What not to do..Learning Lessons!

For those of you who have ever heard the phrase trial and error, I have decided that the process of experimenting has been one of my biggest learning curves in my time at Event Workforce.

The past few weeks I have had a strong focus on the facet of internal communications at Event Workforce with our University Representatives. The company recruit's one to two students from each University as University Representatives and it is their job to ensure that students at their Uni are getting involved in EW events and organise a presentation to their class to promote the EW Pathway Program.

As a new addition to the EW Team and the person responsible for internal communications with the Uni Reps, I found that the process between learning the ins and outs of the company and getting in a position where I was able to communicate with students more openly took time. Learning the company values and then being able to instill those values in communications is an art form, and I respect the mentoring I received to ensure that the fun, exciting and innovative EW brand is reflected in every aspect of my writing - especially when talking to students like ourselves!

The program this year was a huge learning curve. In the first year of trialing the Uni-Rep program we have had great insight into what information, communication templates and guidance we should provide our Uni Reps. We also learned a few (or maybe more than a few) lessons on where we can improve the program for 2014. These insights include being more proactive in our recruiting and rolling out the program earlier in the semester and providing a tailored program whereby each university follows a specific timetable to self-monitor their progress.

One of the biggest tools that I was excited to implement into the program was an online feedback survey to distribute to our Uni Reps upon their completion of the program. In our first year of offering the program I feel that participant feedback is crucial and we needed to provide an easily accessible platform for our Reps to deliver constructive feedback. As part of developing the survey I jumped onto the Survey Monkey website and studied up on how to structure the most effective, unbiased questions to get the answers that will help us make changes to the 2014 program.

Being part of a communications and recruitment program from start to finish has really helped me learn to monitor progress and most importantly recognise where changes to communications need to be made to have better results in the future. A once man once told me that the best way to learn is to make mistakes; and mistakes I have made!