In the last two articles, I’ve talked to you about how, as a community based social care or health organisation, you benefit from truly understanding the needs of your clients and having a measurable vision that puts your community at its heart.
I’ve also talked about how leadership needs to make brave decisions in order to build that clear path to success.
So right now, you’re probably asking, “Well Anna, I know our ultimate goal and I’m feeling brave, so what’s next?”.
Great question. That’s where I can help.
You’re going to need a service delivery model that will best help you achieve your vision. You need the right people who are invested, skilled and passionate about helping your community be its best.
Organisations grow and evolve over time. Sometimes those changes are responding to immediate opportunities, like available funding, and sometimes they simply happen organically, like building around the expertise of a team. But if you want to achieve your vision, then your choices need to be strategic.
I work with community based social care and health organisations to help them identify the gaps between their ideal and existing service delivery models. It sounds scary (remember when I said you need to be brave?) but it’s actually a really empowering process.
First, I listen.
I apply my scientific and academic rigour to gather stories, information and data about your clients. I learn about how you gather data and how you measure your impact. I learn how your workforce supports your clients and what resources you have to achieve your work. That all helps me to form a clear picture about who you are and what you’re good at. And more importantly, if that matches your clients’ needs.
The next important step is to involve your team in the re-design of your service delivery model. Your staff are your biggest champions to help your organisation have the impact it desires. They need to know that they are affecting change and that they have the systems, resources and time to do their work well. And that their voice will be heard.
A while ago, I worked with an organisation’s front-line staff to implement the model that they’d co-designed with me. The organisation had the courage to participate in this collaborative process which showed staff that leadership trusted and valued them. As a result, the staff members had a sense of ownership and engagement in the process. They felt they could contribute to change and improve the organisation. And in the end, everyone stayed. That organisation is now tracking their impact and finding that clients are attending their appointments more often and enjoying better health outcomes. Staff continue to feel valued and the organisation is on track to achieve its strategic goals.
You’ll notice in that story that, as well as setting up the ideal service delivery model, you also need to understand how well you are progressing towards your vision.
I help with that too.
With another client, I helped to set up monitoring systems that identified hot spots in the organisation which impacted on retention rates. With some improvements, the system was based on existing assets and I helped the team understand how they could use it to implement change. Now the organisation can improve things before they lose their valued team members.
You are the expert on your own organisation. I simply help you unpack a problem and monitor it. I coach you through to a solution and help you embed ways so that you can manage it yourself so that you don’t need me anymore.
On reflection, that’s a terrible business model!
But isn’t that what we’re all doing in our social care and health work? We’re all here to help people to be their best, to help themselves, and to live full, rich lives.
Want to chat about how to make your organisation more impactful? Jump over to Connect – UNPLEX to join our newsletter, or send us an email at hello@unplex.com.au.