What is Essential?
Some weeks back, the National Lottery asked for our views on what had been essential during the first phase of lockdown. Now we are moving into the ‘new normal’, with more social contact and activity, we wanted to look back over the whole of lockdown to see what has been essential for us as a charity, whether the views of staff matched those of the Senior Team, and how we can take this learning forward.
What has been essential over lockdown?
Reflecting back, it has been key to have good communication; awareness of staff wellbeing & remembering to take a breath!
Communication both within and between teams has been essential to ensure that all staff remain focused on our mission. As things change from day to day, it’s been important to make sure that staff are aware of relevant changes — both what is changing and why it is changing. This helped to keep staff on board and focused on the fact that all changes have a purpose and enable us to better support carers. We’ve used numerous channels to stay in touch, from regular emails to using Teams to Zoom staff meetings. The quote below from a recent staff survey is just one which shows staff have also valued communication throughout this time.
“I feel information sharing has improved drastically and I have a wider knowledge of who does what and how we can all contribute to ideas even if its not necessarily our usual area of work. Everyone has had really great input and it’s all be positively received.”
Staff wellbeing was also key importance. We switched overnight from being 20 office based employees, albeit across 2 sites, to being fully remote. Staff adapted admirably, and thankfully we were already using Microsoft Teams for a lot of collaboration, so it was more about increasing it’s use team comms rather than a complete transformation of working patterns. We were also using Sharepoint for a lot of (not not all) file storage & Microsoft Forms for capturing feedback. However, the leadership team were sensitive to the sea change this was for staff and tried to be mindful of staff wellbeing as we worked to develop a remote working culture. If we don’t look after staff and ensure that they are able to adapt to new ways of working, they won’t be able to engage in the fast paced change we need to see. Again, it was brilliant to hear feedback from staff on this. When asked what our biggest achievements of the last few months were, comments included:
“Support from all staff, management and the board has been incredible”
“Keeping all members of staff supported and as happy as possible, whilst still enabling them and guiding them to support carers even with all the disruption.”
Finally, as the external environment changes at breakneck speed it can be tempting to be reactive and innovate in numerous directions without a clear strategy and plan. Once we had our team up and running remotely, we found it valuable to ‘take a breath’ — step back and evaluate where we were and the steps we needed to take to innovate and change effectively. For example using the tools of responsible innovation such as consequence scanning; checking the assumptions we were making in the changes we were looking to implement & trying to make sure what we were doing is user-centred have been key to ensuring the changes we are making are beneficial for carers, have best chance of success, and will be with us for the long term. We’re still on a journey with all this, and we haven’t always done it right, but we’re (hopefully!) moving in the right direction.
There was an overwhelming sense from staff that our biggest achievement as an organisation was our ability to keep carers at the centre of what we were doing and continue to make a difference even in challenging times. I think without the 3 essential elements above, we would not have been able to do this.
“The biggest achievement is the way we have very quickly evolved our way of working to support carers …. giving reassurance that help is there for them”.
Feedback from carers also reaffirms we have been working in the right direction. We’ve had dozens of comments from carers about the changes to what we’re doing, but these two captured it well:
“I am so grateful for your call: to know that we have not been forgotten means a lot”
“ I truly believe that the virtual cafes are a great help with my wellbeing and I am making new friends so thanks for all that you & your team are continually doing for us carers.”
What have you had to leave behind?
What we’ve had to leave behind is, to a degree, a sense of long term control. Whereas April might normally be about planning what the rest of the year looks like, it was about planning what next month looked like! We still have that overall sense of strategic direction for the organisation, but planning has become more regular, rather than a once a year activity. This follows more of the agile approach and ensures we can be much more flexible with our activity, and much more user focused.
We have therefore worked to embed this change within our organisation, moving to a 3 month rolling operational plan rather than an annual planning cycle. Each month, we collect feedback from staff, carers & the wider carer ecosystem, to consider if our current plan is the right one, where we might need to pivot, and what we need to reflect as we move the plan on.
Reflecting on the past few months, what has been most essential for you to be able to keep functioning?
Without a doubt this is Microsoft Teams! Being able to see clearly what’s going on across the organisation, check in on staff wellbeing as well as project planning/delivery, communicate more collaboratively and effectively has been vital in enabling us to adapt and change as quickly as we have. Staff are getting answers to queries as well as gain peer support more quickly. We had been introducing Teams, albeit slowly, over the last 6 months of 2019. It made the full switch much easier and staff are reaping the benefits.
I think Teams is a massive achievement as it has transformed how the team works, creating more connection and transparency on what is happening and improving morale and peer support between staff.
What do you wish you’d done sooner or had in place before the crisis?
Most staff when reflecting back felt we had done the best job we could in order to support carers. However, there were things we could have improved on, and want to take forward as we move in to the next phase:
For some changes we wanted to implement, we didn’t have enough user data/knowledge to know the right direction to take. We need more developed user research / data analysis skills within the staff team. This is something we are looking to develop over the next year. Additionally, whilst we have a lot of data in our customer management system (Charitylog) we haven’t invested in understanding how to access / analyse that data.
Since COVID-19, the number of carers has increased yet it feels that they are even more hidden within society and have less support than before. We desperately want to raise awareness of the issues they are facing to enable them to benefit from the compassionate communities which are springing up as a result of the crisis. We were looking to recruit a Digital Communications Officer in April, which was delayed due to lockdown. It would have been really useful to have them on board and looking at how we can raise awareness of the needs of unpaid carers is a key part of what we want to do moving forwards.
Reflecting, we also wish we had developed stronger collaborations and partnerships before the crisis. It’s taught us that we were quite inward-facing, and didn’t take the time or develop the skills required to enable us to collaborate effectively. Stronger partnerships would have made it easier to share information and support with peers. It would also have embedded support for carers more centrally within the local community response to COVID. This is on us. We need to work harder to develop honest and transparent partnerships that are sustainable in the long term, and can survive the challenges which face us moving forwards.
So, some things we’re proud of, some things to work on. Hopefully we can take this experience and build on our strengths, whilst recognizing and improving the weaknesses it has revealed.
