Week 1 project
Communication Strategies – Case Analysis
In this assignment, you need to complete the application 2.1 case study. It is titled “Superior Foods Corporation Faces a Challenge.”
Read the case study. Based on your reading and understanding:
- Clarify your purpose(s) for communicating with the employees at the Nebraska Plant. What will the employees want to know? How will they need to feel about Superior Foods?
- Determine your primary message by using one of the idea-generation approaches form the text reading.
- Create a message to the employees, paying careful attention to the organization and presentation method.
Your output for the assignment will be a professional document to the employees regarding the bad news that you need to tell them.
Submission Details:
- Submit your plan in a 3- to 4-page Microsoft Word document, using APA style.
- Name your plan document SU_BUS3041_W1_LastName_FirstInitial.doc.
- Submit your document to the Submissions Area by the due date assigned.
Week 2 project
Project: Communication Ethics
This course has major project assignments due in Week 3 and Week 5. It will take more than a week’s effort to adequately complete them. Plan time to start the research and work on those assignments earlier than the week in which they are due.
Communication Ethics
In this assignment, you will learn to critically evaluate the code of ethics practiced in the corporate world.
Complete the following tasks:
- Find an example of an actual corporate code of ethics (you may also use the code of ethics from your current employment).
- Critique the code of ethics by addressing the following questions:
- What seem to be the key focal points of the code of ethics?
- Does the firm urge all its employees to uphold the code and perform only in ethically acceptable ways? How?
- Does the code discuss the firm’s values and reflect the corporate culture? How?
- Recommend at least three improvements the organization could make to its code of ethics.
Support your answers with examples and reasoning.
Submission Details:
- Submit your assignment as a 3 to 4 page Microsoft Word document, using APA style.
Week 3 project
Planning the Presentation
In this assignment, you will learn how to use Microsoft PowerPoint as an effective communication tool.
Using the South University Online Library, research about the PowerPoint features that make it an effective tool for corporate communications.
Scenario
Recently, top leadership in your organization received complaints about some of their communications to employees. Specifically, employees have expressed dissatisfaction with meetings and with the timing of certain messages. Complaints include:
“Meetings just seem to be pointless. They go on and on.”
“Why do we need to have an hour-long face to face meeting to hear one point?”
“When a meeting is called for Friday afternoon, we know it is probably bad news. Just in time to ruin the weekend.”
You have been asked by the top leadership in your organization to develop a PowerPoint presentation for them on how to improve their communication. Create a presentation with the following components:
- Assess at least five key communication problems that organizations and leaders face.
- Justify at least five best practices for organization-wide messages (i.e., channel, timing, etc.).
- Propose at least five key principles for conducting effective meetings.
- Defend three ideas as “the most important thing a leader must do” for effective 1:1 discussions with employees.
- Evaluate the benefits of your organization’s top leadership team adopting the principles and practices you are recommending (throughout your presentation) and the consequences of failing to adopt the principles and practices.
Note. The main detail of your presentation should be included in the notes section of the PPT. In essence, the notes section is where your instructor can read “your paper.” The slides should just contain the main ideas and supportive graphics as needed to effectively convey your message to an audience.
Submission Details:
- Submit your answers in a 12-15 slide Microsoft PPT.
- Cite sources using APA style. Include references on the last slide of the presentation.
Week 4 project Communicating with a Cross-Cultural Workforce
In this assignment, you will research and analyze about audience-based communication in a corporate setting.
Using the South University Online Library, research about audience analysis and appropriate oral and written communication for an audience.
Scenario
You have been recently promoted as junior vice president of human resources at your organization. You need to prepare your first presentation on appropriate communication to a group of twenty newly-hired employees for their orientation. The profile of the group is as follows:
- There are fifteen entry-level hires with no corporate experience, of which five have no job experience whatsoever.
- There are five upper-level hires, of whom three hold higher designations than yours and whose ages range between seventeen to fifty-five years.
- Of these twenty, six are Hispanic, two are Asian, two are African-American, and ten are Caucasian.
- Sixty percent of the group is women.
- There are two disabled employees, one of whom has a hearing disability while the other uses a wheelchair.
Task
Perform an audience analysis while planning your presentation. Ensure that you consider issues such as arrangement of the room, content and length of the presentation, and handouts and visual aids.
You are required to submit the following:
- Audience analysis
- Detailed outline of main points of your presentation. Outline will include:
- Brief introduction
- At least 5 main points, each with a one paragraph summary of important concepts, ideas, principles or practices.
- Brief conclusion.
Submission Details:
- Submit your answers in a 6 to 8-page Microsoft Word document, using APA style.
Week 5 project
Scenario
You have been given the task of effectively communicating the organization’s mission, vision, and values to a new virtual team that has been created in your organization. The organization is dealing with a difficult circumstance that has diminished its reputation in the communities it serves. The team has been tasked with documenting best practices that are occurring across the organization as part of crafting a new, positive message to the public. Your goal is to make sure that the employees understand what the organization’s mission, vision, and values are, as well as how they fit into achieving the mission, vision, and values of the organization.
You want to make sure that this is something they will not forget soon, as it needs to be in their minds when they are working for the organization.
Note. You may use the mission, vision, and values of your current organization, a past organization, or another organization.
Task
Based on the scenario, complete the following tasks:
- Create a 12-15 slide Microsoft PowerPoint presentation to go along with your oral presentation to the new employees. In your presentation, make sure that you have placed the oral part of the presentation into the Notes area of each slide. This will be your “script.” Your script should include citations/references to support your perspectives.
- Your presentation should include
- (1) a brief summary of the mission, vision, and values,
- (2) why the team is important,
- (3) what the team should expect as they go through development stages, and
- (4) best leadership communication practices for building the team into a productive unit.
- Stay focused on communication and managerial communication concepts during your project.
- In addition, create a one page handout for the employees in a Microsoft Word document so they have something to take with them to remind them of what they learned. The handout needs to provide a succinct and compelling synthesis of your presentation.
Submission Details:
- Submit your document to the Submissions Area by the due date assigned.