Charity Coach, Trainer & Consultant - Rob Legge Consulting

how to run effective meetings: 4 top tips

18/1/2023

Running effective meetings appear to be the Achilles heel of a manager's workload. Meetings get more frequent, longer and often less gets achieved. Moving the problem remotely only saves on commute time. Staff who attend regularly find them boring and demotivating.

Below are some suggestion on how meetings can be planned, structured and delivered to dramatically improve the quality of the results and the staff engagement.

Running effective meetings that staff don't find boring and demotivating

1. understanding the purpose of the meeting

A question that often hasn’t been answered for some time in many organisations. We have the Monday morning meeting because it is the start of the week! The monthly finance meeting happens because it is that time of the month and so on.

Every meeting should have a clear purpose understood by all participants and regularly reviewed to see if it is still relevant or needs to be adjusted or even scraped.

The agenda of every meeting should reflect the purpose of the meeting and have outcomes and timings for each agenda item that helps move forward the purpose of the meeting.

2. setting agendas

In many cases the agenda sets the tone of the meeting. It is often dominated by briefings or reports that interest a small number of the participants and the voices heard in these meetings are usually the senior staff attending.

Change the agendas so that they are more engaging.

Instead of a briefing, send it out beforehand and ask participants to submit questions. Or use the briefing document as a start for the meeting to develop a frequently asked questions (and answers) section before the briefing goes to a wider circulation.

Instead of receiving reports, change the agenda item to a question that engages. Perhaps replace “Progress against budget” to “How can we reduce costs by 5%?”

As one staff member responding to a question about how good staff meetings are, said, “the most interesting meetings are when I speak!”

3. engaging staff

In addition to the above changes let's look at a typical meeting. It usually involves all the team and is anything from one hour to one day in length. We all sit round a table (or a screen) and plough through the agenda.

Let's change it.

Let's start the meeting with an ice breaker so that everyone speaks in the room early on. The longer a participant is silent the harder it is for her/him to break thorough and participate. The less individuals contribute the less value they give the meeting and the increased likelihood of attention drift.

Meetings could be different, after a quick review of the action notes from the last meeting, let's make the first topic the most interesting one. Make sure the agenda sets it as a question not a statement. For example: “How can we increase the diversity of service users?” Rather than a progress report on the organisation's diversity plan.

4. the role of the chair

For some of your team the above will be enough to get them to engage and contribute ideas and add to the debate. However not all are as keen and one of the roles of the chair is to get the most out of all meeting participants. So good chairs think about the structure of the discussion.

Should we split into small groups to answer some or all of the questions?
Should we get different people to present and if so, how do you avoid death by PowerPoint?

My research suggests there are three key roles for the chair to facilitate a successful meeting.

Firstly, to set the agenda. Good chairs ask for (and receive) agenda items linked to purpose. They set the tone of an action orientated meeting with a written agenda and a logical interesting set of questions for the meeting to tackle.
Secondly the chair’s role is to actively engage all participants in the meeting so that differences are aired, explored and summarised.
Thirdly the chair will ensure there are clear action points allocated to individuals with a deadline and follow up process to ensure the work is progressed.

other roles in a successful meeting

There are lots of other roles that need to be fulfilled so that a meeting is successful. Often the chair takes these roles on to the detriment of the three key roles mentioned above.
These tasks, if at all possible, should be delegated to one or more members of the team, for example;

Arrangement of venue
Time keeper
Issue of agenda and any papers
Minute or action note taker.

Next steps
If you are not happy with your current meetings. Try one thing from each of the sections in this short blog.

Review with your team the purpose of the meeting
Use the purpose to shape the agenda.
Use ice breakers to get everyone to speak in the meeting within the first five minutes.
Ensure at least one of the agenda items is a genuine question that you want contributions to before taking a decision.
Consider adjusting the meeting structure to include break out work (in small groups or pairs) and allow for feedback.
Practice summarising and identifying next steps.
If necessary, delegate one or two of the other meeting tasks.

