As I think back to the first time I began leading staff meetings in the early 1990s, the traditional format was in place, including brief introductions of new staff, announcements, agency news, and maybe a monthly training session or a speaker. Over time, we began to share occasional success story and plan events. For the most part, staff could usually predict what was going to happen in each meeting. It began to feel somewhat stagnant to me and to my team of seven supervisors who were responsible for about 30 staff members. In identifying the need for change, I noticed that staff would schedule other meetings at the same time as the monthly staff meeting. Since I felt that staff meeting time should be protected, I asked the other managers what they thought was happening. I asked questions about how things could change and received many suggestions related to changing the day or time of the meeting, restructuring the agenda, and finding other ways to share information with staff.
Over the course of four or five meetings, with the supervisory team, we discussed a range of possibilities that included doing away with staff meetings completely and replacing meetings with email messages to design a process that would meet the needs of the majority of staff. I shared with the supervisory team that I was concerned that presenting new ideas for the meeting might create substantial pushback from staff. I really wanted to engage staff in the same way we work with families. Our families have said to us that they feel honored when we say to them, “Tell us your story,” and then we listen. My thought was that the staff would be able to relate to a similar engagement process and would also feel honored.
Based on the initial information the supervisors and I gathered from staff members, it became clear that it was important to develop a plan jointly, rather than to impose our ideas on staff. I assigned responsibilities to each of my supervisors so that as a group we would be proposing potential reforms that were designed to stimulate thinking about redesigning the all-staff monthly meeting. The participatory redesign process took place over three separate staff meetings, at which we provided breakfast for everyone, along with prizes and small gifts. As the word got out about the process, participation grew, with 15 out of 30 attending the first planning meeting, 22 attending the second, and 30 attending the final meeting.
The agenda of the first meeting focused on the rationale for redesigning the staff meetings, the history and purpose of the meetings (similar to discussing a family history), and the goal of identifying a staff meeting format that took into account the things we wanted to change and the things we wanted to keep. In preparation for the second staff meeting, the staff was given the assignment to think about the pros and cons of the structure of the current staff meeting, to think about what works for them and what they needed to have included in order to commit to attending an hour-and-a-half meeting an hour once a month. We were clear, however, that although we were asking for the staff’s input, the leadership team of eight would be responsible for making the final decisions.
The primary brainstorming activity was designed to identify the pros and cons of the current meeting format. The staff members were divided into groups: two groups for pros and two for cons; the staff spent about 5 minutes in each of the groups and then we switched topics. As a result, staff had a chance to hear the views of others and to move around the meeting room and make comments on each topic. We shared the results by combining similar items noted on posters and we clarified other items. We then took the items that we felt were positives, aspects of the staff meetings that we wanted to keep, and new items, and we began to develop an agenda structure for future staff meetings.
By the time we reached the third meeting we were ready to develop a concrete structure for the meeting agenda. We used three questions to guide the discussion: (1) What are the strengths that we find in coming together as a team? (2) What would be the five most important issues, topics, or activities that would need to be included in the staff meeting? (3) How would you know that your needs had been met by the end of the staff meeting? Five major themes emerged from the discussion:
Providing opportunities for training and learning from people outside of the agency (Most previous training had been provided by professionals inside the agency.)
Using the staff meeting to provide firsthand information to limit the circulation of agency rumors among staff
Celebrating individuals, teams, and successes
Assessing outcomes and productivity reports to learn about the successes and problems faced by different teams (e.g., What is that team doing to produce such a high success rate?)
Coming together as a team to provide continuity of connections among staff members who may have long histories of working together but rarely see one another because they work out in the community.
The participatory redesign process generated the following structure for monthly staff meetings:
Acknowledging significant events in the lives of staff
Welcoming new staff by sharing brief bio descriptions of each staff member and reflecting on something that each person is proud of to help get to know each other on a deeper level
Receiving current information on agency updates, including periodic messages from our executive director, and the background and rationale for various policies, procedures, changes, and so forth.
