How has Coronavirus changed ways of working in The Children’s Society?
By Adam Groves, Chloe Dennis-Green, Ellen Fruijtier, Gemma Drake, Helen Dudzinska and Nerys Anthony.
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A few weeks ago we outlined how a small team within The Children’s Society has sought to illuminate the new ways of working emerging in the organisation during our response to the Coronavirus outbreak. In the past seven weeks, through a combination of observational work, self-reflection, and facilitated collective learning (see image below), we’ve heard from over 100 colleagues at every level of the organisation and from every area of the country where we run services. We’ve sought to explore what colleagues are doing differently, what they’re learning, how they’re collaborating, and the challenges and opportunities they’re experiencing.
Below we summarise some of the key themes that are emerging from this work. We’ll focus primarily on ‘opportunities’ and positive shifts in this post, and a follow-up post will discuss what has been hard.
Better conditions for collaboration
Even whilst forcing us physically apart, the Coronavirus outbreak has created better conditions for collaboration in The Children’s Society (TCS). It’s important to emphasise people’s experiences undoubtedly vary, but we have heard reflection on this positive shift from every level and in every area of the country. So what are some of the conditions they mention that are enabling better collaboration?
A shared sense of purpose
Coronavirus has galvanised the organisation with a clear and shared sense of purpose. Colleagues told us “we’re stronger together”, “I feel more part of TCS than ever”, “our work is more connected”, and “when we have a single goal we can pull together”. But these quotes alone risk disguising the energy and commitment that it has taken to establish this collective purpose. There isn’t anything ‘gentle’ or ‘aspirational’ about the shift — it’s much harder-edged than that. Colleagues reflect “we have had no choice”, “we are more capable of change than we ever imagined… when we are pushed into a position where we have no choice but to adapt”, “so much can be done when we are FORCED to change!” and “I’ve learned that being forced to change isn’t always bad — but it is stressful”.
Clear and shared priorities
At an operational level, the higher purpose has translated into clearer shared priorities (namely, we needed to effectively and safely support young people in a context where we could no longer meet them face-to-face). Colleagues told us, “I feel like it’s helped us to focus on problems more”, “everyone is aligned, [there are] not as many competing priorities” and “we are focused on what is really important”. (Previous research conducted in 2019 into the way TCS operates, highlighted prioritisation as a specific challenge). Nerys Anthony has reflected more on this in a post called ‘What is essential?’, written for the Digital Fund Medium site.
A shared rhythm
At an operational level, the shared purpose and priorities were coupled with a shared sense of urgency. Colleagues repeatedly reflect on the pace of change: “Everyone just pulled together and got on with stuff to turn it around in less than a week!”, “Pre COVID to get TEAMs rolled out and people actively using it would have taken months. We have done it in weeks”, and “It took 5 days from TCS suspending business as usual to [get a new service model] up and running… this is inspirational and amazing!”. The shared sense of urgency resulted in different teams working quickly to the same rhythm across the organisation.
Shared expectations: ‘good enough’
Colleagues told us that existing service models were “torn up” almost overnight. A new cross organisational group (including Digital, Information Services, Safeguarding, Data Protection and others) was created to rapidly address barriers preventing services from supporting young people. Chaired by a senior leader, this group worked as quickly as it could to provide the guidance necessary to inform new ways of working. Within these constraints, people were liberated to innovate — suggesting and adopting new tools, methods, and approaches. Colleagues reflected “necessity is the mother of invention, without the lockdown I am not sure if we would have [tried something new]”, “I have no idea what tools we were using on Monday but we have migrated through to find ones that work”, “perfection isn’t important — [it’s about] giving things a go and learning.”
In a context where ‘change’ was accepted as necessary to respond to the outbreak, colleagues have been practically and psychologically more free to try new things, with a focus on learning and improving rather than worrying about getting it right the first time. There is “permission to give things a go, to make mistakes and to learn from them”, because “the crisis has brought out a shared need to act and learn”. “[We’re all] trying our best in difficult times.”
A shared understanding of interdependence
The scale and pace at which shared priorities have needed to be tackled has helped colleagues see the interdependencies between different teams. Reflections include “[we have] been working closer with digital and IT Teams… their support was vital”, “colleagues [in multiple other teams] are showing leadership and agility”, “CYP, Digital, Data Protection, IS are all working together”. The result is that colleagues told us “we have been more supportive… of each other” and “we feel more seen and heard.”