And maybe both you and your team might be more motivated to join your next meeting.

the 4 essentials of co-production

4/1/2023

Charities are adopting the language and processes of co-production. This is both a choice and a demand from funders. This blog identifies four useful steps an organisation should go through to increase the chances of a successfully co-produced service.

what is co-productioN?

There is no agreed definition of co-production. Best practice is still evolving.

Co-production is not just a word, it is not just a concept, it is a meeting of minds coming together to find a shared solution. This indicates a fundamental shift in power in the delivery of services from the professionals doing things to or for the beneficiary. The direction of travel in the development of services is increasingly putting the end user at the centre of the project. People increasingly talk about service users being “experts by experience.” A lot of energy goes into consultation and participation.

However, this is not co-production. In practice, it involves people who use the services being engaged from the start to the end of the project. They are integral to the concept, delivery and also the learning from the project.

There is a fundamental difference between co-production and participation. Participation means being consulted while co-production means being equal partners and co-creators.

co-design

All stakeholders including commissioners, senior managers, service leaders, front line staff, volunteers, service users should be engaged with the process in designing the service and what it is trying to achieve. By stakeholders being involved as equal partners the design and delivery of the services will be unique and owned by all. To get the design perfect from day one is unheard of. The co-design process therefore needs to be an ongoing dialogue that is open and honest as all parties can contribute and learn.

co-decision making

This is a real challenge to the management who have been used to consultation, yes but then having the rights and responsibilities of making decisions and making them stick. This model looks to a collaborative approach which requires time and trust to be established.

By using all stakeholders as equal partners and particularly facilitating the service users to be part of the decision-making process, for example on the allocation of resources fundamentally changes the ethos of the project.

Co-delivery of services

The “expert by experience” title is a genuine powerful role in co-delivery of services. This expertise is tapped into frequently to consult on delivery paths and actively innovate in services.

An example from a young person’s well-being service where staff created a poster and social media campaign. The young people commented on it and it was changed. The next time as staff better understood co-production young people were an integral part of the design team and produced better marketing materials.

co-evaluation

Evaluation is currently driven by funder or organisational requirements. In co-production this is challenged as all stake holders have an equal say on how the service is evaluated. This results in a more wholistic understanding of the benefits of the service (not just data driven).

It is also often better at identifying any flaws in the delivery that can be improved from the perspective of the end user.

Co-production needs more case studies so that we can all learn. The challenges are great, it requires a new way of leading, a new way to manage risk and a new way of commissioning that involves key stakeholders in a genuinely integrated way.

But the early results of co-production are encouraging as organisations report greater commitment, innovation and success for all.

Delegation: the top skill of a successful manager

20/12/2022

We all know what delegation is supposed to be. Getting stuff done through others. Easy. But particularly in the Charity sector it gets bogged down with all sorts of emotional stuff that can get in the way.

When I ask people in my workshops what are the downsides of delegating, they are not slow in filling sheets of flipchart paper. Problems of quality, not sure if it will get done, not completed the way I want it to be delivered etc. And yet these issues and more can logically be dealt with.

I think there are deeper psychological issues at play particularly for new charity managers.

Firstly, who am I to ask someone else to do stuff? Many new managers have been
promoted internally from within the existing team. They are now managing staff who yesterday were colleagues and friends.

Secondly, doubts about the manager's own competence to manage makes it easy to move back into the comfort zone of doing tasks relevant to the old job rather than delegate it out to team members.

Thirdly, managers are keen to help and provide solutions to issues and they often see
delegation as creating problems not solving them.

Fourthly, managers can be worried about their image to staff of being lazy by delegating work out that rightly or wrongly some members of the team perceive to be the manager's job.

why delegate?

There are two main reasons for delegating.

Firstly, and the one most people focus on is delegating tasks to get a job done. It is often given to someone with short deadlines and is usually a response to a problem. Someone hasn’t turned up or the manager has to go to a meeting so “could you just finish this for me”. This kind of “goffer delegation” as Stephen Covey called it in the book “Seven habits of highly effective people” is when small bits of work are handed out to be completed and then reported on. “Go for this” or “go for that” type of work. This is the image that is often in the manager and staff minds when we raise the issue of delegation.

