The Warehouse Email: Three Flags, One Meaning
A communications coordinator at a logistics firm is editing an email from the operations manager to all warehouse staff. The email announces a new badge system and shift changes. Three sentences are flagged: (1) 'Each of the new hires have completed the safety module.' (2) 'Please ensure that the badge reader, which was installed last week, and the sign-in sheet is checked daily.' (3) 'Having reviewed the schedule, the shifts will rotate weekly.' The coordinator wants the email to sound professional but not stiff, and the workforce includes many readers for whom English is a second language. The manager has asked that the email keep its friendly opening line and its closing invitation to ask questions. The coordinator must decide which flags are true errors and which are stylistic preferences, and must revise without changing the manager's meaning.
1. Identify the grammatical error in each flagged sentence and revise all three.
Read the worked answer
Sentence 1: 'Each' is singular, so the verb should be 'has': 'Each of the new hires has completed the safety module.' Sentence 2: the compound subject is 'the badge reader ... and the sign-in sheet,' so the verb should be 'are': 'Please ensure that the badge reader, which was installed last week, and the sign-in sheet are checked daily.' Sentence 3: 'Having reviewed the schedule' dangles because the shifts did not review anything. Name the actor: 'After I reviewed the schedule, I set the shifts to rotate weekly.'
All three are errors, not style preferences, because each changes agreement or attribution. For readers with limited English, the revisions should keep short clauses and avoid interrupting the subject-verb pair with a long relative clause. Moving the badge-reader aside helps: 'Please check the badge reader (installed last week) and the sign-in sheet every day.'
2. Why is sentence 2 ambiguous even if a reader accepts 'is'? What does the revision clarify?
Read the worked answer
With 'is,' the reader must decide whether the subject is only 'the sign-in sheet' or the whole compound. The intervening relative clause 'which was installed last week' sits between 'badge reader' and 'and the sign-in sheet,' so the subject-verb relationship is hard to track. A reader may think the badge reader was installed and only the sheet must be checked. 'Are' forces both items into the subject.
The revision also makes the daily check apply to both. For a multilingual workforce, the fix should separate the relative clause or repeat the verb: 'Please check the badge reader (installed last week) and the sign-in sheet every day.' This removes the ambiguity and shortens the sentence without changing the manager's meaning.