High F-I-V-E to the People!

Platform of Samantha Ysabel J. Lichauco Candidate for Associate Vice President for Human Resources Ateneo Association of Communication Majors When the acronym HR comes to mind, I do not only think of it with its conventional meaning of Human Resources. Instead, I read the meaning of this acronym from the primary function of the department: HR (department)- ang mga taga-Hatak ng mga Representatives ng bawat block From years of experience in serving ACOMM under the Human Resources (HR) department, I have gathered enough insight to think of a couple of ideas in order to improve the dynamics, projects and systems of our beloved department. My platform is mainly about being people-oriented spelled out in the F-I-V-E acronym if elected as HR AVP namely: Family, Impression, Value, and Execution, with Value being at the core of my platform. * * * *

FAMILY About ten years ago, a barkada of Atenean Communication majors formed this organization in the hopes that it will give their fellow Communication majors a sense of home and support in a college set-up. Fast-forward 9 years later, this organization still serves its constituents but with some problems at hand. With respect to the originally set goals of its founders, ACOMM has received a negative stereotype of being too cliquey and exclusive. Members have only participated in org projects if they headed the said project, members would be too shy to enter the ACOMM room because they felt that it was only reserved for the EB and Core, members were intimidated and reluctant to ask help from the EB Core, and the like. That being said, I hope that the spirit of family will be more felt in ACOMM in the upcoming year through the following activities: A. MVP 309. -Organized place equals a more welcoming and homey atmosphere conducive for hanging out. -A welcome! sign outside to attract all those wandering ACOMM members along the hall. -Re-enforce the ACOMM monitors system, where there will be assigned members of the EB Core to clean the room on a certain date. -Put up signs regarding cleanliness in the ACOMM side of the room. (i.e. if you were able to bring the Tupperware all the way up here, you can bring it down , etc) -Maximize the corkboards in the org room: use one for ACOMMs calendar of events and one as ACOMMs Freedom Board (see below for details)

-An extension of our beloved org room is our bulletin board along EDSA walk. In partnership with Doc & Pub, I want to vamp up and constantly update ACOMMs bulletin board with pictures and promotional materials as often as necessary B. Adventures with ACOMM. i. Tambay week. Ive never seen ACOMM do it, why not start now? If other orgs love doing it, why not us? Based on previous observations, a Tambay Week consists of bean bags, mini couches, tables, Wiis, PS3, FOOD, etc that keep its org members entertained and is able to allow them to bond on their own. This project can serve as a means of reaching members, particularly those who arent part of the EB Core. The EB will coordinate with one another so that we will have the time to do this event during a week without any projects to worry about, a week for the members to just rest and bond with one another. Here, we will integrate specific activities per day and integrate inter-batch games that will get the members of different batches to interact and work with one another. ii. Evsem. So weve taken care of the bonding externally, now how about the bonding internally? I would like to continue this project in order to foster a sense of friendly camaraderie and at the same time professionalism that the EB Core and Project Managers should have with one another. iii. Lets talk over Coffee. In partnership with the Projects department, I propose that the pre and post project meetings for projects can be in a nearby place outside of the org room and school. The advantages of practicing this will be that the Project Managers and EB will be able to have a more intimate and focused group discussion in order plan projects, evaluate projects, and at the same time bond with one another. C. Happy Birthday to you! This is a more challenging version of the pre-existing birthday greeting project because we will start with this as early as RecWeek. With the cell phone numbers gathered from the ACOMM database on RecWeek, the HR department will come up with a Birthday database to remind ourselves when a particular members birthday is. From this, well send a personalized birthday greeting text message to the birthday celebrant. Aside from a simple text message, the HR department will coordinate with the Doc & Pub department to make an online greeting page for the birthday celebrant. This will in turn make the members feel special and still part of a group, no matter how active/inactive they are with ACOMM. And YES, this applies to ALL ACOMM MEMBERS. After all, love is to be given, not necessarily received. D. Something Borrowed. Lets face it: the main reason we are all here is to receive a good education from our school. In the process, we tend to all eventually take the same core subjects (Natural Science, Science and Technology, etc) and end up buying the same books. To save money and paper, why not we all share these books to the younger batches? To improve on this already existing project, Ive

