What are you actually doing there?
When I tell my friends and family that I am a volunteer in an organization that helps Syrian refugees, the same question always comes up. What on earth are an HR expert from a Warsaw corporation that employs 10, 000 people doing in 10-person NGO in Istanbul? The answer is simple - a lot of interesting and developing work.
It's been three months since I've been at Small Project Istanbul. This is half of my internship and a good time for a brief summary of my work so far. Can the work of an HR Expert in a small organization be interesting, necessary and developing?
Trust the expert
I came here with an action plan agreed with the director of my hosting organization before my arrival. But as it often happens, plans change. After almost two weeks of work at SPI I proposed minor improvements to my tasks. I was very pleased when I heard that I am an expert in the field and they trust my experience.
Quo vadis?
We started with a workshop with employees on the mission, vision and values of the organization. When a lot of changes happen in an organization, it is worth going back to the roots. Check which direction we are going as an organization, what is important to us and what I do in my daily work to support the foundation I work for.
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| It's easier to talk about the values of your vision and mission when you imagine that the organizations is a person |
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| To understand the organization it is good to see where I am in this organization |
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| The workshop participants could use their drawing skills |
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| ...work in teams |
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| ...and shared their ideas with colleagues |
When we recall our values, mission and vision, it is worth going down one level - to the team and asking yourself some important questions. How well do I know my team? For example, do you know who was born in what month What does team working mean for my and my team? What do I like about my team (behaviors, traditions, ceremonies)? Why do we like being and working together? What would you like to start, stop or continue doing as a team? And build a contract together, thanks to which we will cooperate een better.
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| They talked about what they like about their team |
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| and shared their they view with the rest |
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| They pointed out what they want to stop, start and continue doing |
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| and they decided about priorities |
How am I feeling?
During our worksop on mission vision and values we focused more on the organization. The next workshop was focused more on people. If the organization changes it also affects people. What does change do to us? What emotions can it cause? What can we do to deal with the change individually and as a team? How we could be the source of inspiration, motivation, peace and stability for us. It was definitely one of the more difficult workshops - about emotions, feelings about the atmosphere in the team.
What am I doing here?
When we already know in which direction the organization is going, what it does on a daily basis, what values are important, how I support the organization, and how we are working as a team, it is worth describing your position and tasks in detail. Each employee has prepared a job description for his or her role. It was not an easy task. It's a bit like writing a job advertisement for your own position. But the team did an excellent job describing… their job :)
Retro, weekly, monthly report
We also had the first retro meeting (short for retrospective) - a monthly team meeting designed to:
check what happened in the last month and to identify elements that have worked well and those that qualify for improvement. This meeting is a form of feedback session. An ideal moment to celebrate our achievements and the opportunity to express appreciation for your colleagues and the entire team. We came back to the weekly meetings in a slightly new version and prepared a monthly report with our actions for the management board.
And lots of other stuff. And we did it all as a team in three months! What was the feedback from the team?
“I think we need to do like this workshop every time”
“It helps to understand team feelings about the change”
”activities was good and amusing, in my opinion it achieved the aims and make a friendly atmosphere between the members of team”
”It was fun”
”It’s amazing I like the way it is presented , but if the meeting time could be shorter”
”I think every time we need to remember the vision, values...
