Team Member Maintenance Plan
A friend and colleague, @Julie Robinson, held a LinkedIn Live session, and a novel idea surfaced. It’s creating a maintenance plan for team members, akin to a car maintenance schedule, as an innovative approach to ensuring smooth operations and preventing team member burnout. (To view her live session, click here) That idea got me thinking: what might be included in such a plan? Here are my ideas:?
Regular Check-ins and Feedback. When I read about people questioning whether performance reviews should be scrapped, I absolutely advocate having regular check-ins with your team members. Regular meetings between leaders and team members (bi-weekly at most) can help address concerns, set goals, and create an open and ongoing dialog to ensure that any performance review is a “nothing new” event. You’ll have had regular discussions, so you’ll be on the same page, which makes the performance review a formality to check off on your to-do list.?
Analyze and respond to team member opinion surveys. Many organizations distribute employee opinion surveys. If not, use Survey Monkey or a similar tool to generate and distribute a survey. These surveys can be incredibly informative and valuable IF you take demonstrative action to understand and respond to any input you receive. Demonstrating that you are okay with being vulnerable and making changes to improve your standing as a leader goes a long way with team members.
Embrace flexibility whenever possible. When feasible from a business standpoint, facilitating working at home can help team members considerably. Flexible work hours are another way to reduce the pressures on people from work and home situations. Remember to address this with each team member individually. Some people can work from home easily, whereas others might not have a comfortable work environment for them to be productive from their home.
Encourage the use of vacation time and sick leave when needed. Many people don’t take their entitled vacation time, and they discuss their banked vacation days as a badge of honor. That isn’t healthy. Ongoing overtime is similar – while it might not seem so bad on any given day, a lack of time outside the office is a primary ingredient for burnout.
Recognize accomplishments. The accomplishments don’t have to be huge, nor do the awards. A thank you can energize a team member, particularly in a public setting. I seek to recognize a team member's accomplishment at every weekly meeting. It isn’t hard once you develop the habit.
Encourage people to take a course. There are many free or inexpensive ways to access education, and people appreciate the ability to expand their skills. Allow time for learning and growth. It can refresh a team member, and you’ll have access to more versatile skills.?
Get outside. Hold 1-on-1 or lunch meetings outside or on a walk. The exercise is beneficial, and the change of scenery can help generate new ideas!?
Do you have other ideas for team member maintenance plans? Please share them in a comment!
New Course
I have been so excited about the release of this course that Christina Charenkova and I have put together. AI-Powered Agile: Strategies for Modern Project Managers
Technology in the age of AI is advancing so quickly it’s hard to keep up. That’s why incorporating agile methods on a project can be so valuable in all the right ways—helping you deliver better, faster, more effective outcomes and boosting engagement across teams. In this course, instructors Bob McGannon and Christina Charenkova show you how to leverage AI and agile in tandem to address and manage agile delivery, team construction, the agile mindset, organizational structures, and successful organizational change. From requirements gathering, staffing a team, and running retrospectives, to ensuring your team has the right skill sets and collaborative tools, this course is ideal for project managers and team leaders who are interested in learning how to integrate the power of agile and AI, using AI-driven strategies for organizational change management.
Check it out! AI-Powered Agile: Strategies for Modern Project Managers
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Additional thoughts can be found in my project management and outsourcing classes on LinkedIn Learning, including:
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This article is part of Bob’s Reflections newsletter series, which discusses project management, outsourcing, and “intelligent disobedience”, a leadership approach. If you want more of this content, you can subscribe to receive notifications when a new article is posted.
Want to learn more about the topics I talk about in these newsletters? Watch my courses in the LinkedIn Learning Library or check out https://intelligentdisobedience.com/
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