This month we ventured into the virtual world of Zoom and hosted our first online communications workshop.
As with anything new there is always an air of trepidation, the ‘what ifs’ set in and you begin to long for the good old days of a stuffy conference room and a whiteboard! All the ground work paid off and we had a fantastic workshop!
The first group to take part in our virtual training workshop were the staff of The Grange Centre. The Grange Centre is based in Great Bookham, Surrey, supporting people with learning disabilities to enable them to lead independent lives by offering skills for life and supported living.
Individual introductions and camera adjustments aside, the Internal Communications workshop began with the purpose of teaching the group about effective communications and how to engage and inspire their internal teams. The first of several interactive parts of the session – a poll – was an icebreaker exercise to get everyone involved and thinking about the workshop ahead.
As the session progressed the group were shown how communication is more than just words by using photographic examples to demonstrate the impact of body language. The role of the organisational culture and leadership influence was discussed. Participants were also given tips on how to be ‘active listeners’, to understand the communication process and the 5 Cs of effective communication.
It was crucial to keep the group actively engaged to support peer-to-peer learning during the session. The breakout room feature was one way to achieve this. Breaking off into smaller groups, gave the group the opportunity to look deeper into the agenda topics and discover different ways to change practice.
When the session came to an end, the group were asked to note the actions they would take from the training to improve their communication with their teams and within their departments. The opportunity to voice this commitment to each other gave us confidence of the training achieving its goal.
As everyone signed off and the faces disappeared from the screens it was time to reflect on the session. All that can be said is this – the start of our virtual journey was, without doubt, a roaring success.
If you would like to find out more about our short training workshops especially designed to support businesses within the care and retirement living sector, please get in touch.
Lynden Consulting 