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We recommend viewing the videoindividually prior to the meeting or as a team.

Reflect on current practices that are working well and those to stop or improve for you and as a team.

For areas of improvement:

• Focus on moving forward and not on the past
• Offer constructive suggestions for improvement
• Discuss ideas, not individuals
• Give everyone the chance to contribute

This step is a brainstorm session to put as many words as possible that represent work-life balance. Take 2-3 minutes for the group to share their suggestions and reflections on these three questions:

• What current practices are working well that support work-life balance?
• What current practices do we stop or improve?
• What does life-work harmony mean to you? 

If you are conducting a virtual meeting, you can use Microsoft Teams to easily create a Word Cloud:

1. Create a meeting in your Outlook calendar
2. Go to your Teams Calendar, expand the meeting invite to full screen
3. Click the + sign, which is located on at top next to Q&A
4. From there, add the ‘Forms’ app and save
5. Click on the 'Polls' tab and choose the option ‘New Poll’
6. Then select 'Word Cloud' and write in your questions

You can get your team going by these examples: Flexibility, Kindness, Time Blocking, Clear Boundaries.

Once the Word Cloud is completed, come up with specific actions that would positively demonstrate each word. Be practical and reasonable. Have a least one action for each word.

Here are some examples:

• Flexibility: covering for each other when possible
• Kindness: offering to help when someone is struggling to meet a deadline
• Time Blocking: collectively blocking time to reduce interruptions
• Clear Boundaries: altering those about focused time and when they will get a response

When developing your plan, each action should be: 

• Observable: must be able to see or hear it
• Measurable: to which extent it makes a positive difference
• Reasonable: managers need to have the time and resources to do it and must be reasonable for staff and faculty.
• Relevant: make sense and everyone can adopt it

Also consider if the ideas need approval from senior management, need funding you don’t already have, contravene a collective agreement, policy, or contract. 

First, identify the current practices to continue before moving into action. Whether it`s adjusting or stopping a current practice that impedes on work-life balance or a new action, we recommend thinking critically about these actions. Depending on your group size, we suggest groups of 3-4 to allow small group discussion either at a table or in an online breakout room. See bottom of page for instructions on setting up breakout rooms.   

Preferred 3 actions: 

1.  __________________________
2.  __________________________
3.  __________________________

Once those 3 actions have been decided, look for a quick win to start. Have the group vote for the one action you want your leader/team to take. We recommend the criteria be:

• Be low cost or no cost
• Is relatively easy for the leader/team to adopt now
• Doesn’t violate any �����Ƶ policies or contracts
• Has the impact you want to have on life-work harmony 

Remember, the other ideas can also be considered later by your manager/team! 

Breakout Room Instructions

1. Create a meeting in your Outlook calendar
2. Go to your Teams Calendar, expand the meeting invite to full screen
3. Go to Breakout rooms and select Create rooms
4. From the dropdown, choose how many rooms you'd like to create
5. Select Assign participants and choose whether you'd like staff and faculty to be assigned to rooms Automatically or Manually
6. As soon as the meeting starts, you can open the breakout rooms

What potential challenges to adopting this action and how might we deal with that? Your current task is to brainstorm potential challenges before they arise. Remember to stay away from discussing individuals or personalities. Your task is to come up with constructive and helpful ideas to support the success of the action.