Organizational Communications Analysis Women’s Resource Center at Norman, Oklahoma

The Women’s Resource Center was originally started in 1973 and 1974 during the winter. It was originally started by a graduate student who wanted to assist women who were in transition points in the life. This organization could not function without effective communication and to analyze the communication strategies of the organization can provide helpful information that could further improve them. This included those women who were looking for employment as well as women who wanted to return to school. Since its opening the center has developed many programs and services (â€Å"History.. † 1). There are many programs available at the Women’s Resource Center and these include WRC Victims of Domestic Violence Shelter (providing safe temporary housing to victims of domestic violence and their children); Rape Response Team (trained volunteers who are available to meet with rape victims at the ER); counseling (specialized for victims of sexual assault or domestic abuse); WRC Education Program (offers staff that speak in a variety of places for about topics having to deal with domestic violence, date rape, healthy relationships and other topics); Children’s Program (groups that focus on letting children express their emotions and feelings); Court Advocacy (court advocates to help women through the legal system); and WRC Cells (a program to offer victims cell phones at no cost in case of an emergency) (â€Å"Programs.. † 1-2). There are also some training workshops. The main one is SANE (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner) Volunteer Training, a specialized trainin g for nurses to learn how to do forensic rape test kits (â€Å"Training†¦Ã¢â‚¬  1). Effective communication is one of those things that are important to how well an organization is run. The Women’s Resource Center in Norman, Oklahoma has a lot of strengths in their communications. They do a good job of training both their staff and their volunteers. They work with their staff on issues about communications and knowing when to talk and when to be able to allow others to talk as they are dealing with people in very difficult situations. They learn how to effectively communicate for the situations that they are in where there is a high risk to the women that they are talking to. This means that there is a lot of training put into the idea of communications for this organization. Their main strength in communication is the overall ability to communicate effectively with those who are in a tough situation. The reason that this works so well is that there is a great deal of things in the communication process (Lee 2). Knowing the communication process can greatly help how communications are for people. According to Lass well’s model of communication there needs to be an effect for the communication to take place. What this is saying is that what is being communicated needs to have a point and a direction. In this communication process the organization is trying to point out that women deserve respect and self assurance (Lee 3). The idea of effective communication for change is something that this organization does well. The organization has made a lot of changes in the past both the long term past and the recent past. These changes are effectively communicated if three major components are available in the strategy. This study by Larkin and Larkin stated: â€Å"Communicate only facts; stop communicating values. Communicate face to face; do not rely on videos, publications or large scale meetings. And target front line supervisors; do not let executives introduce the change to frontline employees. † This is an example of the effective things that Women’s Resource Center communicates as they use a strategy that shows that each level learns new things (Cheney 330). Some of the negative things that are done at the Women’s Resource Center with communications are that the trainings are not available to the public for information. They do offer some training seminars but in the end the trainings are not available as a program on the intense level. The communication process is not as well done in advertisement or getting the word out about the programs that are available. Another area that shows weakness in communication is the organization. There is not a strong organization in this company and there are many different people volunteering and/or working for the agency. Some of the areas that could use improvement include the areas of communication about the organization and throughout the organizations volunteers and employees. This meaning that they all could use better communication to communicate between one another. The idea as stated in the same study as above is that there is sometimes little credibility to the values could be one of the communication problems in this area as it would be a problem in communicating and that the upper management and board of directors have not had a very clear vision with the Women’s Resource Center as many things have changed about their main values and ideas since the creation of the center which could cause some confusion (Cheney 330-333). A second area that has caused some problems with communications in the organization has been a lack of employed resources. This means that there are a lot of volunteers who might not have the same standards to communicating needs as regular full time or even part time employees would have. In order to effectively improve these areas there would have to be a system set up which would give both volunteers and employees a chance to express their feelings and ideas without the fear of being persecuted and with the idea that anyone who is involved has an opinion that matters. The idea that communication is a big part of leadership and how well leadership runs is based on the leader’s ability to communicate effectively. In this case this would be an area for needed improvement (Cheney 205-206). There are many areas where improvements could be made in the communication processes with the Women’s Resource Center. Some of these areas are that the management could be give better support to all of the volunteers and employees alike. Another thing that could happen is that those who are involved would be able to voice their opinions and give a case for care. They would be able to effectively communicate their needs in a process that would be pre-developed by management as it would be something that they could use on a regular basis. This means that they would be able to better manage their communications needs by effectively learning how to resolve issues and discuss issues with proper communications. The theory of Schramm on communication and the idea that overlapping boundaries and experiences make for easier communications is key in the field and services that the Women’s Resource Center is providing. It is in this process that these workers and volunteers would be able to communicate better with the clientele based on whether or not they had shared the same or similar experiences in their past (Lee 3-4). The strengths and weaknesses for this organization were apparent when reading over the press releases and other information available about the organization. Also the writer observed the communication aspects while working for the organization prior to returning to graduate school. This was observed through being a part of the organization’s training and programs. It was also observed through understanding information about the programs and how they are communicated to the public. Being able to effectively communicate is very important in the field of social work and for social service agencies. The one area where communication is well done is between the staff and the victims that come in for services as the training programs in this area are very good. Therefore their main strength is being able to communicate well to women in tough situations. The Women’s Resource Center is an organization that needs to have superior communication skills in order to deal with the problems that are being affected on a regular basis through their organization as they readily do not know what is going on and sometimes are in need of being able to communicate in a more effective manner. One of the main problems has been a lack of communications through the numerous volunteers and employees and in the end it has been a cause for some communication gaps. The main thing that can be done to improve the status of these things is for there to be a better communications system in place in general for the organization. This means that the organization would have better communication between the management and the employees and volunteers. Some of these communication gaps are what are causing the down fall for this organization and are some of the leading causes of the overall conflict that is experienced within the organization. There are always going to be â€Å"inherent challenges† when discussing communication and workplace environments (Messersmith 1). In the end communication is very important in all areas of life and when there is effective communications in some areas it lends hope to the idea that there could be effective communications in all areas of an organization. While analyzing communications for the Women’s Resource Center it is no wonder that there are many different types of communication used and it is no wonder that there are some needs for improvement. Most of the need for improvement falls on the overall board of directors and their ability to create a clear plan for what they want and what is going on within the organization. Without this they are not able to give back to the organization what is needed in order to be effective in their management and other skills. So what is needed is for the organization to work on their being able to communicate better within the organization through a set system in place for communications. This would mean that no matter when the individual was seen and whom she was seen by the whole organization would be able to help her in the future. Preparing basic short case studies and sharing them during a team meeting would be one way that this could be possible. Part of this is also being open about the organization’s needs. â€Å"Employees need to be aware of the challenges the company is facing so that they can do their part to help. † A second thing that needs to be done better is the communications that are given between the organization and the community, meaning that the community would be better informed in the future (Basili 2).