Examining my Experience

Describe your communication with your supervisor or colleagues. They have different programs and different locations for their programs. I am currently working at The Sharing Place. I usually work 3 days out of the week, so I will do my last two days at The Sharing Place and my first day at the main office. My main point of contact would be Amanda Hodge which is the CFO of the organization. Usually, I work directly with Amanda on Tuesday’s since her office is at the main office. There she will assign me to do different things. For example, in the first two or three weeks I divided uniforms that were being donated to seven local schools, each school received 100 uniforms. The most recent project I was given was to update the website for social workers to fill out for clients for our Thanksgiving bag giveaway and Christmas Store. In our free time, Amanda has kindly gone through the organization's budget plan and how she comes up with the numbers that she has. On my last two days of the week, I will work at The Sharing Place, Amanda is usually at the main office, so she is not around to give me tasks. Phil May is the main point of contact for the Sharing Place and he usually tells me what needs to be done for the day and what his plan for the day looks like and I can really choose what I would like to do. I have learned that it is similar week to week, and I have been getting the hang of things at The Sharing Place. Although Amanda is not directly at The Sharing Place, I am able to email her, or call/ text her if I have any concerns or questions. One task that Amanda has given me while at The Sharing Place is trying to get as many volunteers as I can on the volunteer portal. It has been a challenge considering it is online and many of our volunteers do not do technology too often, but I have been learning ways to get more people signed up. The overall communication dynamic at the company is not as good as I would have hoped. That may be entirely due to the pandemic. I have certainly been having good communication with Amanda and the staff/volunteers at The Sharing Place, but I can see room for improvement throughout the company. I usually have lots of questions regarding the policy, forms, or simply the best way to get something done. I would say everyone is very helpful and willing to share information and help me at any time.

Examine your experience. At the company, the main form of communication is email. Everyone has their own personal work email, even the interns do which I think is a great thing. I get lots of work emails and I would not be able to keep up with all of them if they were directed to my school email. At The Sharing Place, the main form of communication is a direct person to person or through text. There are only two employees at The Sharing Place, and I am the only intern, the rest of the individuals are all volunteers. I was given the personal cell phone numbers of both employees at The Sharing Place and that has been great for the three of us. It is a lot easier and quicker, but it works since it is a small group. The email system is more for management and the other programs at LCFS. The emails keep me up to date on what Amanda would like from me and it also makes it easier to get ahold of Amanda. I have noticed that she is a very busy woman and she gets a lot of phone calls and messages already delivered to her cell phone. I feel better just sending an email and knowing she will respond when it is convenient for her. I have not had any instances where I desperately need to speak with her, but if I do I have her cell phone number and have that as an option too.

Articulate learning. I learned that most forms of communication work for me. I really feel like as long as I have information on what is expected of me, then I can do my job. I have worked with the direct person to person communication, text, and email. I would say I prefer direct communication only due to the fact that if I have a question about my job I can easily ask within that time and get a quick response rather then having to wait for a text or email. I learned this when I had physical tasks to complete like bringing a box of food out to a client and having technology tasks to complete like forming a survey for clients to take after their experience with The Sharing Place. With both types of jobs, I think direct communication is the best. I believe this will help me with my professional goals because I hope to be a hospital manager, so direct communication is very important in my career. I think by learning how to communicate with different characters and minds it will give me great exposure and experience for my future career. In light of learning this form of communication, I would like to learn and be more comfortable with managing conflict. I know this is something that I will have to deal with in my career and it is the most frightening thing for myself because I personally hate conflict. This goal is very important for my career goals and it will make me a better health care leader for the future.