Staff members at One Tree Community Services are switching over to a new style of working to become self-managed teams.
80% of companies listed in the Fortune 1000 use self-managed teams as long term it increases productivity and reduces cost. Many people agree that this style of management empowers staff as it promotes decision making by employees.
The two-day course held at the Frasers, a hotel in Perth was taken by One Tree’s CEO Karri Hillier. It was an interactive course where staff were encouraged to participate in discussions. Teams were had to choose appropriate names for their different sections. Finance became ‘Money Tree’, a take on Monetary and Marcomms ‘Smarty Arty’, to name just a few.
Research has shown that self-managed teams have greater ownership of the tasks they perform and deliver a better level of service or product. One Tree’s CEO, Karri, explained that inevitably there may be minor teething problems. She outlined Bruce Tuckman’s Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing model.
Throughout the two-day course staff learned how self-managed teams would operate. Over the next few weeks, they’ll be writing the necessary policies and procedures, so they can achieve established goals. They’ll also be creating an annual schedule of events and a quality improvement plan to keep on track with their ongoing work commitments. These will all be implemented at the start of 2019.
One of the course highlights was selecting a team leader. This was done through a hands-on game and involved placing stickers on the backs of different individuals outlining their merits and attributes. Other people’s perceptions of their qualities were revealed when these stickers were peeled off and they could be seen.
Of course, we are at the beginning of a new journey and only time will tell how successful it is for our organisation. With greater freedom, teams can make decisions and act upon them and identify opportunities and solutions at a faster pace. We’re hoping it should bring huge benefits for One Tree and take full advantage of staff members talents, skills and abilities.
