Assignment Content Resource:
Virtual Organizations Portal
Write a 1,750- to 2,100-word reflection and evaluation of Parts I through IV of your organizational communication analysis. Answer the following questions:
What is the value of reflecting on and evaluating a communication process after a crisis or challenging event?
What could you have done differently with your organizational scenario that might have helped you formulate a better, more ethical analysis or resolution?
What research methods should you use to collect data to evaluate the effectiveness of your organizational communication analysis?
To prevent future communication crises in your Virtual Organization, what tools could you use to continually assess the people, the tasks, and the systems?
What communication theories did you consider in your analysis? Evaluate how well you applied them.
From this course, which communication theories, ethical principles, research techniques, studies, or methods might you emulate in your professional life? Explain.
How did your communication analysis synthesize what you have learned in your BS/COM program? Provide specific examples.
Include at least six academic references.
Format your assignment according to appropriate course-level APA guidelines.
Submit your assignment.
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Organizational Communication Analysis Part II – Interpersonal and Intercultural Paper
Organizational Communication Analysis Part II – Interpersonal and Intercultural Paper
BSCOM/485
Kierra Brown
Claudia Newton
April 6th , 2020
Organizational Communication Analysis Part II – Interpersonal and Intercultural Paper
Northwest Valley Community College
There is no organization that wants to be put at risk and exposed as vulnerable to cyber-attacks; Northwest Valley Community College is not the exception to the rule. What will separate one organization from another is how the organization handles the crisis. How Northwest Valley Community College communicates issues to their employees and their customers will determine the continued success of the school.
Breach
Northwest Valley Community College has just experienced a massive data breach where student’s information has become vulnerable to hackers. Northwest Valley Community College’s financial information as well as personal student and faculty information has been attacked. Regard faculty information that has put at risk includes their social security numbers, health information, and salary information that has been exposed. This data breach has caused a massive amount of distrust among students and faculty as there is no way to know how far the information has gone and what will be done with it. This shake-up has caused the cohesiveness of the faculty and students to be challenged due to the breach. “Group cohesiveness possess the kind of bonds that foster trust, openness, and the ability to manage conflicting views productively” (Beebe & Masterson, 2015). In order to restore cohesiveness among faculty and students, the administration will need to be forthcoming with information regarding the impact of the breach.
Perceptions
Since the breach occurred, some of the students and faculty members are waiting to see how the administration staff handles the communication efforts. So far, administration has been open and mostly forthcoming with information regarding the specifics of the information that was leaked what they know so far. The administration staff has taken an informative approach with faculty by “providing needed information to personnel so they can do their jobs in an effective and efficient manner” (Richmond, McCroskey, & Powell, 2013). By advising faculty and students on the status of the breach, they can attempt to move forward in their daily activities. Administration has found that they have to employ some of the persuasive function regarding the staff and students, advising them that the administrative staff is working towards a resolution and influencing them to continue being productive (Richmond, McCroskey, & Powell, 2013).
Communication
The administration staff at Northwest Valley Community College has to have a level of optimism and realism during this crisis. “We cannot be genuinely optimistic in conflict without also being realistic and realism without optimism is not truly realistic. How we integrate these two attitudes is emblematic of the emotional, intellectual, and ethical challenge we face in conflict” (Mayer, 2015). The administration staff must be realistic in their expectations of how faculty and students will react to the news of the breach. The administration staff will have to understand that the students and faculty will have a level of hesitation and distrust in the technical department at the college because of this breach. However, the students and faculty can begin to be optimistic in the fact that first, the administrative staff alerted them right away of the breach. Secondly, faculty and students can begin to be hopeful that a situation such as this one will not occur again as Northwest Valley Community College will be sure to put in the appropriate measures for prevention.
In addition to managing the story of the breach effectively, Northwest Community College will have to communicate efficiently with the public, faculty, and students. A few ways the college can communicate with on-campus and satellite students is by immediately informing students and faculty with automatic calls, emailing enrollees, and making posts on the school intranet. Northwest Valley Community College also can have face-to-face conversations with their students for on-campus students and faculty. These conversations can come in the form of town meetings as well as auditorium gatherings announcing what has happened.
