Communications Plan - Report Example

Communications Plan and Communications Plan Vision ment Our mission is to improve the reputation of the programs offered by the College of Education, Human Services, Behavioral Sciences, and Justice (EHBJ) and serve the needs of the local community. Moreover, we are driven by the desire to design and implement innovative programs so as to serve the needs of over 2000 students in the faculty, which offers both undergraduate and postgraduate degree programs in the helping professions. These helping professions, range from public health, psychology and social work, to criminal justice, education and nursing. We also intend to enhance and implement all the faculty development initiatives and design various innovative programs so as to improve the faculty’s reputation at both the internal and community levels. Finally, we work towards representing and advocating for the EHBJ and its various programs by offering leadership direction and maintaining professional relations with faculty members, students, alumni and professional constituents (Thomas, 1997). Communication Objectives Our primary communication objective is to represent and advocate for the EHBJ and its various programs by creating awareness to the target audience on the programs offered by the faculty. Also, we intend to use communication as a tool in seeking to promote and implement the faculty development initiatives by persuading all the target audiences to actively participate in such forums. Furthermore, we plan to embark on a planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding and goodwill between EHBJ and its various publics, through advocacy, persuasion and creating awareness. By establishing and maintaining mutual understanding and goodwill between EHBJ and its various stakeholders, our final goal is to improve and maintain the reputation of all the programs offered by EHBJ, and serve the needs of the local communities (Thomas, 1997). Rationale The idea of coming up with this communications outreach plan is informed by to identify all the areas that have been overlooked by the EHBJ and come up with the ways of improving them. In order to safeguard the reputation of EHBJ, we need to channel our efforts and resources to the most relevant and urgent areas. As the dean, I have tirelessly worked for the last five years to achieve the goal of enhancing our reputation. However, there have been some complains emanating from both the faculty and the departmental heads, stating that my efforts have for all these years been misdirected. In addition, these members advise me not to focus on external affairs. It is from the above stated reasons that there is an urgent need for coming up with an outreach program to identify some of the areas that have been overlooked by the faculty, and the best ways that they can be dealt with in terms of time and resources (Bernoff, 2011). The Target Audiences The university is made up of people from all cultural backgrounds. These groups require different communication strategies to satisfactorily reach out to them. Within the university, there are departmental heads and faculty members with different cultural and religious affiliations, such as Christians, Muslims and Hindus. The students who are pursuing various academic programs also come from different cultural and religious settings. As a result, we are going to employ different communication practices for these different target groups. In addition, the local communities may be either elites or semi literates. As such, they need different communication approaches for this outreach program. The primary target audiences for our communications plan are the faculty members and students. Others include the external members such as the local communities and members of other faculties within the university. The local community members are of different age groups, levels of income and academic levels. For that reason, different stakeholder groups require different communication strategies in order to reach out to them. Men and women aged 40 years and above are less active in using the social media than those aged 40 and below. Similarly, those local community members vary in their academic levels. Therefore, they require different communication networks to effectively reach out to them. Communication Channels and Strategies Since the target audiences are different in their cultural backgrounds, age, level of employment and tastes and preferences, they need different channels of communication. As such, the dean’s office is going to utilize various channels of communication for different target audiences. Irrespective of whether a communication network is formal or informal, it is determined by the kind of audiences that it links together. For instance, vertical networks are exploited within organizations, and can be used to connect the leadership and their employees. This network is therefore ideal for communicating within the faculty. The dean’s office will use vertical networks to link all the faculty members working in the dean’s office using this network channel (Bernoff, 2011). To properly exploit vertical communication as the right channel for linking all the employees within the faculty with the dean’s office, the dean shall draft an outreach message, besides engaging in an internal lengthy and open discussion with all the faculty employees. Vertical communication is helpful especially in clarifying the faculty’s strategic direction and brand identity to all internal faculty members such as the departmental heads, administrators and non-teaching staff members. On top of that, this strategy engages all the managers such as the departmental heads and senior lecturers as participants and teachers. This is founded on the premise that employees prefer to obtain information from their direct or immediate supervisors. In our case, the vertical communication networks connects and strengthens the relationship between the deans and faculty members such as the departmental heads, by connecting the leadership with the employees of lower levels of hierarchy. Through this channel, all the necessary information is passed down to the lowest level of employees from the leaders. The receivers at the bottom of the hierarchy then pass their feedbacks upwards to the top decision making organ. Apart from this mode of communication, we are going to rely on horizontal networks, which will encourage lengthy and open discussion forums among employees who belong to the same level of employments. This will have the effect of fostering unity and identifying all the challenges that the members face within the faculty, and the best way to resolve them (Bernoff, 2011). External networks links can be of use in trying to reach out to the local community members who are