A ‘tonic’ for the times Collaborative, social (group) practice

WE NEED CLOSE ENGAGEMENT TO BE FULLY EFFECTIVE WORKPLACE

No workplace needs a ‘tonic’ more than those in the aged care sector—and it begins with building supportive relationships between team members.

Social relationships at work play a fundamental role for individuals, workgroups and organisations.

Research has shown when people build and sustain trust with colleagues and communicate openly, collaboratively and supportively, they experience a boost to their resilience and level of engagement, to the quality of their relationships and to their wellbeing. Moreover, satisfaction and performance are also enhanced.

How the ‘tonic’ works

People benefit from belonging to and participating in social groups that confirm their sense of self-worth, security and trust in others.

The ‘tonic’ organically emerges as workgroups set aside a few minutes at their regular meetings to reflect on how things are going in achieving their ideal workplace—sharing confidently, openly and honestly about how they are working together and how they can improve things.

In this safe, trust-based environment everyone is encouraged and supported to bring all of themselves—to give of their best selves, their skills, passions, experience, insights, wisdom, intuition, sense of humour and fun—to the workplace and to support their colleagues.

Individuals feel good about themselves—proud to be part of an effective, respected, collaborating, high performing team. This positive mood is catching—the group feels good and positive, too.

This is the ‘tonic’.

The active ingredients of the ‘tonic’

If you could see a list of active ingredients’ on the label of this ‘tonic’, you would see concepts like empowered self-regulating group processes, reflective conversation, straight-talk, authentic behaviour and voice—the very ingredients found in high performing teams.

New staff quickly get to know, strike relationships and positive communications with their colleagues, and vice versa. They contribute quickly and openly to the workplace; they feel listened to, respected, valued and heard.

These dynamics work together to generate something like a steady drip-feed of positive energy—like adrenaline—into the workplace.

The answer to an agile workplace

Having established social or group practice also lays the foundations for effectively managing future waves of change

and challenges, creating and bringing to life their organisation’s desired future.

With implementation of the recommendations of the Royal Commission, and an altered post-COVID-19 workplace, a high performing and cohesive team will support the inevitable challenges that lay ahead.

Not just a theory, it works in practice

Corumbene Care, a leading aged care operator that has embraced and instilled ‘Collaborative Social (Group) Practice’ into its organisation, has shared some key insights. Following are some comments from their team.

“Getting the breadth and depth of experiences in a 24/7 business is never easy, but we recognised this was required to ensure the outcome was going to have a long-term positive impact. By adding ‘toolbox’ meetings to our existing communications, team and departmental meetings, we were able to get the results we were after. “The intervention has given us permission to call out those behaviours which are not consistent with our values. The conversations are generally at a level outside performance management, but just as powerful.

“Equally, each one of us now has permission to highlight and celebrate stories of behaviours that align with our core values. One of our initiatives was to provide staff with gift vouchers that they could share with anyone that reflected these values through their behaviours.

“This was a simple process, to support acknowledgement at the source, at the time. The gift vouchers identified which value was being celebrated and could be redeemed at many of our local coffee shops.

“This took time, but we are incredibly pleased with the results.”

Graham Gourlay is Affiliate, WLF Consulting, Gil Sawford is Director, WLF Consulting, and Damien Jacobs is CEO, Corumbene Care. For more information visit www.wlf.com.au