And yet when I ask workshop attenders about occasions, they have most developed at work it is when they were delegated to. Sometimes this delegation was not at all well managed.

Often a crisis response to a failure or someone leaving. Being thrown in at the deep end and managing to swim. What a great learning experience but often very stressful and many staff have been damaged and sink not swim!

But the fundamental truth is that the delegation of work is a great opportunity to develop staff as individuals and as a team.

Good managers delegate and delegate well and often.

strategic delegation

This is where managers turn into leaders. Managers need to use delegation as a strategic not just operational tool. What does this mean in practice?

Start by planning what needs to be delivered and what skill set you have in your team. Is there a gap? What can you do to fill that gap over the coming months? Is it formal training, coaching, working with a more experienced staff member, time to read technical information and others?

By preparing individuals to be delegated to you are preparing them to develop and improve their own performance as well as the capacity of the team. As part of your leadership work you look at not only who is capable now but who has potential. This helps to grow the team and is also as a safety mechanism to ensure you don’t become over reliant on any one individual.

Delegation well planned is one of the most powerful ways to develop a team.

This requires the manager to spend time thinking through the needs of the team and the needs of the charity to make sure they can be matched. Delegation should be an approach rather than a last resort. I have seen leaders develop an annual plan with their teams with each member of the team being prepared for a delegated and stretching piece of work to develop and deliver.

I have recommended to hard pressed managers that they change their to do list into a “to delegate” list to free up time. This time can then be spent in what Stephen Covey called quadrant two (not urgent but important) and better plan for delegated projects in the future by preparing individuals to have the capacity and confidence to lead themselves.

motivation to take on delegated tasks

Some of your team members seem to naturally want to be helpful and take on additional work yet others are very reluctant. Be careful that you don’t fall into the trap of over delegating to particular individuals and burning then out or it being considered that you are treating them as favourites.

Daniel Pink in his excellent book “Drive” identified three major aspects of motivation. These can be used when thinking about delegation.

Mastery.
Identify what people are good at and use this to develop them. Remind them of their current skills and experience and find ways to delegate to expand and develop this skill set. Get the rest of the team to be aware of and recognise this skill set.

Freedom to act.
A delegated project is a potential motivating experience if they are given room to be creative rather than having a very prescriptive way of working laid out for them with no room to flex. A leader’s job in this situation is to manage boundaries and set the criteria for success. Then help the individual or team that have been delegated to explore the areas for creativity and freedom to act. Boundaries are often simple but important such as time and budget. Success criteria can be a more challenging to tease out and often benefits from several conversations between the leader and the staff member.

Connection to Purpose.
This should be easy for a charity. It must be harder if you are trying to sell another million coke cola bottles. Nevertheless, it is still important for the leader to help link the delegated work to a wider purpose. This can be the team itself. By doing the work this will help the others produce X for our service user. Or the wider charity itself. For example, by cleaning up this database you will help the marketing team target donors that brings in more money that helps us transform the lives of Y. Often a combination of all three motivational drivers can be used to encourage staff to take on delegated tasks.

leading delegation

The solution for both is to have a plan of support for delegation. This means that delegation costs time and effort from the leader that needs to be scheduled. Delegation doesn’t get rid of the job it transforms it from a “doing task” to a leading and developmental opportunity.

At the start leaders need to help the person delegated to be clear about the work. This often takes more than one conversation and many managers cop out of this with simple closed questions such as “do you understand what I want?” or “do you have any questions?” Staff often respond with a closed answer either yes or no and the manager thinks they have effectively delegated. Leaders need to ask open questions to help the individual to think about the work analytically. For example, “what will be the most challenging/interesting/worrying part of the work for you?”

Two simple questions that I have used before to get into helping and clarifying delegated work are:

If ten would mean you will be able to do this work perfectly and easily, what would you score it?

