10 top tips for post lockdown facilitation
Last Friday I was lucky enough to run my first face-to-face workshop since March 2020. A whole six months of staring at a screen, wrangling zoom, and trying to bring the fun and energy all while wearing my slippers. I was quite apprehensive at the idea of moving back into a room with multiple participants I've never met and using tools that will have to be changed and adjusted. All the while fundamentally building a new understanding of what it means to bring a team together but keeping them apart or at least socially distanced. I have had a lot of questions about how I went about the event and how it felt so I thought I would answer some of them here in my top 10 tips, thoughts, and idea for returning to face-to-face.
Be the role model in the room, as the facilitator people take cues from you on everything from energy to etiquette. Make a point of sanitising your hands, verbally cue you looking for your allocated pen and remind people to maintain distance when they start to forget. They may sound like small things but the basics are the first thing to slip when the person at the front isn’t following them.
It's not the same I don't know about you but I've been dreaming about getting back in front of group participants for months; to be able to see facial expressions, read body language and not have to dive around zoom breakout rooms terrified of accidentally ending a whole meeting (only did this once!). While some of this was true and I did get to do, there is a real challenge facing facilitators that are trying to bring groups and teams that have been apart for so long back together while maintaining social distancing rules.
The fatigue is real having spent months delivering sessions of two or three hours with plenty of breaks, going back to running a 9-to-5 session was exhausting, not just for the participants but for me too. Practically my stamina and energy to stand all day is completely depleted, added to that the energy it takes to deliver and stay focused, I snacked hard and was glad to have brought an energy drink, snacks and been kind enough to myself to wear trainers.
You can still have fun, while some of our go-to energisers, icebreakers and games might not be Covid safe in this new world there are many other games and activities you can play that keep social distancing rules while also bringing fun and energy into the space. A favourite one from Friday was making paper airplanes and seeing who could shoot them the furthest.
Be prepared I know this is a mantra for every facilitator anyway but going back to something you've done 100 times before with a whole new set of rules means being prepared for all those things that could go wrong. For me preparing meant sanitising pens, creating packs for each participant, managing how these will be distributed and collected back in all in a secure manner.
Risk assessments for everyone They might be boring but are important. It is likely your client will already have a Covid policy, make sure you ask to see it and know what thing they are implementing to stay safe. If you are using an external venue make sure you have a copy of theirs too so you are following all the guidance put in place. The venue I was in provided plenty of sanitiser and wipes but I was sure to bring my own too, as per my own face to face risk assessment!
Not everyone is the same I know this sounds obvious but when you are getting back into a physical room it becomes really clear who has already decided to forget social distancing and who is still really anxious about being back at work. If you want to create a safe space for participants to be able to share and achieve the outcomes, it needs to be safe both physically and mentally. (See point 1)
Technology is still your friend I think I had grand dreams of getting back face-to-face with groups of participants and never having to look at another Zoom waiting room or manage another breakout room again. However, the reality is that's just not the case and that hybrid meetings are going to become more and more popular as we move back together, so planning needs to involve a backup plan if two of the participants suddenly need to self isolate but still want to join the meeting, or if the whole meeting needs to move online.
Getting up close and personal A question I kept coming back to was how do we share things like LEGO models which need people to really see the models up close. This just wasn’t possible with social distancing, so with a bit of creative thinking I used my iPad to join a zoom meeting with the big screen at the end of the room (see image at the bottom), people showed their models to the camera so everyone could get up close by watching the screen. This worked better than I expected and is definitely something I will repeat.
People like to talk After so long apart, people really needed longer breaks and time to get back in touch with each other. We have all lost connections during the lockdown and so ensuring you build in enough time for this at the beginning of the session is really important. No one likes organised fun (who am I kidding? I LOVE it!) but investing time in bringing people back together early will benefit your process in the long run.
And a bonus one…
Decide if YOU are ready We put a lot of work into ensuring that participants feel safe in the spaces we create and manage but we can’t do that unless we are completely comfortable in those spaces. If you aren’t sure, maybe refer to another facilitator or reach out to chat through the practicalities.
This list isn’t exhaustive and I definitely will change things for next time but happy to chat if anyone has questions or wants to work through a plan for getting back in the room.
