Working Together
Here’s our big idea...
Work where you can, when you can.
Where
Sites become hubs – flexible shared workspaces.
Use them as and when you need them.
A place for collaboration, socialising, problem solving, or just when you need a change.
When
Working with your team to decide where and when you work best.
Starting from a position of trust where we believe everyone will choose the right environment and time for the work they do, that day.
This is a big move for us
To make it happen, as leaders, managers and teams we all need to:
Find the right balance between the needs of the BFI, our teams, us as individuals and others we work with.
Listen to all voices fairly, ensuring everyone can contribute and everyone’s needs are considered.
Stay open and thoughtful, mindful of the needs of others.
Recognise there will still be a need to get together.
Take pride in a big, bold and real change.
Embrace our Culture Drivers.
Why this is good for us
If we make our decisions starting from a position of trust and positive intent, we get the best from each other.
Even those whose roles are mainly location-specific can benefit as it’s about how as well as where.
If we all head in the same direction together, however small the steps, this will mean a big change for the BFI’s culture – so let’s bring it together.
How we work together in practice
Meetings in person / video
We get things done without a meeting if we can.
Think about how we may use collaboration platforms instead, eg Slack.
We use meetings when they help us to get work done: eg jump on a meeting to ‘huddle’ and make decisions to stop endless email chains.
If meetings don’t feel like ‘real work’ – rethink the meeting.
This is what you told us you’d like to see happen:
Diary management
We make sure the timing of our meetings works for all, eg avoiding protected time and times where our colleagues have personal commitments.
We use the 50 min hour or 25 min half-hour to avoid back-to-back meetings and respect cut-off times.
Where a meeting is scheduled to be longer than an hour, we build in breaks.
We check calendars before scheduling meetings rather than requesting dates on email.
We invite those who definitely need to attend meetings, and others who may benefit from taking part.
We show the meeting topic in the email header, with the invitation.
We share calendars and keep them updated.
We let people know where we are working so we are easy to find.
We block out times and show ‘out of office’ when we are not working, eg for child care, personal activities, holidays.
Purpose, process, protocols
We turn up on time.
We send our apologies if unable to attend.
We are clear on each meeting purpose, eg information sharing, problem solving, decision making...
We have agendas at all formal meetings and stick to them, allowing for AOB.
We prepare thoroughly and brief colleagues before important/decision making meetings.
We contribute actively and ‘share the airtime equitably’.
We build in some time to catch up with each other before focusing on the task in hand.
We make decisions with everyone in the room.
We send out minutes and actions agreed promptly.
We follow-up and check on progress at the next meeting.
Emails
We only send an email when Slack or a call won’t do.
We keep them concise – good for announcements – not for ‘discussions’ – we pick up the phone or schedule a 5 min virtual meeting.
We use @name to alert someone to actions.
BCC should only ever be used for data protection purposes. We avoid cc’ing too many people and think twice before using ‘reply all’.
We trust that people will genuinely make sure they ‘see the email’, accept that emails do get missed, resend with good grace.
We only forward emails for ‘FYI’ when really helpful.
We use and respect ‘out of office’ messages.
Inductions
We make it the whole team’s business to make sure new team members feel welcome.
We have regular 1:1s and group chats initially – to get to know each other as people.
We set up buddy partners to support each new joiner: different buddies for different aspects of the work.
We make opportunities for new joiners to shadow others, within the team and across teams.
We give structure and clear instructions, to help them to get started.
Built with Shorthand