The follow up question is “what help do you need to make it a ten?”

delegation needs managing

Successful delegation requires follow ups. What Professor Ockenden, who developed the
concept of Monkey Management in an article for the Harvard Business Review, called
Health checks. These health checks are important to provide psychological safety for both parties.

However, there is a crucial difference between leaders and managers in the way they
structure these meetings. Managers will rush to give solutions to any problems the individual brings to the meeting. This feels great at the time. Provides quick answers, shows the manager is engaged and supportive and lets the individual know what to do. The downside, if done to excess is that the delegated person can become dependent, doesn’t think through the potential solutions and in reality, becomes a “goffer”.

A leader will use these opportunities to coach not tell. They will ask the individual for their
thoughts and help them to think through the implications of their ideas. This in itself is a
development moment which builds confidence and skill and, on many occasions, produces better results than if only reliant on the manager giving old ideas.

next steps

If this blog has given you, or a colleague, a chance to reflect on how and what you delegate, I am pleased. I suggest you develop a modest action plan to experiment with delegating to your team in different ways.

How will you achieve your goals in 2023?

6/12/2022

Not wishing to sound negative, but in about a month's time you are likely to have "broken" one of your new year's resolutions.

You'll be in good company. Many other people will be in the same boat as you!

Plan your success

Part of the problem is that resolutions are often decided without much thought of the process needed to achieve them.

They are usually something you really want to do. They might be totally new, or something that you haven't quite cracked yet. By their nature they tend to be difficult to achieve successfully.

New years resolutions are usually good wishes that if we could wave a magic wand would get us fitter, lose weight, get promoted etc. So, I believe it's perfectly normal to "break" them fairly early on in the New year. Although, I don't feel that that word is quite the right one to use.

Take action

I have found that if I want to make a real resolution – one that I have a chance of achieving - then there are 10 questions I need to answer to develop a powerful action plan. You can access action planning template below.

Grab a coffee (I'm partial to hot chocolate) and set some time aside to work through the checklist. After all it's only fair to give yourself a fighting chance to be successful. Have something to celebrate about your new year's resolutions for a change.

Happy action planning!

action_planning_template.docx
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6 Questions To Ask When Selecting a Leadership Coach

23/11/2022

Picking a coach is important. It's possibly even more important now a lot of us are working more in the virtual world. But it can be tough to know what you should be looking for, especially if you have not worked with a coach before.

If you're thinking about working with a coach in the next few months, or as a New Year's resolution for personal development you might want to consider the following.

How do I make sure a coach will be the right fit for me?
Will they have the right background?
How can I ensure they will focus on the things that are important to me?

I'd recommend you include these 6 important questions in your research. They aim to help gauge how you feel the coach matches your situation and how they will stretch your capacity as an individual.

1. Background and work experience

One of the first things you should look for in a coach is the depth of your sector. You should understand how long have they been working as a coach, as well as how much experience they have working in your type of organisation.

2. Why did you become a coach?

In getting to know your potential coach, you are looking for the coach’s value statement with this question. What value does the coach feel they can bring to your success? What problems do they feel they are solving? How does that align with your needs?

3. What is your coaching experience?

Similar to work experience, the coach’s actual coaching experience is vitally important. You should seek to understand the variety in the experience of the coach. What experience has the coach had that is similar to your situation?

4. What is your coaching speciality or the areas with which you most often work?

Coaches typically specialise or work in certain areas consistently. Look for those areas the coach has worked in that you can relate too. Finding a coach that specialises in something that directly relates to you and your situation is very desirable.

5. What is your approach or philosophy about coaching?

What you want to look for here is the coach’s emphasis on capacity building; not problem solving. The coaches overall philosophy should revolve around building your capacity to achieve your goals and objectives.

6. What are some coaching success stories?

Ask for some specific examples of individuals who have done well. You are looking to see if your ideas of success match. Can you picture yourself as the next success story with this coach?

