Creating a well-being plan for your team.
Last month we took a closer look at well-being, what it is and the things you should be considering as a leader to enable a culture of positive well-being.
This month, we’re taking a very practical look at how you can create a well-being plan that will positively impact your team all year round.
You’ll find an Activity Sheet for each step to help you capture the stages of developing your team’s Well-being Plan.
Step 1 - Set the scene for the team.
Sharing why you want to pay attention to the team’s well-being is important. Take some time to consider why this is important to you and the best way for you to share this with the team.
This is about how you want to help them to be at their best individually and as a team.
This is a great opportunity to start getting their input into how they feel about developing a team well-being plan and what the priorities are for them.
Step 2 - Start engaging the team to explore the priorities for the plan.
This is where conversations, individually and as a group, will be important. Areas to consider:
·What is/isn’t contributing positively to their well-being in general?
What is/isn’t contributing positively to their well-being at work?
This is a good time to introduce the 5 Ways to Wellbeing to help their thinking.
Step 3 - Help them explore their personal well-being priorities.
This is important as it may impact their views on the team plan.
Establishing colleagues’ personal priorities can help to avoid or at least be conscious of conflicts with the team plan, so they can then be discussed and potentially mitigated.
You could use one of your 1:1 sessions to cover this, as well-being is the first stage of a brilliant performance conversation.
Step 4 – Start drafting the goals for your team’s well-being plan.
Start identifying the aims of the plan within the team.
This will help to set the direction for ways of working or activities you want to incorporate into your plan.
This could look like this:
Goal 1 – To work in a way that enables personal and team wellness.
Goal 2 – We create opportunities for deeper collaboration and connection.
Goal 3 – We’ll practice an attitude of gratitude.
You can have as few or as many goals as you want, but remember, each goal will likely result in several actions or activities, so I’d limit it to 3-5.
Ensure that you don’t forget to identify measures of success so that you can benchmark your progress.
Step 5 – Time to reflect.
Give the team some time to reflect on the goals informally and personally.
Get them talking, sharing, and thinking about what would happen to achieve the goal. This could be maintaining or enhancing something already working well or starting some new habits.
Step 6 – Identifying what’s going to achieve the goals.
Now get into the details. Start to put in place the things needed to enable these goals. This could be mindsets, behaviours, actions, or activities.
It’s important to discuss what this looks like and how it will be achieved. This is about collectively committing to working in a way you’ve identified as important for the team’s well-being.
This could look like this:
Goal 1 – To work in a way that enables personal and team wellness.
We work flexibly to meet our personal needs, but we have core times between 10-12 and 2-4 to ensure we can connect.
We’ll call out for support when our workloads are driving long hours (or will predict it will) so we can identify how to resolve it proactively.
Goal 2 – We create opportunities for deeper collaboration and connection.
We’ll choose one day a month to work together collaboratively, and we’ll base ourselves somewhere to be able to enjoy an activity and lunch together.
Goal 3 – We’ll practice an attitude of gratitude.
We commit to celebrating at least one person or group each week, either in person or on a group call.
We’ll collate our monthly “wall of gratitude”, so we’ll capture all the brilliant things we’ve achieved – all of them!
Step 7 – Identify the specific actions and who’s doing what.
This must live and breathe and be part of how your team works. You will ultimately be accountable for this plan, but it doesn’t mean you have to be responsible for doing all the actions.
Actively involve the team in making the plan happen.
For example:
We’ll choose one day a month to work together collaboratively, and we’ll base ourselves somewhere to be able to enjoy an activity and lunch together.
Create a rota to arrange the venue and choose an activity and lunch venue.
Step 8 – Gaining commitment for the team plan.
This is crucial.
The plan will be meaningless if you aren’t all committed to it, and it will be detrimental to everyone if the commitment isn’t there, especially from you.
After completing Step 7, give the team time to go away and reflect on what you’ve all put together.
This is an excellent opportunity for them to reflect on their personal well-being priorities and identify any conflicts. Check-in with them personally on how they have developed this team plan and check if there are any personal conflicts.
Get the details finalised and bring the team back together to discuss:
How you’ll all make it work?
What additional support is needed?
How you’ll handle issues of conflict with the plan?
How you’ll handle, in a supportive way, colleagues who aren’t actively supporting or engaging with the team plan?
Be open with the team about what you need from them beyond committing to the plan. You need them to call out when they don’t think you are acting in a way which supports the plan. You need to emphasise you want them to do this, and if you have a preferred way for them to tell you, then share it.
When you get the feedback, show them you are open to it and willing to act on it. This builds trust and is a key step for the positive well-being environment you want to create.
Step 9 – Start actively engaging with the actions and activities of your plan.
Agree to start implementing the plan. Why not have a ‘practice or test’ phase to resolve any bumps or issues.
Within a few weeks, if everyone is actively engaged, you should begin to feel the benefits of the well-being plan.
Step 10 – Integrate it and review it.
Make the new habits stick by factoring them into your normal routines and keep things under review.
Remember to reflect on the successes and what’s working. Those that are working will become embedded as part of the way your team works.
If this is the case, where can you move to next? Is there a further step change to be achieved?
Those 10 Steps will set you up for a more focused approach to well-being across your team on a personal and group basis.
However, the plan needs to operate in an environment that fosters positive well-being. So, go back and consider what you’ve created here with the thoughts and actions you captured in the June edition.