Theories
Regarding different theories that relate to the climate at Northwest Valley Community College, one that comes to mind is the Agenda Setting theory. The Agenda Setting theory states that, “In choosing and displaying news, editors, newsroom staff, and broadcasters play an important part in shaping social and political reality” (West & Turner, 2014). While Northwest Valley Community College is not a mass media outlet, there is still a story to be controlled. In light of the breach, it is known that since Northwest Valley Community College is pivotal in the Kelsey community, the public would eventually find out what happened. If Northwest Valley Community College can control the narrative and get ahead of the story, Northwest Valley Community College can shape the perception of the audience. The college will have to first let their audience [faculty and students] know what has happened. Secondly, Northwest Valley Community College will have to reassure the public that they are taking every measure to ensure their privacy and protection has been restored.
Northwest Valley Community College being able to control stories that come from the organization is what would be in the best interest of the school. The security breach that Northwest Valley Community College experienced is not the first crisis that the school has encountered. While the security breach certainly won’t be the last crisis Northwest Valley Community College has to deal with, managing the story effectively will increase the trust the students, public, and faculty has in the school.
Conclusion
Security breaches are never a fun thing to deal with as there is so much sensitive information that has been divulged to people who only want to cause harm. Although it may not be a possibility to leave the situation unscathed, there is the opportunity for an organization to ramp up their communication efforts with their customers. It is better to alert the customer of what has happened than to let them find out on their own. Getting ahead of the story is in the best interest of the organization and effectively communication the recovery efforts is key.
References
Beebe, S. A., & Masterson, J. T. (2015). Communicating in Small Groups: Principles and Practices. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.
Mayer, B. (2015). The Conflict Paradox: Seven Dilemmas at the Core of Disputes. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Richmond, V. P., McCroskey, J. C., & Powell, L. (2013). Organizational Communication for Survival. New Jersey: Pearson Education.
West, R., & Turner, L. (2014). Introducing Communication Theory: Analysis and Application. New York: McGraw-Hill Education.
Running Head: COMMUNICATION TRAINING PLAN 1
COMMUNICATION TRAINING PLAN 6
Communication Training Plan
Kierra Brown
Institutional Affiliations
Company Culture and Communication Obstacle
Northwest Valley Community College has a culture of providing the best learning environment to its students and ensuring that school staff communicates effectively without experiencing unauthorized access to their data and information. Also, its culture is ingrained in ensuring its students are working in an environment that is healthy and safe. The management of Northwest Community understands the importance of having a healthy learning environment and effective communication network inside and outside the school premises. As such, Kelsey Elementary school is setting up measures to implement a detailed communication training plan for staff and students to gain information safety skills.
This plan will be developed by a strategic communication team selected by the school. This plan will be designed in a way that it provides a framework to manage and coordinate communication among the students, instructors and parents. The plan will identify efficient communication channels, standards, appropriate audience, and frequency. This plan will require a shared responsibility among management, students, communication team and students. After the implementation of this communication plan, the team will measure its effectiveness to ensure it meets the expected objectives and goals.
Needs and Tasks Analysis
Northwest Valley Community College communication team will conduct a needs and analysis task to determine the training needs. The management will be able to know who needs the training and the kind of training required. The following are the steps the company will use to conduct training needs analysis.
· Organizational Analysis: The school management should work with the teachers to identify the priorities of student training. In this case, the management will conduct an evaluation to ensure the training goes hand-in-hand with the school’s goals and objectives.
· Secondly, the management will list specific types of communication channels to be utilized within the school environment. Also, they will specify the skills and competencies needed by employees to ensure they clearly understand how to utilize these communication channels. By doing this, they will have a solid foundation on who should conduct the training and how it should be conducted. (Liaw, 2014)
· The last step will involve the identification of staff members who need to undergo communication training. However, since it is a learning institution, every staff member and students will be subject to training.
Research Technique
Northwest Valley management has decided to implement an external training program to address the training plan. Therefore, they need to identify and understand the organization’s communication training needs. As such, they should start by hiring an external specialist who will help address different perspectives of the problem. Also, the specialist will provide the management with ideas and skills that would have been unintentionally left out. The external specialist will train the supervisors who will then transfer the skills to other staff members.
Mentorship and apprenticeship technique will be employed for the school’s communication training. In this case, the mentor will be the external specialist who will offer guidance, skill management and guidance to the students and staff. Also, the specialist will offer relevant information and advice to the individuals under training on show to effectively use the identified communication channels (Hargie, 2016). The training will start with a lecture method to help the trainees understand the reasons behind the training. They will be given skills evaluation tests after every training session to ensure they are in line with the training objectives. Also, the supervisors will be trained and evaluated separately and assigned to channel the skills to other trainees.
