BRING YOUR TEAM TOGETHER TO REBOND AND REBOUND

In speaking to clients we are finding that the challenge at the moment is finding and keeping staff, keeping people motivated, and bringing teams together to rebond and rebound after the last couple of years. In this blog we share our suggestion of a process that will help you to bring your team together, reform your ways of working and your office culture, and reinvigorate your most important asset, your people, with the purpose and direction of your business.

What’s really happening in your business? Have you lots of work, but insufficient staff to deliver? Is the welfare and mental health of your staff suffering by the constant need to keep up the activity levels jumping from job to job, working to tight schedules and (drop dead) delivery dates with fewer people (either from Covid interruptions or the great resignation)?

Consider the long term effect of that on your business, your clients and you. How sustainable is that?

If you’re worrying about delivery, keeping your team together, retaining talent then you’re probably adding to the stress levels of all your resources: your team, your Board and yourself.

We are finding that many of our clients are struggling to recruit and retain the quality staff that are the lifeblood of their businesses. This great article from McKinsey shares their perspective on what’s behind this. As they say: you can’t just expect to bump up pay or financial perks without making any effort to strengthen the relational ties people have with their colleagues and their employers.

“If the past 18 months have taught us anything, it’s that employees crave investment in the human aspects of work. Employees are tired, and many are grieving. They want a renewed and revised sense of purpose in their work. They want social and interpersonal connections with their colleagues and managers. They want to feel a sense of shared identity. Yes, they want pay, benefits, and perks, but more than that they want to feel valued by their organizations and managers. They want meaningful—though not necessarily in-person—interactions, not just transactions.”

That’s where a rebond and rebound day could really help reinvigorate your people, reenergise your business and reduce stress levels all round.

Our recommendations for a rebond and rebound day

So what would we recommend? In some ways it’s about going back to basics. You need to get your team together again, at least for a day, and spend the time looking at what’s working, and what’s not, around your office ways of working and culture. Really listen to what your people are telling you, and put in place a plan to improve it. Our simple process is laid out below, but these things always benefit from having independent facilitation – get in touch if we can help you to design and run an effective rebound day.

Get some true feedback on how it’s going
- Can be a short survey, could be some quick calls and interviews
- Use an independent wherever you can so that you get an honest perspective
Design your rebound day
- Involve your employees in designing your rebound day
- Make sure everyone (and that means everyone, not just your middle management) knows what you’re trying to achieve and feels they’ll get something out of it
Run the rebound day
- Make it fun
- Link it to your purpose
- Really listen to what people are saying
- Take time in the day to set some rules for the workplace about how you’re going to operate going forwards
Follow through on your commitments
- Nominate someone or a few people to be the ‘heart and conscience’ of your team – make sure what you said you would do gets done

“Oh, but we don’t have the time to take a day out to rebond and rebound”

We often hear managers saying they don’t have the capacity to take a day out like this, or take people away from operational business. Really think about what’s possible – you may be ‘paying’ in a day now, but you’ll buy back the time later in improved team morale.

It’s not rocket science, it’s just going back to basics with your team and recognising that the last few years have been very disruptive for individuals and teams and you need to rebond and rebound to be maximally effective. It’s important if you’re going to invest in a day like this that the senior leaders are TRULY bought into it, and what it’s trying to achieve – including really listening to the feedback on what needs to change. It also matters that you commit to make the changes afterwards. There’s nothing more disheartening than coming back to the office and nothing changing.

And a final thought – consider independent facilitation for your rebond and rebound day for maximum benefit

Whilst you can run effective team rebond and rebound days internally, there are benefits in getting independent facilitation involved. Firstly you can have a more objective conversation about what might be going wrong, you can be truly challenged to think differently, and you can bring in experience from how others have tackled similar problems. It also gives you and your team space to plan and be involved in the day, without worrying about all the mechanics.

At JA Consulting we are skilled and experienced in running events like these. If you’d like to talk to us about how we can help you please contact us on info@jaconsulting.co.uk or 01737 642000.