Adapted from alignleadership

Music as a great ice breaker or warm up activity

7/5/2021

I recently facilitated a team building training day via zoom for a charity in North London. I decided I would try out a music themed ice breaker as a warm up for the session and was pleased to see just how successful it was.

Ice breakers are important for setting the tone and encouraging engagement during a training session. Experienced trainers will typically allocate between 20 to 30 minutes for a warm up, so that they can get early on participation and tease out shared experiences.

Choosing a good ice breaker

The best ice breakers link to the topic being trained on.

At a recent Train the Trainers session I used the ice breaker question “What is the most difficult situation you have had as a trainer?”. Individuals then shared their nightmare problems which generated sympathy and a few laughs.

The purpose of this session was to bring out the elephants in the room - training is not always plain sailing. It also reminded the participants that they found a way to cope with the challenge and they survived.

For me as the trainer, I shared an example and set myself to be a fellow learner rather than the expert with all the experience. It also gave me some examples that I could reference in the afternoon session where we had a session called “Challenges in the training room.”

However, for the charity team building session I wanted something a little different. It worked like this;

- One week prior to the course I asked each participant for a favourite song.
- On the day I created a list of the songs and a separate list of the participants.
- In small groups they had to guess who chose which song.
- Finally the true connections were shared in the complete group.

To help break up a tiring full-day of Zooming, I played a minute of each song (at the end of each session, before and after lunch) while the individual spoke about why they chose that particular song. Here's one that was chosen.

what does a successful ice breaker do?

This ice breaker was a success on many different levels.

1) it got everyone talking, even the shy ones.
2) it revealed something unique about each person.
3) it built some connections between people who like similar music.

The ice breaker itself satisfied one of the objectives of the day which was to create social bonds between team members.

A variation on the theme is when staff share “inheritance” tracks. Individuals choose a song that they inherited (from parents, school etc) and also a track they want to pass on to the next generation and explain why they chose them. Bare in mind that it takes a bit longer to facilitate, so you need to be careful in scheduling if you use this variation.

So, my closing advice to anyone preparing a team building event or training session, don’t skip the positive use of a good ice breaker!

Celebrating 5 years of Just About Managing

26/2/2021

Image by Michael Schwarzenberger Pixabay.

The popular Just About Managing training course for charity leaders reaches the ripe old age of 5 this year. Since its launch in 2016, over 300 third sector managers have benefitted from focusing on enhancing their self management and team leadership skills.

The idea formed when Rob identified a gap in the training world for a leadership course that targeted managers or supervisors who had never attended a formal management course or who wanted to learn the basics quickly.

"Rob’s Just About Managing course really does enable you to make the most of your own abilities. It’s amazing quite how a different skilled perspective can allow you to refresh what you find you already know (even that which you may not have realised you knew) and transform your skill base into a more management-focused form. The one to one mentoring/coaching sessions are also invaluable to put a personal experience spin on the revelations from the group course sessions." - Sven Harvey, Age UK Birmingham

Comprising two interlinked half day group sessions plus two individual mentoring sessions the programme delivery can be flexed to suit specific situations. Originally BVSC Birmingham hosted open sessions but it quickly became apparent that the content was ideal for in house training. During the current pandemic the course has naturally moved online via Zoom.

If your charity is looking to enhance its in-house training programme then do consider getting in touch to find out how Just About Managing could help.

3 essential steps to survive redundancy

19/11/2020

"Your job is at risk!"

Is a phrase that is becoming familiar to too many people in our sector. The emotional turmoil it brings is enormous. Most of us in charity work have made an active choice to be part of our organisations. It is rarely just a job.

The threat of the redundancy is of course a challenge to the economics of an individual or family. The lack of a salary undermines the basic security of home, and how to pay the rent or feed the kids become basic questions that can dominate our thinking. This is stressful enough. However, the added challenge that feels like a personal attack on your core purpose can be as devastating and as debilitating as a divorce.

We have been on both sides of the phrase “Your job is at risk”. Senior managers also struggle as they try to do their best to ensure the organisation survives and the individuals under threat are thrown into a period of extreme anxiety.