Reviewing and discussing outcome measures, drawing on the help of staff in the evaluation department (This would follow our quarterly peer reviews.)
Planning for sharing success stories at quarterly staff meeting by inviting a family to join staff at the meeting. The family sharing process would involve the following steps:
Every month each team sends me a success story for review and I determine whether a particular family should come to the meeting.
If selected, the family is invited, coached, and given some guiding questions. Some of the families rehearse with their staff member, as the families are very much aware of other staff as the audience.
Families are encouraged to reflect on where they began when they first came to the agency, the process that was useful to them, and where they see themselves now as a result of our intervention.
On a staff meeting day when a family is invited, we serve a full breakfast at which members of the family sit with their support team and we introduce the staff.
After the family has shared their experiences, we present them with a certificate and a gift (e.g., gift card, games, tickets to amusement park).
Using experiential learning with activities that include forming groups and moving around the room
Including an element of surprise on the agenda to attract staff and promote variety
Providing support from senior management in the following ways:
Two weeks before the monthly meeting (fourth Wednesday), I check in with the presenting team to get an update on the planning process and to learn if any assistance is needed.
Staff are encouraged to share examples of how they implement one or more of the agency service-delivery principles and include their names in a drawing wherein one example is selected to be read, and then the contributor is given a small token of appreciation.
Staff are encouraged to use multimedia presentations (e.g., video clips, PowerPoint, music, dance) to demonstrate the similarity to the processes and tools (videos, music, games, sports, etc.) used to engage families in their homes.
All these efforts contribute to increased staff motivation to attend staff meetings.
In addition to these reforms, each team is now responsible, on a rotating basis, for leading the staff meetings by using one or more of the agency’s 12 service-delivery principles as a theme for the meeting. The principles include:
Flexible services (defined as using an individualized approach to each client)
Accessible staff
Need-driven
Community-based
Using natural support systems
Culturally-relevant services
Outcome-based
Strength-based
Family-focused
Solution-focused
Collaborative and integrative
Team-based
Following this framework, staff meetings can be used to replicate peer-engagement processes similar to those used to engage clients. To effectively engage staff in restructuring staff meetings, it was important for me to highlight and demonstrate the parallel structure between worker-client interactions and worker-worker interactions.
Postscript
We have revised the structure again (in 2015) using the same process described in the study:
Each manager spearheads the design of the meeting.
On a quarterly basis, we have a themed potluck that is connected to our cultural responsiveness plan. During this potluck, we discuss pertinent topics, and the balance of the time is spent doing an activity and eating.
We have also dedicated a spring and fall month to a “wellness” event during the staff meeting time (e.g., guided painting, making mandalas, engaging in relaxation techniques)
The focus has been on wellness, activities, and celebrating staff while providing a space for information and some training.
Attendance is usually around 75% (vacation, sick leave, e.g., account for nonattendance).
Discussion questions
Harris describes strategies that she undertook with her team to remake monthly staff meeting at Uplift Family Services. Is there an example from your practice or research experience when an organization has engaged in similar efforts to reinvent the staff meeting? What role did you or other managers play in the process? Was the effort effective or not, and what were the factors contributing to success or failure?
A guiding principle for the redesign is summarized by Harris: “I really wanted to engage staff in the same way we work with families. Results from our internal client satisfaction surveys over the past 20 years reflect that families feel honored when we ask them, “Tell us your story,” and then we listen. My thought was that the staff would be able to relate to a similar engagement process and would also feel honored.” Are there other kinds of organizational change initiatives that you think could be grounded in a similar approach? How might you design and guide an organizational change process that was based on engaging staff by listening to their stories?
Agency teams are now responsible for leading the staff meetings by using one or more of the agency’s 12 service-delivery principles as a theme for the meeting. Are there other regular events or activities at your agency, or an agency with which you have been involved, that could be informed by organizational values or principles? What strategies might be used to work with staff to incorporate these into events and activities?