HHFT Team Toolkit
The HHFT Team toolkit provides everyone in HHFT with information and resources to support, engage and motivate teams to be the best they can be.
Who is the Toolkit for?
The resources and tools may be helpful for anyone, but it’s particularly relevant for managers, supervisors, and team leaders.
How to use it
The toolkit is designed for you to pick up what you need. There are three themes depending on what you or your team need right now: Reflect, Re-form, and Refocus. Resources on relevant topics are included in each theme. Some resources include exercises or tools you can use with the team.
If you need more support
If you have already done the Team Conversation and are looking for something more, different or bespoke for your team then contact organisationaldevelopment@hhft.nhs.uk
If your team would benefit for additional support, the Team Care Space service is available on request. The Staff Wellbeing Hub can facilite online Care Spaces for teams to reflect and explore self care and wellbeing. The Spaces will be supported by a clinical psychologist or clinical supervisor and last about 45 minutes. Email the Staff Wellbeing Hub or call 01962 824119 to arrange your Care Space.
Spotlight on: Team Conversations
We've been hearing lots of positive comments from across HHFT about how the Team Conversation has helped. Have you done yours? Look at the 'Reflect' drop down for the guide.
"We all shared our personal experiences in a 'safe space'; I feel more part of the Group now."
"The session felt really good and left us with a lot of energy moving forward so I wanted to thank you for providing us with this resource."
"I found them a really helpful set of questions and produced some brilliant conversations and helped us capture the positives that came out of the last year. It also allowed us to recognise our own individual strengths and what we all bring to the service.
Team conversation
Making time to have a team conversation is a valuable way to help a team reflect and come back together. Individual experiences of the events we collectively lived through are unique and personal; teams hearing and understanding the different perspectives and feelings of their colleagues builds trust and connection between people.
Read or print the Team Conversation Guide
Print and use the Team Conversation Exercise
Hope & Gratitude
Hopeful staff and teams believe in themselves and in their abilities. But sometimes hope and optimism feels more difficult. As a manager, it may be useful to understand more about the impact of hope and optimism and take time to support your team or individuals to reflect on their mindset and gratitude to help build it up.
Read or print the Guide on hope and optimism
Read and use the Exercises on hope and gratitude
Resilience
Reflection and practice can help build resillience - it isn't something we either 'have or don't have' in us. In this guide is a number of suggestions and exercises that may be helpful for you and/or your team to look at together if you want to develop your resilience.
Read and use the Exercises on resilience
Many teams have been working differently during Covid and many staff have been working away from their normal team. As teams now come back together, resources and tools in this section are designed to help individuals and teams discuss purpose and objectives, and understand what to expect as a re-forming team.
Returning to the workplace: for shielders
Some of our colleagues have been protecting themselves and others by shielding during the past year - sometimes for short days or weeks, but sometimes for many months. As we start to see restrictions lifted, we will be welcoming shielding colleagues back to their workplace and these resources are for you to share with your shielding team members to help them prepare.
Read and share Returning to workplace guide (for shielding staff)
Read and use the Returning to the workplace checklist (for shielding staff)
Read and use the Returning to workplace guide and checklist (for managers and colleagues of shielding staff)
Team contract
A Team Contract sets out the rules and behaviours your team have agreed are important and the rules and behaviours that the team have agreed they don't want to see. It's a simple visual that a team can develop together - a team workshop or discussion session works best - and the document can be displayed and shared around your work area. It's particularly useful for teams coming back together, or who have learned something new from some change .
Read the Team Contract guide
Print and use the Team Contract template
Once your team has re-formed, you may want to use these tools to establish clear roles, prioritise what to do, and start some new check-in/check-out habits as a team. It may also be a good opportunity to use resources here on ways of working together as a team.
Team Mission & Vision
Mission & vision statements reflect how your team see’s themselves, their ambitions, as well as how they connect with the HHFT CARE values. They motivate a team towards a common goal and can help to align day to day decisions and actions within the team, as well as motivate and inspire the team to work together. It's particularly relevant to consider your team mission and vision now, as we come back together and reflect on the learnings and experiences that might help us do things differently in future.
Read and use the Mission and Vision Guide
Run a team session using the Mission and Vision exercise slide deck
There are two offfers available for Teams looking to understand their preferences and working styles more:
- Colours Discovery (more information about this below)
- MBTi Team Insights
Both options involve individual self-assessment followed by team session(s). Facilitation and delivery is available in-house, but assessments and course materials are chargeable. Please contact organisationaldevelopment@hhft.nhs.uk if you would like to enquire about either of these options.
What is Colours Discovery?
Colours discovery is a tool to help you understand your own behaviour as well as that of others. Each personality is representated by one of the following four core colours energies: red, yellow, green and blue
Why is it useful?
By understanding what each colour energy means, this will help you understand your preferred way to work and also understand why others may make different choices. Applying Insights Discovery in a team setting can help you understand your fellow team members and optimise collaboration and performance.
How do you find out what colour eneregy preference?
To find out your pereferred colour energy, you can
- Attend a colours discovery day by booking a date through Green Brain
- Complete a Discovery Profile or
- Request a member of the OD team to facilitate a session with your team
The Colours Discovery day is an interactive day to follow the steps of personal effectiveness:
Step 1 – Explore and discover your preferences and what motivates you
Step 2 – Learn how to recognise and appreciate differences between people
Step 3 – Learn how to adapt your behaviour to interact more effectively with others
Step 4 – Take action and put your learning into practice
The Insights team Wheel gives team members an opportunity to better understand the behavioural styles of their colleagues in a holistic and visual manner. It plots the wheel positions of team members showing the “big picture and overall team dynamic”, highlighting their dominant colour.
Benefits of the Team Wheel:
- Enables each team member to appreciate how their specific colour energy order sits within the team as a whole.
- Empowers team members to be more aware of and willing to contribute their unique gifts to achieve team goals.
- Provides an ‘at a glance’ view of everyone on the team, highlighting gaps or potential areas of strength and weakness.
- Explains where relationship challenges may occur in the team, ie. often between ‘opposite types’.
- Acts as a catalyst to encourage team members to get together and openly discuss how to improve the team dynamic.
- Increases team communication, collaboration and performance.
Why not print off the colours team wheel and get your team to plot where they are on the colour wheel? Please allow everyone in the team to plot themselves on the wheel and don't make any assumptions on your colleagues preferred colour energy.
