Communication

Communicating under difficult conditions

Our establishment of multiple, functioning channels - mostly digital - tied to very different communication interests over the past few years has turned out to be very positive for communication in 2020. Despite an empty campus, despite empty lecture halls and despite the canteen and cafeteria being mostly closed, we did not lose sight of our target group during the pandemic and were able to continue positioning our topics and concerns. It was very positive for us that we were able to benefit from our own work in previous years during the pandemic.

What has changed for us, however, is the direction of our communication. While in the past it was mainly our guests, tenants, daycare parents and people seeking advice that we tried to reach, the addressees of our work had changed in 2020. In the financial year, our communication was essentially less an instrument of customer information, but the only and most important channel to the public, politics and partners in the higher education landscape. Here, our main task was to communicate the particularly difficult situation of the Studierendenwerk, which for 51 of our long-serving employees also meant losing their jobs. We are very grateful that our situation was understood by the students, but also by the staff, and that our decisions to close locations were largely met with understanding. Repeated attempts to involve the student unions in discussions about the situation of the higher education landscape and the staffing situation of the state employees were not really noticed by state politicians.

This has led to a third communication channel having to be strengthened, namely the one to our colleagues. During large parts of the year, our staff were understandably worried about their jobs and the future of the Studierendenwerk as a company. More and more, they had the feeling that they had been left alone or forgotten by politics. Clearer, more open and strategic communication between the state of Rhineland-Palatinate and the Studierendenwerk and its staff would have been very desirable, at the latest after the situation had consolidated in the first lock-down.

How do you communicate when what was valid today will no longer be valid tomorrow?
Almost the most difficult thing was that the content of the communication outdated itself practically on a daily basis. By the time the respective valid guideline could be implemented in the company, the maxims had already changed again. Basically, communication in 2020 was purely reactive and owed to the attempt to somehow keep the Studierendenwerk together in terms of communication. However, since not all the decision-making bases for mastering the situation were within the Studierendenwerk and the general situation was more than unclear in places, we could do nothing but react instead of act.

Use the time to think fresh!
But of course we also used the time to think ahead and tackle all the projects that would have been more difficult in full operation with guests. Since 2020, every canteen in Landau, Ludwigshafen, Neustadt, Worms and Germersheim has been connected to our digital screening system and can be visually screened at any time from anywhere and automatically with customer information, menus and promotional advertising. In doing so, we have extended the modular system introduced in 2019 in the Landau canteen to all other locations. Together with the IT department of the Studierendenwerk, we were able to procure and connect the hardware and prepare the infrastructure so that the system is ready for use when the canteens are going to be reopened.

We have also improved customer feedback in the canteen. From now on - provided the canteens are open - our canteen managers, the cooks and our serving staff can see directly at the food counter and in real time how the customers are enjoying their meal. This allows us to react directly to customers' suggestions and not only when the meal day is evaluated afterwards. This way, small mistakes or customer requests can be taken into account even faster and the service quality increases enormously.

Student bridging aid
During the time until the new staffing of the Counselling Department, the Communication department and all its employees took over the processing of the cases and, together with Kathrin Humbert, also took over the management of the bridging assistance area on an interim basis. Together, 1,455,900 euros could be paid out by 31 December 2020. In 2021, the department will continue to play an important role in bridging aid until the subsidy for students in need is discontinued.

Conclusion
In 2020 we were shown, how important good communication is. It is of crucial importance for the Studierendenwerk - also in conjunction with its partners in the higher education landscape - that our communication channels work and are both heard and taken seriously. However, we will only know if we have been broadcasting on the right wavelength once we have had eye-to-eye talks with all parties involved about the future of the Studierendenwerk. But this will not happen until 2021.