49: Teamwork: A circle of kindness

Chorus Voices

Chorus is a team of kind, caring people. In this episode Dan Minchin and Nikki Drury explore the relationship between teamwork and kindness.

Nikki Drury, Co-designer for the Chorus Fresh Approach project, has looked at how we can be kind and relational at work. Building supportive teams that can share ideas, work through challenges and have difficult conversations helps teams flourish.

But there are barriers to relational work such as time as funding.

“Sometimes having a cup of tea and a chat is much more valuable to a person than making sure the bed linen is changed,” says Nikki.

Support workers in the community can be quite isolated and Nikki outlines the importance of debriefing with their team. Getting together. Having a laugh. Sharing the challenging moments.

“Even, on paper, a fairly simple task like helping someone with the shower, if their context is so really difficult, that could be a really tough day for a Chorus support worker,” says Dan.

The Fresh Approach team ran experiments by creating “huddles” – virtual and real – to support strong relationships.

“Some people might be a little more shy and fall through the cracks in bigger groups of people,” said Nikki. “Having that contact with their peers was a really big win for a lot of people.”

Some of the people in the huddle experiment share their experiences.

“The hypothesis is that if we could make this a really routine way of working… customers’ experience and support would be enhanced, and that's probably something we need to get into thinking about,” says Dan.

Chorus is working towards making relational work commonplace - being kind, not saying yes to everything and managing boundaries.

“It's really brave of Chorus and us as a collective to make that decision that actually we want to shift back to the reason why we love to do this work and the reason why customers love us to be doing it,” says Nikki.

Credits

Podcast Hosts: Dan Minchin and Nikki Drury

Opening Voiceover: Ryan Burke

Opening Music: “Wattlebird” by Dylan Hatton Music

Producer: Judith Hatton

Audio editing: Matthew Clark

Special Thanks To:

Julie Briggs - Customer Contact administration

Angela Johns - NDIS Support Co-Ordinator

Stephen Hill – Support Worker Gardening and Home Maintenance

Coffee Cart Host

Jane Wittenoom - Fresh Approach Co-Lead

Jethro Sercombe - Fresh Approach Design Facilitator