Campus Connection Communication Project

Introduction

Campus Connection is an information hub located in the Sorensen Center at Utah Valley University and offers a variety of services for students, staff, and faculty. Campus Connection oversees student lost and found items, oversees physical campus signage, oversees event tickets, operates the post office, prints UTA passes, and issues student ID's. It has been around since the late 90's to early 2000's and has grown throughout the years as has the university. The hub began operating with four employees and has since quadrupled its number of employees. The hub currently operates with 19 student employees, one assistant director, and one director. However, turnover is high because the area is operated by student employees whose circumstances change throughout their college experience.

With this growth, Campus Connection has undergone a series of organizational structure changes throughout the past two years. It has a newly appointed assistant director, has introduced shift leads, has become the monitor of all physical signage around campus, and has taken on additional responsibilities as needed by the university.

Methodology

To determine the problems facing Campus Connection, two primary methods were used to acquire data: anonymous surveys and in-person interviews of employees and management. The full results of the anonymous survey are included. Questions on the survey included areas such as job enjoyment, punctuality, professionalism, and communication to discern where the biggest problems exist. The in-person interviews were conducted based on the findings of the anonymous survey. A list of the questions for the employee interviews, a list of the employees interviewed, and the full interview of the Campus Connection director are included.

SURVEY QUESTIONS AND RESULTS

Campus Connection Survey

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND INTERVIEWS

Campus Connection Interviews

Investigation

An anonymous Qualtrics survey was issued and received responses from 12 out of 19 student employees, which was a decent response turnout considering that 4 of the employees were out of town at the time.

After receiving all the responses, a report through Qualtrics was generated that provided visualization of the data and helped identify specific areas of frustration and organizational behavior issues.

Once the data was analyzed, new questions based on the survey results were generated (see Methodology for interview questions). This was done to create specific examples in an attempt to get at the root of the problem. These questions were issued in personal interviews with employees. Eight Campus Connection employees were interviewed in total. The director was also interviewed with a separate list of questions.

Findings

The findings of the investigation is as follows:

The exponential growth and change of structural organization has caused employees to form relationships with those whom they are only familiar with and is a root cause of exclusivity.
Communication concerning procedural changes is inconsistent and unclear. There is a barrier between employees and management.
Some employees have worked at Campus Connection longer than others and have set expectations of how things are done or how they have been run in the past.

Sample of anonymous responses from Campus Connection employees to Q4 on the anonymous survey:

Q4: What frustrations if any, have you encountered when it comes to communication?

"Supervisors not supervising and communicating with coworkers, playing favorites, and allowing other coworkers that they’re over to go over their head and boss fellow employees."

"Answers are never solid it seems. One person is told one thing and someone else is told another."

"There are times when procedures or policies change and they are not fully made aware to all employees and It creates conflicts and confusion."

Problem

Campus Connection employees are harboring frustration among each other. The biggest complaint we have recognized across the board through interviews and the anonymous survey we issued was communication: employees are having a hard time communicating with each other, with shift leads, and with their director.

These three topics are the most prevalent to the communication issues at Campus Connection:

Filtering

Employees and managers struggle with sending or receiving messages vertically: from employee up to management or management down to employee (Saylor Academy, 2012).

Selective Perception

Employees have a preconceived idea of how the workplace is going to be, so they tend to only notice those aspects and unconsciously ignore other aspects (e.g. if they think another employee is favored, they will notice all the favorable interactions with that employee and ignore the unfavorable interactions).

Exclusivity

"The quality of being available only to a small number of people who are rich enough or considered good enough." (Cambridge Dictionary, 2019)

Small cliques have formed, creating a disconnect between some of the workers and management. An atmosphere of exclusivity has developed and is preventing communication between employees.

Solution 1

Combat the Filtering- By reducing the amount of filtering that happens between employees and management, the perceived lack of communication will be resolved.

Recommendation 1

In an effort to remove communication barriers and clarify communication, the supervisor should implement one-on-one meetings with her employees. Furthermore, it is recommended that changes to procedures should be posted in Campus Connection's Microsoft Teams chat and at the hub as well.

Three things to look for when trying to determine why communication is being filtered (Salyor Academy, 2012):

Past experience: Were previous senders rewarded for passing along news of this kind in the past, or were they criticized?
Knowledge and perception of the speaker: Has the receiver’s direct superior made it clear that “no news is good news?”
Emotional state, involvement with the topic, and level of attention: Does the sender’s fear of failure or criticism prevent the message from being conveyed? Is the topic within the sender’s realm of expertise, increasing confidence in the ability to decode the message, or is the sender out of a personal comfort zone when it comes to evaluating the message’s significance? Are personal concerns impacting the sender’s ability to judge the message’s value?

Solution 2

Changing Perceptions- By encouraging better interpersonal communication between all employees, the employees attitudes toward the job and their co-workers will improve.

Recommendation 2

One-on-one meetings can help combat selective perception. A few employees responded in their survey that they feel there are employee favorites. By the supervisor taking time each month to have personal conversations with each employee, the perception of the employees may change; moreover, the supervisor's perception of why some employees act the way they do may shift as she comes to better understand their thought process. The employees already participate in monthly or semesterly training, but having brief, weekly team meetings can not only clarify communication but begin to change the culture at Campus Connection.

Solution 3

Exclusion to Inclusion- By changing the dynamic of the work groups and working to include all employees in events, the more the employees will feel included with their peers.

Recommendation 3

Some employees started as new employees as a group and some employees are well seasoned for a student employee. There is a range of age and personality differences between the employees, which has caused cliques to form and has disrupted the culture, communication, and energy of Campus Connection. Weekly team meetings can help combat this issue, but changing the culture will take an added and thoughtful effort. Team bonding activities would be a great way to intermingle co-workers who would not normally interact with one another, but something as simple as changing up the schedule will allow employees the opportunity to work with co-workers they seldomly work with.

Conclusion

After learning the recommendations stated above, the Campus Connection dierctor, Dawn Burgess, and the assistant director, Gage Marberger, were appreciative of the information and the survey results that were gathered. Both directors discussed the recommendations and determined that they would focus on implementing Recommendation 2 and Recommendation 3.

By implementing one-on-ones, changing the schedule, and introducing team meetings and bonding activities, Dawn and Gage hope to change the perceptions of their employees and create a better team dynamic. They agreed that introducing one-on-ones can give the employees an opportunity to voice concerns and learn any changes to their job. Both directors hope that they will be able to create a more inclusive environment through schedule changes and team bonding activities.

Dawn and Gage will not be using part of Recommendation 1 (printing and posting new policies and procedures). Dawn has used this tactic before and found that this form of communication was ineffective. They will continue to use the companies Microsoft Teams platform to provide ongoing communications between employees.

References

Cambridge Dictionary. (2019). Cambridge Dictionary. Cambridge University Press. Retrieved from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/exclusivity

Saylor Academy. (2012). Motivating employees through job design. An introduction to organizational behavior. Retrieved from https://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/an-introduction-to-organizational-behavior-v1.1/.

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