Gabrielle Austen-Browne FRSA (she/her)

In our fast-paced world, it's so important to prioritise the work-life balance of us as individuals, as well as that of our teams. Encourage your team to disconnect, recharge, and find joy in life's simple pleasures. LEAD BY EXAMPLE- demonstrate and share/communicate how stepping back and taking time has benefited you. There are so many benefits in promoting a culture that values self-care, human connection, and being fully present. And when we approach work with a refreshed mind and spirit, we feel more fulfilled and at ease, meaning we are in a better place, where we are able to fulfil our true potential.

Embracing feedback and establishing strong feedback loops are so important to a team's success. I'd recommend leveraging multiple touchpoints to gather insights and to iterate regularly. Weekly meetings help to align everyone and address challenges, along with quarterly reviews to assess progress against SMART goals and annual meetings work well to celebrate wins and reinforce the mission. I encourage having proper debriefs and find surveys work really well to gauge team morale and identify training needs. In my experience embracing feedback creates a culture of continuous improvement, as long as we leave or ego's at the door and empower our teams to co-create solutions.

It's a good idea to work with your EDI expert to create a suite of resources that relate to the training and ensures the learning continues and is ongoing e.g.onboarding learning materials, allyship guides, supporting marginalised groups in the workplace etc.

I have found this particular method successful for involving stakeholders in the process: 1. Conduct anonymous surveys to gauge genuine team and leadership EDI sentiments, so that we can tailor workshop and delivery accordingly. 2. We assign a pre-workshop task to participants, encouraging them to gather thoughts and ideas ready to contribute to the session (so they don't feel put on the spot). 3. Incorporate activities designed to crowdsource solutions within the team, so that the team has a feeling of autonomy and ownership of plans and next steps. I feel this helps to prepare participants for the session and gives deeper insights and more nuanced perspectives.

Communicating expectations is a huge one for me working in this space, and one that often needs coaxing out by the trainer or expert. This means collaborating and communicating with the trainer to ensure that the aims, objectives, content, and discussion points are relevant, inspire growth, are impactful, and meaningful for all participants. Otherwise, workshops and training risk becoming just another checkbox exercise that fails to create true change within the team and/or company, and can be perceived as a waste of time and resources.