We’ve heard about colleagues stepping up and looking out for each other in new ways, both inside the organisation and externally. Examples include teams pooling everyone’s efforts to accomplish tasks together, with an “open, ‘can do’, mentality” and colleagues adapting to make this work “I’d like to celebrate the team’s willingness to be flexible.” A shared sense of compassion and praise for ‘seeing’ authentic versions of ourselves and each other. “I work with awesome and incredibly kind people — situations like this can really bring out the best in people!”
Better ways of working together
How have these shared understandings manifested in organisational behaviours/practices?
Multidisciplinary teams
In reflecting on what has been effective, colleagues emphasise the role of multidisciplinary teams in responding to the crisis. Working groups have convened all the people needed to get the job done, with little regard for hierarchy, geography, or the team people are tied to. The result has been that “each of us represented different teams and functions”. It’s led colleagues to reflect: “we’re seeing people in other directorates, when we might have only engaged on email prior”, “I’ve worked more closely with teams in different areas”, “task groups are really powerful — the ideas we came up with collectively were fab!”, and “it’s been a joy to see team members from different locations join into mini project teams together”. A similar principle applies to external collaboration, with Area and Service Managers reporting the benefits of working more collaboratively with funders and organisations in other parts of the system, when this has been possible.
Regular, short, task-focused meetings
In the first couple of weeks of lockdown especially, many colleagues reflected on the challenge of meeting overload: “it’s draining me!”. Colleagues have experienced meetings that could have been emails, and grappled with how to handle sensitive topics over video call. But what does stand out from observations during Coronavirus, is the value of regular, short, task-focused meetings. Underpinned by shared purpose, priorities, rhythm and expectations — multidisciplinary teams have been able to focus on the challenges at hand. Daily or weekly meetings are used to review progress, address barriers, prioritise incoming tasks, and assign actions. When observing these meetings, it’s not uncommon to hear reflections like “I love this group — we get so much done!” and “I just want to acknowledge how much we’re achieving — we’re motoring!”. In turn these meetings have themselves reinforced the sense of shared purpose, priorities, rhythm and expectations — and highlighted the interdependencies between participants.
Using appropriate digital tools
At a practical level, collaboration has been underpinned by the introduction and uptake of digital tools needed to work remotely. Colleagues have reflected on the value of software such as MS Teams (“I think it’s an excellent way of managing projects and will be using it a lot more in future”) and Skype (“we managed to do a whole hub team meeting where 26 people signed into Skype!”). More generally they report “I am learning all the time about new digital methods of communication!” Other examples include Slack, Miro, Mural, Zoom, Yammer, and WhatsApp, all of which are being used by colleagues to connect between themselves or with external partners (note, we’re using specific selected tools with young people). One manager reflected: “we have been much better connected as a team now that we are properly [using] online tools. There’s more coherence between the work that teams are doing across the country — it has been difficult for us to connect bits of work across the country before because we weren’t taking full advantage of digital tools”.
Reflection, learning, sharing
Colleagues and teams who are prioritising time to retrospect and reflect emphasise how valuable it has been. Examples of what we’ve heard include “[we have] talked about learning and reflections so much more”, “I have found that we naturally reflect more with each other and perhaps discuss things in more detail”, “I’ve found myself saving more time in my calendar for reflective time” and “we have arranged really regular reflective [video and telephone calls]… this will be fantastic for us to continue as a service.” Learning is also being shared more proactively than before. Colleagues have told us “I’ve shared more on internal communications/ internal platforms”, “we’ve been trying to set up a hub of shared resources and it’s amazing to see it’s been created in no time at all!”, and “Service Managers are working collaboratively and are sharing resources and ideas with each other when we come across things that would be helpful. I’m not saying that we didn’t do this before, but we are doing so more now than ever.” In a context where colleagues have been freed to try new things in response to a shared problem, they are more intrinsically motivated to reflect, seek, and share learning.
Authenticity and trust
In internal and external interactions, many colleagues reflect on a journey towards being more trusting and authentic. Examples of what we’ve heard about internal interactions include “I’m really proud of our team for being more open and honest with one another”, “[I have] given my direct reports more trust and freedom”, and “we feel part of something bigger and we feel more trusted to be ourselves and are more open.” Senior leaders and managers shared more decision making power, in order to respond rapidly and effectively to the crisis. Regarding external interactions: “[a regular external meeting] started in a rather businesslike way but has become more honest and frank”, and “we do meet [with these other organisations but] it isn’t usually as collaborative, it’s removed the ‘competition”.