developed a system to make sure the books may be used for future members as well. All blocks will be provided a link to a public Facebook photo album of the books offered in the ACOMM library. To borrow a book for the semester, the user will have to inbox the VP/AVP their name, id number, year & course, email and contact details. Once approved by the VP/AVP, the book will be marked as BORROWED, therefore it will be unavailable for the rest to borrow unless returned by the borrower. The borrower then may claim their book from the ACOMM library in the org room. At the end of the semester, the borrower will be required to return the book to the ACOMM library. This way, we can all help each other not only grow as an organizational beings but also as intellectual beings. IMPRESSION The future of the organization lies in its members. But how do we guarantee that we attract the right and future possible leaders of ACOMM? RecWeek. The way we handle the entire process of RecWeek, from pre-preparations to post-preparations, will play a crucial role in determining the future leaders of ACOMM through the lasting impression we leave on the potential members of the organization. A. Freshman ORSEM. -I would like to adopt the former system of welcoming freshmen, which include: i. Personalized e-mail blasts to all AB COM students before ORSEM ii. Dept Talks during ORSEM -Exciting games -Informative and insightful speakers -In addition, Id like to coordinate with the Doc& Pub department to design a teaser poster of ACOMM to be sent to all the freshmen after ORSEM. B. ACOMM booth @ RecWeek. -Make the booth eye-catching and attention grabbing -Re-enforce the old system for the membership database for communication majors to sign-up in, including new questions such as: i. Which department do you want to go into? Of course, the PROs will brief the members on the different departments before they choose their department (unless the HR and Doc & Pubcan put a department briefing in a tarp somewhere where they can simply read it). This is done in case they cannot attend the first general assembly to sign up for their department, so at least we will know which department they seem interested in joining. I want to utilize as much members as possible and still tap into them. I think everyone deserves a fair shot at being active in the org after all.

ii. What are you good at? Again, I stress again that I want as many members to be active as possible. By tapping into their talents/skills, we can utilize them into the orgs different talent pools, whether or not they belong to a specific department. -Add new databases: talent database and birthday database. i. Talent Database This is adapted from the previous EB in order to know what each member can offer in case we need more talents for a particular project and also to open the database to other orgs who may need our help in exchange for a token or a fee. ii. Birthday Database (see above regarding Family) C. Assemble! Based on personal past experiences, I would like to stress the importance of the General Assembly of each semester because they kick off the org and set the mood for the upcoming projects of the semester. This also leaves a lasting impression to the new members of the org. After the GAs I would like to adopt the individual interview system in order to see who may be potential PROs and other future active members of the org. The previous dynamics of the past GAs have been getting good reviews, particularly for the first GA, so I would like to continue that HR project. D. ACOMMs Freedom Board We will post this Freedom Board in one of the corkboards in the org room. This will allow ACOMMs members and EB Core to comment/suggest/recommend/constructively criticize ACOMMs work through post-its to be stuck on the wall. Of course, there will be rules in delivering the message in order to maintain professionalism, maturity, sensitivity, and a peacefull atmosphere within the org. This will also encourage members to visit the room more often, as well as a means better serve and address their communication tracks. VALUES Everyone holds something dear to them. As a candidate for HR AVP, I do hold particular values in thinking about my plans for the department and the organization. My values are simple: value for people, and value for growth. Both values are inter-related and make up the main focus of my platform. Value for People &Value for Growth. For me, everyone is important. Every member makes ACOMM a whole. Taking one member out is a missed opportunity to grow together. One main problem the org faces today is its inability to sustain a number of active members, as each batch grows older. Possible reasons for this are a.) The member was never tapped into as early as freshmen year; b.) The projects ACOMM offers does not quite address their track. c.) ACOMMs projects werent promoted well enough for the