not within the faculty. These local community members are the external stakeholders. The best way to service their needs is to embark on a Public Relations endeavor, such as putting up an Investor Relations wing, a Customer Care and Relations unit, or a Public Information department. One of the major communication tools for external networking includes the social media. With the surfacing of social technologies, external communication networks are being reinvented at a fast rate. The field of Public Relations is undergoing tremendous transformations to keep pace with the sudden shift in the balance between senders and receivers of media contents. The outreach plan is going to use the social media platform to reach out to the external members of the organization, and students who are active consumers of social media contents. Business organizations and other institutions operate on the principle of control. However, the surfacing of the social media technologies has weakened and undermined control, owing to the emergence of user-generated contents and posting of open opinions of organizations. The dean can make use of this technological advancement in the field of communication to seek support and the real attitudes and perceptions of these groups of people who did not give her feedback on her overall performance. By understanding their attitudes, perceptions and preferences through the contents that they post about the faculty, the dean can come up with the best way to service their needs (Bernoff, 2011). Part 2 The First Letter Evelyn Wilson, Dean, EHBJ 09/19/2014 Senior Staffs and Heads of Department, EHBJ, Sunbelt State University Dear Sir/ Madam, RE: ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE NEW COMMUNICATION OUTREACH PLAN On behalf of the faculty, I wish to appreciate all the efforts you have put in place to improve the reputation of the programs offered by the College of Education, Human Services, Behavioral Sciences and Justice (EHBJ), and serve the needs of the local communities. Through that, we have managed to design and implement innovative programs that have served the needs of over 2000 students in the faculty, both at undergraduate and graduate levels. From all these endeavors, we as a faculty have identified several internal grey areas that need to be touched on.To this end, I wish to announce a new Communications Outreach plan, aimed at identifying these problems and opportunities within the faculty and working on ways of resolving them, so as to enhance and implement all the faculty development initiatives. Based on the feedback that I received after conducting a survey of my overall performance as a dean in EHBJ, I have decided to come up with this communications outreach plan. The communications plan will, among other things, act as a guideline for engaging in a structured dialogue with all the faculty members, so as to solve all the identified problems and issues within the faculty. At the moment we are faced with the challenge of satisfactorily addressing the needs of all our stakeholders, both internally and externally. This is from the feedback given by the faculty members and departmental heads. The faculty has been advised not to misdirect its effort to external affairs, to the detriment of its issues. The dean’s office has worked tirelessly to enhance the reputation of the programs offered by the faculty, as well as service the needs of the local community. Therefore, it is important for us to come together as a faculty and identify these internal areas that have not been touched on, and focus on how to improve them, for the benefit of our school and the local community. We are also trying to reach out to all the external stakeholders such as the local community in order to engage in a discussion on how best we can service their needs as a faculty. I am looking forward towards having all senior staff and department heads join hands to ensure the success of our communication outreach plan Sincerely ……………. Evelyn Wilson, Second First Letter Evelyn Wilson, Dean, EHBJ 09/19/2014 To all our readers, Dear Sir/ Madam, RE: ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE NEW COMMUNICATION OUTREACH PLAN On behalf of the faculty, I would wish to thank you all, for the role you have played in ensuring that the College of Education, Human Services, Behavioral Sciences and Justice (EHBJ), effectively executes its functions, and as a result having a positive impact in the society. We would like to encourage you to continue supporting the institution. As most of you are aware, the institution has, for the past couple of years, managed to achieve scores of improvements and development, courtesy of its design and implementation of innovative programs. I, on behalf of the University, would like to assure you that your efforts and cooperation is significant, because it is as a result of these that such strides have been made. Ours is a community that embraces diversity. Within the faculty, members belong to different job groups, age, and gender, levels of income, educational backgrounds and cultural and religious affiliations. We have both male and female departmental heads. Similarly, all the students and non-teaching staffs belong to different genders, age and level of education. Being an institution of higher learning, EHBJ has students from all cultural, religious and racial affiliations. Despite this diversity, the main language of communication is English. We would urge all our community to embrace this diversity, and the same spirit should drive them towards supporting out new communication outreach. Based on the feedback that I received after conducting a survey of my overall performance as a dean in EHBJ, I have decided to come up with this communications outreach plan. The communications plan will, among other things, act as a guideline for engaging in a structured dialogue with all the faculty members, so as to solve all the identified problems and issues within the faculty. Therefore, it is important for us to come together stakeholders and identify the possible challenges, hence find ways to improve them, for the benefit of our school and the local community. We are also trying to reach out to all the external stakeholders such as the local community in order to engage in a discussion on how best we can service their needs as a faculty. I am looking forward towards having all stakeholders join hands to ensure the success of our communication outreach plan success of our communication outreach plan Sincerely ……………. Evelyn Wilson. References Bernoff, J. (2011). Groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technology. Cambridge: Massachusetts. Thomas, N. (1997). Sunbelt State University: program in professional education . 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