Most organizations have a big lack of care and love. People are so focused on productivity, project delivery and just the business side of things that we forget the human side of work. If we don’t figure out how to really prioritize our work relationships, it can create a very oppressive environment.
In many organizations, caregiving is either concentrated with the HR department or with a handful of few mentors, who are considered experienced in “caring” for people according to some criteria. Some companies bring in external people like psychologists or labor care specialists to talk to people who are experiencing very high levels of stress.
But, having just a few people to systematically promote this caring is not ideal. What if these people move to another department or leave the organization? Then, there’s a gap in the caregiving that can’t be immediately bridged. Instead, when you use the peer-to-peer stewardship approach, you distribute that power and responsibility to care for each other throughout the organization.
While it is tempting to mandate this across the organization, it is better to leave it voluntary.
In a company of 100 employees, only 20 may be interested in this. Over time, when people start sharing positively, there is likely to be a new wave of people joining the program. But if it comes as a top-down program, the 80 people who didn’t want to join in wouldn’t be very good caregivers/ supporters for the other people.
Guidelines to Implement
Make all work visible: Share with people what you’re doing, what your needs are and how your projects are going. When you make your work visible to others, they are likely to understand what exactly you’re doing, your involvement and what are the difficulties and struggles you’re facing in executing your work. In self-managed teams, this can form part of the team rhythm of daily meetings or weekly sprints.
Create spaces for peer-to-peer support: It can be in pairs, or a mentor-mentee approach – there are many formats you can put in place. The basic assumption that underpins all of it is that people should be supported in their needs. This is not only in an operational sense but in a more holistic sense of offering support. By doing so, real and trustful relationships between peers and colleagues can develop. It is absolutely essential in self-managed teams, as lot more doubts are likely to be raised and there will be greater need for alignment.
Agree on the minimum time of stewardship: It takes time to build trust and a relationship. It depends on the team how they want to organize this caregiving system but it is important to have a minimum of at least 3 to 6 months. Depending on the length of the program designed, have regular touch-points (like once a month or weekly) to discuss things. Develop a rhythm where people can touch base often to discuss their needs and so that support is available on an ongoing basis.
Create a common language: Promote a basic understanding on offering care: Stewardship principles rely on asking the right questions and offering support when it’s needed. Instead of telling people what they did wrong or that they should have done it in a certain way, it’s more about asking guiding questions. It’s important to help people understand the thin line between being opinionated and neutral. If not, it can become people telling others what they should do and how they should do it.