I work regularly with organisations like yours to help you connect with your communities and others who have a stake in your services and decisions. Whether you are legally required to seek feedback from your communities and stakeholders, or whether you do it because it's good for business, I can help you.
Some signs your organisation could use my assistance:
Engagement happens 'piecemeal'
Does it feel like there's little cohesion in how your organisation approaches its engagement with communities and stakeholders? Perhaps people inside your organisation often disagree on why, how, when and where to engage - and with whom. The 'goal posts' are always shifting. It's stressful for you and your colleagues, and it's confusing and frustrating for your communities and stakeholders.
You need an agreed approach. Find out more about my strategy and planning services.
Engagement is often a last-minute afterthought
Maybe your organisation has an agreed approach to engagement but leaders don't act on it until it's almost too late. Signs include rushed discussions about engagement when the project is already underway, or community members and stakeholders hearing about the project 'on the grapevine' before your organisation has approached them to seek their feedback. You might hear accusations that your organisation 'pays lip service' to engagement, and your reputation is badly affected. You spend time 'fire-fighting' instead of using the time to engage effectively with your communities.
You need to champion the cause for engagement in your organisation, and build people's skills. Have a look at the toolbox I can help you to develop so everyone is on board and has the skills they need.
You lack time and resources
Are you hard-pressed getting through your workload, to the point where there are some critical gaps in your engagement plans and processes? Is there a sense that things will start to fall over if you carry on like this? Check out my team support service.
What you're doing is no longer working
You've succeeded in connecting with your communities and stakeholders - but it is not running smoothly any more. Julia is available to join your team on a temporary basis to assist with planning and implementing your engagement with communities and stakeholders. She has many years of hands-on experience with a wide range of organisations.
This is when Julia can assist your organisation to take a step back, and put in place an agreed approach to community and stakeholder engagement. She will help you to pin down the fundamentals of why you engage with communities and stakeholders, and how deeply embedded they will be in your decision-making processes. The IAP2 public participation spectrum is an example of a framework that can help you agree your approach to engagement. It is good practice to engage key staff, communities leaders and stakeholders in these discussions and formalise your agreed approach in a written document.
It is then really important to champion the engagement approach in your organisation - to actively engage staff in discussing the agreed approach and how it will work in practice. See an example of how Julia worked with a client to achieve that.
Julia approaches this dilemma by asking three questions:
How strong is the project planning approach in your organisation? Is there a requirement, early in a project, to develop an engagement plan? If not, it's really important to put that step in place and for the project lead to factor in resources to develop and deliver the engagement plan.
Are staff in your organisation 'on board' with engaging communities and stakeholders? Is there a deep understanding of why it is important? Julia can help you take your staff on this journey and use practical examples to show what happens when engagement is done well.
Does your organisation support its staff to engage effectively? Do you have dedicated expert resource for engaging communities and stakeholders? Depending on your needs, this could be full-time, part-time or contract-based resource. It could mean upskilling staff who are involved with community engagement. I can help you identify how best to support engagement in your organisation.