This article will help you understand what to do after you have had your team well-being retro
This article will help you understand what to do after you have had your team well-being retro. Guidelines for conducting your team-well being retro are available on Quan.
We hope you are starting to see why Quan is a well-being journey, and not a silver bullet - quite frankly, those don’t exist. Quan provides you with a structured way to run quarterly check-ins with yourself and your team, and to influence, measure and track well-being.
Once you have discussed the team’s well-being results together, you should have a list of possible actions to improve well-being that your team can work on. Choose one and implement it for the remainder of your current cycle!
Is your action point within your influence as a Team Lead?
Some of these actions are probably within your influence as a Team Lead, such as establishing team rituals, feedback loops, or providing clarity about projects. Once you and your team agree that your action point falls directly under your team’s sphere of influence, then go ahead and do it!
In your next Quan cycle, you will all repeat the assessment and can see how your team’s action point has influenced the team’s well-being. We advise you stick with it until your next team well-being retro. As a team, you can choose to make some small adjustments, but don’t stray too far from the agreed upon idea. It can take time to see the effects from your action point.
Plus, choosing a bunch of different action points for this first cycle will make it harder for you and your team to understand how the changes you make together impact your team’s well-being. Our experience has shown us that, while it may feel like you could do more, it’s very useful for teams to experience linking their action point to their future well-being results.
And lastly, we know you’re busy with work, and Quan wants to respect that you and your team can’t spend all your time thinking about well-being. In your next cycle you’ll have a new opportunity to decide if you want to continue in the same direction, or come up with something new. Your next cycle will come faster than you think!
Is your action point outside your influence as a Team Lead?
You might have found in the team well-being retro that your team is being negatively influenced by things outside of your control. While you might not be able to provide a solution directly, now is the time for you, as Team Lead, to raise this concern and ask for relevant help from either inside your organization - HR, L&D, EAP - or from outside your organization.
Don’t try to become a mental health expert. As a leader, it can be very tempting to take responsibility for, and ownership of, your team's well-being. You may feel a strong urge to fix things.
In reality, the most helpful thing to do is to include the team in problem-solving. Explore the problem areas that have arisen, and identify which one they believe would make the biggest difference to their well-being if addressed.
If a problem is too subject-specific, look for options or current initiatives your company already provides, and guide your people there. If your organization offers any well-being interventions, they will be linked to the Quan platform and available in your team Path.
If your company doesn’t have any well-being interventions yet, but there is a team budget you control, use your team’s results to guide you. Focus on the lowest scoring sub-dimensions, or the area identified as being the most urgent by the team during your Team well-being retro and brainstorm ways you can dedicate some budget to at least one of them.
Whether it’s a meditation or mindfulness app, inviting a sleep expert to give a talk, or providing more healthy food in the office, you can identify and implement at least one new intervention for your team. Then, you can measure its impact in your next well-being cycle and start building a case for actionable change within your organization (or more team budget).