members to be informed about it. From here, I want to make HR more person-centered and sensitive to its members. i. Continuation of previous community and batch-specific project -COMM Roast -Culminating Night -Christmas Party -Sophomore Track Logs -Junior/Senior Practicum Plenary ii. Mid-Semester Recruitment Online Survey -So the members have attended the first GA, and signed up for their respective departments. But strangely, a large amount of them disappear as the semester moves on. Why is this? According to some, they were never tapped into during the first half of the semester so they gave up. -To be held in the middle of the semester, in partnership with Doc & Pub, to address specifically those members who still want to be part of organizing bodies for ACOMM projects but were not able to do so during the first half of the semester -The site will contain mini briefings of the Projects, Coco, and Doc & Pub departments, specifically on the role of each department and the functions of the being a Project Assistant/Cocoa/ Photographers/Videographers/Commotions Pool member, as well as a brief the projects in the second half of the semester -Sign-ups again to be a part of their chosen department for the second half of the semester -In addition to this, there will also be a required mid-semester survey in the end that asks for the members attendance during events (to evaluate who should retain membership priveleges), asks if the members are part of ACOMMs NSTP (to monitor the NSTP members and participation), to ask the members for comments and suggestions for future possible org projects that can better cater to their needs as Communication majors -Both of these online surveys can inform the HR of the general impression and mood that ACOMM has been giving to its members iii. Maximization of Talent Database Constant updating and editing the talent database throughout the semester so that it will always be ready in case HR needs to pull in more talents for ACOMM events if ever there is a scarcity of people participating in a particular event. iv. Thank you for being here today! -The HR will coordinate with the Finance department and the Coco department regarding this. -It takes a lot for a speaker to do a talk to students. They do not only give us their time, but also their ideas as well. I would like to upgrade this years prizes at the most affordable cost so that our gratitude may be fully expressed not only in words and applauses, but by our awesome tokens as well. The HR would buy the tokens as early as possible in order not to rush with coming up with tokens of gratitude.

-Aside from the speakers, even harder things to get are a lot the ACOMM members to participate as contestants to org events (i.e. ACOMMs Got Talent) because as compared to professional speakers who do it for a living, they are usually not so used to being exposed in public performances. So what better way to say thank you and encourage them to participate again but by giving them sulit prices? Thank you is a phrase that should be said more often nowadays. -The HR will provide last years ACOMM bag as the standard packaging material for these prizes -The HR will coordinate with the Finance department regarding this vi. Power to the PROs! -A member becomes active if they attend at least 2 org events during the semester and head or assist in one event. One reaches activation through the promotions of the org event by the PRO. PROs are important because are they are the key informants and bridge that the org has to its members. Of course, a pat on the back and a few incentives wouldnt do harm either. Therefore, the HR department will continue awarding the PRO of the month certificate to the PRO that has done an excellent job, as well as a mention of the PRO of the month in the various events or groups. EXECUTION In a sentence: In order to follow through with my platform, I have come up with several ideas in order to make sure that all will run smoothly if elected as HR AVP. A. Facebook group for EB/ EB Core/ HR Department. Facebook has grown to be a more visited website among the youth as compared to Yahoo when it comes to interacting with people nowadays. Thank goodness for Facebooks innovation, they have created a similar group system to that of Yahoo Groups. Since this is the most convenient and accessible website to the youth today, why not enjoy this opportunity to make this into a place of information dissemination and communication among our groups? By making a separate Facebook group for each group a member falls under, we can entail better communication and knowledge of the statuses, inquiries, concerns, etc of each ACOMM department. B. ACOMM Calendar. -To be uploaded online in each Facebook group -HR will make a hard copy of a calendar of events to be posted in the org room -So that each department will be know when their scheduled event will be and will be able to plan ahead on the upcoming project/s C. Surveys, surveys, surveys. -I will continue the post-project survey forms to be distributed in every project and the end of the semester survey to be given to each block

-I will also add online surveys (i.e. mid-semester survey) to know the generating mood of its members D. PROs training. -If elected, I will not leave my fellow PROs in planning their own assigned HR event as heads and their own project event as the HR representative -I will adopt the previous hands on system for PRO training: i. Pre-project consultations (2 or as necessary) -Briefing on their role and assignments for this event -For updates, progress reports, suggestions, comments, etc ii. Post-project consultations -Evaluations for project and proponents -Comments, suggestions, points on improvement, recommendations, insights, etc

As I said in the beginning, my ultimate goal for HR, if elected, is to make the department more people-oriented, most especially to the needs of its members. I will not guarantee that by the end of my term, if elected, ALL of the members will be involved, but I will guarantee that I will tap and gather as much members as I can to be more active in ACOMM activities. There is always room for improvement, room for more people, room for more love under one HR, and one ACOMM.