not content; the rewrite previews the content.
- The midnight detail moves to the opening. The candidate buries the midnight time-point in the third sentence; the rewrite promotes it to the opening paragraph’s closing image. Still at their desks at midnight is the article’s strongest concrete fact — let the marker see it first.
Vocabulary to notice
| Word / phrase | Definition | Usage notes | Synonyms / alternatives |
|---|---|---|---|
| tend to | (v. phrase) to be inclined to do something habitually. | Pairs with recently, often, generally, usually: our staff, recently, tend to leave the office very late. Workplace-observation register; the standard hedged-claim verb for situations the writer is naming as a pattern, not a one-off. | be inclined to, be apt to, be prone to, habitually |
| devastating | (adj.) causing severe damage or destruction. | Pairs with effects, consequences, impact, blow, loss: its devastating effects are not negligible. The candidate pairs devastating with negligible in the same sentence — one names magnitude, the other names dismissibility — a register-keyed double. | ruinous, catastrophic, crippling, severe |
| negligible | (adj.) so small or unimportant as to be not worth considering. | Pairs with not, far from, anything but, hardly: its devastating effects are not negligible. Higher-register adjective; the candidate’s deployment in the negation (not negligible) emphasises significance via litotes (understatement-as-emphasis). | insignificant, trivial, slight, marginal |
| electronic attendance system | (n. phrase) a workplace digital system recording employees’ check-in / check-out times. | Pairs with reveals, shows, records, indicates: Our electronic attendance system reveals that the leaving time… has been delayed. Workplace-IT register collocation; grounds the article in the persona’s likely data-access. | attendance log, time-tracking system, clock-in system |
| soar (from X to Y) | (v.) to rise sharply. | Pairs with prices, temperatures, numbers, demand, popularity: the number of late leavers has soared from a mere thirty…. Workplace-statistics register; matches the data-anchored argument. | surge, rise sharply, shoot up, jump |
| a mere (thirty) | (adj.) only; nothing more than. | Pairs with thirty, ten, few, fraction: from a mere thirty recently. Higher-register quantifier; minimises the previous count to amplify the soaring. | only, just, no more than, a paltry |
| human resources department | (n. phrase) the company department responsible for personnel matters. | Pairs with contact, inform, draw attention from, refer to: it has drawn much attention from the human resources department. Workplace-org-chart register; names the right institutional actor for the observation. | HR, personnel, people team, staffing department |
| it goes without saying that | (fixed phrase) it is obvious; needs no statement. | Sentence-initial; followed by a finite clause: it goes without saying that working too late… will drain much energy. Standard formal-register link; marks the move from observation to consequence. | needless to say, obviously, of course, evidently |
| drain (energy) | (v.) to use up or exhaust. | Pairs with energy, resources, finances, time: working too late… will drain much energy. Body-as-resource workplace metaphor; lifts the tiredness argument out of the literal-fatigue register. | exhaust, deplete, sap, wear out |
| hampered | (v., passive) hindered or impeded. | Pairs with efficiency, progress, performance, development: our working efficiency will just be hampered. Higher-register impeded-verb; matches the workplace-productivity register. | impeded, hindered, obstructed, slowed |
| jeopardise | (v.) to put at risk; to endanger. | Pairs with performance, prospects, future, reputation: likely jeopardising the overall performance of our staff. Higher-register risk-verb; closes the productivity-domain paragraph on a severity escalator. | endanger, threaten, imperil, put at risk |
| at the expense of | (prep. phrase) with the loss of; at the cost of. | Pairs with family, friends, health, leisure: our employees intensely focus on their work at the expense of their family. Higher-register prepositional collocation; names the trade-off precisely. | at the cost of, to the detriment of, sacrificing |
| with a view to (V-ing) | (prep. phrase, formal) with the intention of; in order to. | Pairs with tackling, solving, addressing, achieving + gerund: With a view to tackling this problem, we have two suggestions. Formal infinitive-of-purpose; the to here is a preposition, requiring the gerund. | in order to, so as to, aiming to, intending to |
| bombarded with | (v., passive) overwhelmed by a flood of something. | Pairs with questions, emails, files, calls, demands: offering help actively to those who have been bombarded with a lot of files or phone calls. Workplace-overload metaphor; mirrors the opening lead’s Piles of files, endless phone calls. | inundated, swamped, overwhelmed, flooded |
| alleviate | (v.) to make less severe; to ease. | Pairs with workload, suffering, pain, burden: Offering help not only alleviates the workload of others. Higher-register relief-verb; closes the cooperation case on the alleviates-and-boosts double. | ease, lessen, relieve, mitigate |
| manifest (the spirit of) | (v.) to show or display (a quality, feeling). | Pairs with spirit, courage, determination, talent: all of us can manifest the spirit of cooperation. Higher-register show-verb; the candidate’s deployment uses the formal It is hoped that… can manifest… construction. | display, demonstrate, embody, show |
| curb | (v.) to restrain or keep in check. | Pairs with problem, behaviour, spending, growth: to curb the problem of leaving late. Higher-register restrain-verb; names the article’s purpose in a single workplace-policy verb. | restrain, check, contain, rein in |
| discrete | (adj.) individually separate and distinct. | Pairs with individuals, units, parts, items: our company is not operated by discrete individuals, but as a team. Higher-register separator-adjective; frames the cooperation argument’s premise. Distinct from discreet (= tactful). | separate, distinct, unconnected, standalone |
| supportive atmosphere | (n. phrase) an environment in which people feel encouraged. | Pairs with creating, fostering, building, providing: creating a supportive atmosphere. Workplace-culture register; the genre’s standard goal-state phrase, used by the candidate to close the cooperation paragraph. | encouraging environment, positive culture, collegial atmosphere |
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