Community Focus - One size fits all

Managing staff well requires flexibility and consideration suggests Jo Verrent.
I bought a T-shirt last week one size fits all. Did the makers really think it was flexible enough to fit a child, an adult, someone thin, larger, small, tall? Was it some wonder-cotton, or (and I think I found this out when I tried it on at home later) simply shorthand for one size kind of fits the majority of people, although it probably wont fit any one person particularly well?

We are becoming more used to looking at audiences with different needs in relation to language, experience, behaviour, timings and content. Yet when it comes to managing staff, we often think that we only need one approach, and that this should be used across all those that we manage. Or if we do manage people differently, then it is only in relation to experience.

Have you ever asked your staff how they learn best? Whether the way you traditionally conduct appraisals suits them? If your templates for reporting constrain or enable their creativity? We know everyone is different, and yet sometimes our approach to diversity seems to be to try and make everyone the same. Lets take a small example meetings. When an individual joins an organisation, they are usually expected to fit in to the way that things are done. So if you have a standard meeting structure, it would be expected that they slot into it. But what if it doesnt work for them? Or, more likely, if its kind of ok for them, but not absolutely ideal.

As someone who is hearing impaired, meetings can be a nightmare for me, especially if they have no written agenda and are not tightly chaired. Too many times Ive found myself after meetings having apparently agreed to do something simply because I was smiling and not quite with the conversation!

Some things we cant change. We might need a consistency in writing style to maintain a coherence across an organisation, or to enable clear comparisons to be drawn between projects. But we have to think hard about when we really need to insist on there being only one way to do something, and when we just assume there is because thats the only way its been done in the past.

I suppose the question is how can we build in flexibility and also keep our systems working effectively? How can we determine what we can be flexible about, and what we cant, yet still offer people a choice about how to get involved? We also need to know what to do when the differences between the ways people work cause conflict not all needs are compatible.

At EQ we are wrestling with this at the moment. We are currently devising a pan-diversity auditing programme to support organisations in assessing their levels of practice across different areas of operation, such as governance, employment practices, and in relation to audiences and contacts. One size fits all? No. But one tool with a lot of flexibility might!

Its going to be online, so that people arent tied to specific meetings with us to be able to run it. That means it needs to be designed to work with screen-reading software, for people with visual impairments or those who just prefer to hear words rather than read them. And it needs to be able to completely disregard any sections that arent relevant to an organisation (without affecting their score). Its proving hard and causing a few sleepless nights as we grapple with the options. But, so far, we dont think its impossible.

We will be looking for arts organisations in central London to try it out soon so if you think your organisation might be interested, let us know. Maybe we can create the material that truly can say one size fits all and mean it!