ROI For Training in Crisis
While Northwest Valley management has been able to retain its staff for years, it has lost some as a result of miscommunication and misinformation. If this happens after the training activity, the management will be forced to employ other staff members and put them under safety training. If this happens, the school has to spend finances on the training process. However, with a RIO in place, it can be easy to manage the occurrence of the mentioned crises.
To handle the crisis, the management will ensure they spend little on training new staff members and new students. This is done by sharing the training cost with the newly hired teachers. Also, the company ensures the teachers sign a contract guaranteeing their stay at the institution later after being trained. This is because some workers have in the past left the institution after receiving different training (Hargie, 2016). However, doing this guarantees the school’s management that they won’t spend their finances to train a person who plans to exit the firm shortly after the training process.
Training Facilitator
Northwest Valley has decided to adopt the Aspyre program to be used in the training of its employees and the students. This was agreed after the school management discussed and sought recommendations from the trainers and other learning institutions. Currently, Aspyre is one of the best programs used by organizations in order to implement recommended practices and requirements. Furthermore, Aspyre is renowned for having competent and skilled trainers with a wide range of skill set (Kaskutas, 2013). Its was the best choice because Aspyre offers a range of programs regarding communication channels among organizations and learning institutions.
Assessment of Training Effectiveness
Northwest Valley College will use the Kirkpatrick level 3 method in the evaluation of the teachers and supervisors. This technique will give insight on whether or not the training was effective. Also, it will allow the management to understand the effectiveness of skills transfer from the supervisors to students and staff members.
First of all, the assessment will start by looking if the ensemble room, the PC room, and media focus are completely equipped with the tools and equipment for communication. It is expected that after the training, all devices are stocked and available for use by students and staff members. The project supervisors should use a checklist to ensure everything is in place. Also, the supervisors should check to ensure the school’s Information Technology management maintains accurate paperwork (Liaw, 2014). After making observations, the supervisors are expected to write a report to inform the management on the progress. Occasionally, the management will be conducting random audits to confirm that the supervisors are conducting time to time checks on the IT equipment. This will confirm whether the supervisor’s skills were transferred to the students and staff.
Learning Objectives
· The supervisor is expected to check and ensure that every communication channel are working and protected. Since they have undergone training, the supervisor should have knowledge on how to operate the equipment. Every communication equipment should be checked to ensure none is faulty.
· The supervisors are entitled to have complete information about the project requirements. Also, they are expected to keep track of every information communicated between the students and teachers.
· The supervisor is entitled to ensuring that every system user has access to passwords or login information.
· Also, the students and staff should be trained on how to use the communication systems in place. With the right training and information, students and teachers will be able to effectively use these channels without compromise.
Short and Long-Term Goals
Northwest Valley considers effective communication as a factor of success inside and outside the institution. Therefore, investing in effective channels for communication is not only good for the institution, but beneficial to the students and parents. By training the staff and students on how to effectively use the available channels of communication, they will promote effective communication and entire operations within the institution (Hargie, 2016). By conducting the training, the company expects to accomplish some goals, some which are short-term and others long-term.
Short term goals include the following;
· Students and teachers can effectively communicate regarding school work
· Parents will have insight of events happening inside the walls of the institution
· Students will witness upsurge of their performance
· There shall be a decrease in cases of unauthorized access of shared information.
· Teachers will be equipped with tools to effectively protect student information.
Long-term goals include the following;
· The company will eliminate unauthorized information access problems.
· There will see a reduction in finances used for risk mitigation purposes
· The school will not spend finances on staff training in the future.
References
Hargie, O., Dickson, D., Boohan, M., & Hughes, K. (2016). A survey of communication skills training in UK schools of medicine: present practices and prospective proposals. Medical education, 32(1), 25-34.
Kaskutas, V., Dale, A. M., Lipscomb, H., & Evanoff, B. (2013). Fall prevention and safety communication training for foremen: Report of a pilot project designed to improve residential construction safety. Journal of safety research, 44, 111-118.
Liaw, S. Y., Zhou, W. T., Lau, T. C., Siau, C., & Chan, S. W. C. (2014). An interprofessional communication training using simulation to enhance safe care for a deteriorating patient. Nurse Education Today, 34(2), 259-264.