Elisabeth Kubler Ross in her pioneering work with terminally ill patients developed a model of reaction to extreme personal change. She found that the change process was different for every individual and that the emotions expressed were not linear. In other words, we don’t go cleanly from one emotion to another and progress neatly to the end. In our “messy” reality we bounce from one to another and sometimes trigger regression or massive progression.

Despite the messy reality Kubler -Ross’s model is useful for us to begin to understand what is happening to our colleagues or to ourselves. This knowledge can help us begin to facilitate support and advice that helps us to get to a constructive place of change.

The model looks something like this:

Image credit – cleverism.com/understanding-kubler-ross-change-curve/

To take it a step further, as objectively as possible look at how you might increase these skills.

This might mean training, reading, volunteering or something else. When you are looking for your next role that fits your purpose and uses your strengths organisations respond well to candidates who are actively looking to continuously develop. You know change is the only constant, your experience of redundancy might be the change you needed.

essential steps to help you through redundancy

1. Have a good support network
This might be family, friends, colleagues. It is good to be able to express your emotions in a safe place. Keeping them controlled and bottled up only leads to damage and it leaking out of you at inappropriate times.

Rob interviewed people who have been made redundant who are still suffering emotionally and it has impacted on their performance in trying to get a new job. A safe place to vent, cry, scream or whatever you need to do is essential.

And because life is not logical you won’t do it just once. A saving grace for one of us when they were on the wrong end of a redundancy conversation was long walks with Steve, the Staffordshire bull terrier who took the rants stoically.

2. Take time to work out your purpose
This sounds a bit academic but it has practical application. After fourteen years with Oxfam Rob was made redundant and felt bereft. He felt he had lost family, and Oxfam was a bit like a religion to him and its values, mission were his.

It took a lot of self-examination and support from a skilled coach for Rob to work out that he was separate from the organisation. Over time he was able to see that his drivers of equality, fairness, hard work and teamwork had been shaped by Oxfam, but also by his parents, the Labour party, and other influencers during my life. It also began to free him up to see how he could use those values in other organisations.

Rob said, “This was a turning point for me.” Instead of the mindset of leaving Oxfam he began to look at moving towards another organisation. Another charity that could benefit from his skills and experience as well as looking for a new place to develop. The disaster of redundancy with Oxfam turned into a happy ten years as CEO of Focus Birmingham.

3. Examine your strengths
From your experiences at work and within life what are your strengths? If you can’t articulate them now ask the people who you trust to give their view of your skills.

It is a start.

Then, coldly examine how you have used those strengths and start to list examples. Your organisational skills might have been most tested being a wedding planner for a best friend as well as project organising at work. When we coach clients, they can be dismissive of their own strengths because it comes easy to them. This is precisely why you need to catch them and start to evidence them in preparation for the next job interview.

To take it a step further look at how you might increase these skills. This might mean training, reading, volunteering or something else.

When you are looking for your next role that fits your purpose and uses your strengths organisations respond well to candidates who are actively looking to continuously develop. You know change is the only constant, your experience of redundancy might be the change you needed.

building your cv and interview technique

We train individuals to identify their strengths and “show case” them with real examples which in turn will improve both their CV’s and interview performance. At interview we often recommend using the STAR technique to answer some question.

Situation
Task
Action
Result

For example, if an interview panel ask, “what are you most proud of achieving in a work context” the danger is that you waffle and confuse the panel. By using STAR, you can succinctly describe the key aspects of your answer.

Situation. For example: I was leading a team of volunteers to ......

Task we had to recruit another 10 volunteers in the next 30 days.

Action I led the team to do a. b. and c.

Result and we recruited 12 new volunteers that helped us succeed in the task.

And for a bonus point tell them what you learnt from that situation so that you would do it even better the next time!

Last words
Redundancy feels awful. The impact on the individual can be devastating. Most of us find a way to survive. We can look back at redundancy and see it as an opportunity to re-evaluate our lives, our careers and move to a better path.