New ways of working with young people
At the heart of the organisational transformation has been a transformation in the ways that we work with young people. This work hasn’t systematically sought to identify all of these new ways of working, and certainly isn’t in a position to evaluate their effectiveness. But we can highlight some of the many innovations we have seen.
Mobile/digital channels and accessibility
Colleagues in our mental health drop in services report that some anxious young people are opening up more on the phone than they do in person, and suggest in future offering digital channels for engagement alongside the option of face-to-face support, to make the service more accessible. Young people in our participation groups have echoed this, telling us that digital options can reduce stress for young people with social anxiety and make services more accessible to those with certain physical disabilities.
Practitioners have also highlighted the benefits “for some of the young people I work with who have additional needs. Talking to them over the phone has really brought them out of their shell and not having the face to face contact that they sometimes struggle with has actually been a real positive in terms of their communication.”
Similarly, services that work with schools have also found the shift to using digital channels to be positive in some instances. They have found some young people are opening up more as they are less ‘conscious’ of their peers being able to overhear them. (It’s worth noting that for others, the reverse is true, and they are less able to safely and effectively engage with support from their home).
But when digital channels are the only option to access support, they come with obvious challenges too. Digital poverty and low digital literacy remains a real issue for many of the young people and families we support. Hence in some cases “we’re doing less digital… we’re using parcels and packs that we’re posting out to young people. We’re going back to the things we were doing twenty years ago”.
Live video support
The introduction of live video support (via Whatsapp, Facetime or Skype) appears to have had benefits in many instances. Colleagues working in Return Home Interview services have told us some young people prefer video calls because “it makes them feel connected” and have urged practitioners to continue offering this option. Others are optimistic about virtual counselling, suggesting “this could be a good option to support some boys and young men… I reckon they may opt more for online therapy then face to face!”. Meanwhile managers see an opportunity to add value relative to what The Children’s Society can offer: “currently lots of people provide either face to face or online. Few combine the two”. It isn’t one size fits all. One practitioner told us “I’ve learned this week that some young people struggle with the idea of video support and that sometimes telephone is best. I’ve also learned that offering text support is difficult to set boundaries around.” Absent a concerted workstream of user research to understand how different digital channels can be selected, adapted, and most effectively used to meet young people’s needs in different contexts, we are relying on practitioners to discover what works best in each context — within the constraints of the software they’ve been told to use, the guidance they’ve received and the digital skills they have.
Whose needs are we starting with?
It’s striking that the digital channels we’ve initially settled on using — Whatsapp, Facetime, Skype and Teams — are largely from ‘our world’ (we’re not down with the kids, but we’re pretty sure Microsoft Teams isn’t where they’re hanging out). They meet the needs we had when we wanted to transition services online (including relevant regulations such as safeguarding and GDPR) — and they may also be right for young people — but we’ve heard relatively little in colleagues’ reflections about systematic efforts to gather user research and youth insight for the purpose of informing newly transformed services. Where efforts to gather young people’s insight are mentioned, they tend to be reactive “[we’ve gathered] feedback on their perspective on our response” rather than the starting point, or they are highlighted as a point of friction: “initially we took a lead from young people on what digital platforms to use… but when the guidance was released we had to follow the new rules”.
Our colleague Ellie Fairgrieve summed up this challenge in her recent blog describing how we’ve adapted our services during Coronavirus:
“Because this piece of work has been accelerated we were not able to initially include young people’s and families views to inform our software choices, but it is important to note in other circumstances this would form a key part of our developments and user research”.
We recognise this is an opportunity to improve. Further growing youth influence over our work is at the heart of our current strategy renewal process, and building our capacity to conduct rapid user research is something we are exploring through our grant from the National Lottery Fund Community Fund’s Digital Fund.
What next?
It’s clear that the enabling conditions are fragile for some of our most positive new ways of working. To take just one example, we can see how the growth in reflective practice depends on interconnected factors, including:
- shared purpose and priorities (our learning is relevant to one another);
- feeling trusted and supported to try new things (I have a reason to learn from others, and an opportunity to learn myself);
- cross-organisational and cross-sector working (I have opportunities to learn from others);
- and effective use of digital tools (I have efficient ways of seeking and sharing learning).
We know that if we lose the enabling conditions that underpin our new ways of working, there is no team or programme of work that will be able to sustain them.
With the first impacts of the crisis behind us, we see the challenge ahead as creating (or finding) and testing similarly compelling — but more sustainable — motivations and mechanisms to help colleagues continue the positive ways of working that they want to retain. We’ll share our ideas and plans to do this in the coming weeks.
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