Instructions

You will write a brief business message delivering bad news. A bad news message can be written in either a direct approach or an indirect approach. For this assignment, please use the indirect approach, and include an appropriate buffer. At the beginning or end, you need to include a short bulleted list of the reasons why the bad news letter needs to be written.

This is an example scenario only - do not use this one for your letter. Your list of reasons for writing the bad news letter should resemble this one.

Mr. John Peterson, an employee in your company, has asked you to write a letter of recommendation for a promotion and salary increase.

You determine you cannot write the letter for the following reasons:

• Mr. Peterson's last two performance reviews were only "meets requirements" and areas of improvement were identified.

• It was pointed out that Mr. Peterson's writing skills are not high quality, based on memos and letters he has written. It was suggested he find a solution to improve his writing skills - whether it be through an external college-level writing class, signing up for an online business writing workshop, or identifying a peer (or supervisor) in the company who would be willing to work with him to review his work and help him improve his writing skills.

• Mr. Peterson has not taken steps to do any of the recommendations to improve his writing, and has not improved his performance-related issues.