Eight years ago, Rob was made redundant from a senior role at Sense. The worries of paying the mortgage, the loss of status and bruises to his ego were enormous. But this led him to take up the risky option of becoming a self-employed coach and trainer. Now looking back redundancy was a blessing he felt he needed to help fulfil one of his ambitions.

We hope the same for you.

About the authors
Rob Legge is an ex-senior manager at a range of National and Regional Charities. He is now a qualified coach and trainer and a leadership trainer for BVSC.

Dan O’Driscoll is an Executive Coach and Third Sector consultant at Engagement Consultancy. Dan has previously worked in senior leadership roles at Oxfam, University of Birmingham and The Royal Bank of Scotland.

Could career coaching help you through redundancy?

1/10/2020

This is a blog we hoped we wouldn’t have to write. Unfortunately the reality of restructures and redundancies across the third sector warrants focused advice and support for charities. We want to give some practical help and support to individuals who are affected by a change process.

The impact of Covid-19 has been devastating and it’s been especially felt by charities. Fundraising income has been severely affected which has bought expenditure into sharp focus. Support has been provided by Government, with £750 million in funding for frontline charities, but that hasn’t gone far enough to prevent really difficult restructuring and redundancy decisions.

a change process can be hard

In normal times change processes can be difficult. But the added pressure of not being able to interact with colleagues face to face, being on furlough, or having to write a counter proposal remotely, can make that process feel even harder. Understanding that you’ll go through a change cycle can be really helpful in managing your emotions and getting focused on what you can do and taking control of the situation.

Image credit – cleverism.com/understanding-kubler-ross-change-curve/Image credit – cleverism.com/understanding-kubler-ross-change-curve/

what can i do that's practical?

1. Understand your financial situation
Use expertise that is available. Money Saving Expert has some excellent resources to support you in good financial planning. They have created new materials and advice for people who are going through a change process during Covid-19. It is no good ignoring the possibility that you might lose your job. If you already have a plan review it and strengthen it.

2. Revise your CV
Update your CV and get someone from outside your organisation to cast a critical eye over it. Often, we use our current organisation’s technical terms that makes little sense to another charity and certainly not to other sectors. Make sure yours is jargon free and that your skills and experience show how they can be transferred to other roles. There are also new websites to help support you in finding a new job, such as Job Help.

3. Prepare for internal interviews
Engage in your organisation’s redundancy process. You should be given an opportunity to apply for newly created jobs. Internal interviews are challenging, and you need to treat it as the formal process just as you would if you were being recruited by a new organisation. Assume the interviewing panel have no knowledge of your skills and experience apart from the application form or resume you provide.

We suggest an effective way to respond to interview questions is the STAR process. This allows you to give responses without waffling.
S – what is the situation?
T – is the task that you completed.
A – what action did you take?
R - demonstrates the results you achieved.

4. Advice and help for the staff affected
Charites can also supply quality support to the staff concerned so that they can better understand the impact of the change upon them and develop coping strategies. They can also prepare them for any internal applications and deliver interview and career coaching.

use specialists to support those threatened with redundancy

Sometimes this service can be delivered more effectively by a team independent of the charity’s management or HR function. Bringing in specialist experts who can create rapport with the staff as well as deliver timely support is critical. Career coaching can be an affective way to support staff affected by redundancy through this process.

Experienced third sector coaches like myself and Dan O’Driscoll deliver this targeted training and advice to affected staff of national and local charities. If you would like a discussion about our services, please contact either of us for more information.

how to work from home.... successfully

7/9/2020

My last guest blog for the BVSC tackled the tricky subject of working from home successfully. Unsurprisingly this is a hot topic at the moment and the number of charity staff working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic is extremely high. Prior to lockdown only a handful of charity staff would work remotely.

Below is a summary of my top strategies for successful homeworking. You can read the full article on the BVSC website here.

You may find this article published by MindGenius about Homeschooling and Homeworking another useful source of insight.

Homeworking & Homeschooling in COVID-19 by Brad Egeland

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