Team size and structure matter. Smaller teams (e.g., 5–10 members) tend to be more successful as the group size fosters trust, agility, and meaningful engagement. Coordination costs rapidly add up in purpose driven groups and can easily hinder progress. Larger teams may benefit from subcommittees to maintain focus. Consider the following:
Team model
There is no one standard for the model (i.e. independent contractors, employees, volunteers receiving honoraria, etc.) your organization chooses. However, the EST recommends the use of an employee model for teams that intend to work together long term for several key reasons.
- Equity: Hiring people with lived experience makes a statement on your organization’s commitment to equity. This step is somewhat protective against inadvertent tokenization or perpetuation of power imbalances.
- Labour protections: Employees are subject to significantly more protections under the law than volunteers or independent contractors. Protections around termination, payment, work hours, etc. give all parties a clear and ethical framework to work with.
- Clearer payment parameters: As employees, team members are always clear on their status regarding taxes, vacation pay out, payroll deposits, etc. This allows us to easily model our respect for lived experts’ contributions and ensure fair compensation.
Workplace Setting
When we began early research on building our team, we found a lot of excellent advice regarding meeting venues. Accessible locations (both geographically and physically), thoughtful guidance on transportation to and from the meetings, time of day to meet, ensuring snacks and beverages are available during meetings, etc. While there are benefits to face-to-face meetings, this guidance was difficult to implement for the Alliance at the time. As a fully remote team with no physical location, during the COVID-19 pandemic, physical meetings were a real challenge. Ultimately, we skipped them altogether.
Due to COVID-19 lockdowns, the EST did not have their first in person meeting until they had already worked together for more than two years. While the world has opened back up, we have made the decision to stay remote. We do this for several key reasons:
- Remote work reduces barriers for EST members, allowing ease of access for members who have busy work schedules, young children at home, suburban or rural addresses that don’t facilitate commuting by public transit, and those with complex health needs.
- Remote work allows us to take an active role in building equitable and accessible work places. EST members are in regular contact with management from their first days with us to ensure they have the tools they need for work. As a result, we know all team members are equipped with the laptops and other tools needed to complete their work, during meeting times and beyond.
- Remote work gives us the opportunity to be intentional with the time we do spend in person. While we do often go into the community in smaller groups to deliver workshops or work on working groups, we also make a point to ensure the team periodically meets to share a meal or plan for the year ahead.
Despite the benefits of this remote model, we have heard concerns raised over the years. These concerns often relate to a difference in opinion over what constitutes accessibility. It’s true that there is no one size fits all solution to accessibility. What works for some may not work for others. That being said, there is a degree of stigma still held in the sector about the capacity of people with lived experience to engage with systems like virtual workspaces. It is true that lived experience teams are often very diverse, with age ranges, health needs, and tech familiarity levels that represent a broad range of experiences. It is also true that people with lived experience of homelessness, like anyone else, are entirely capable of learning new and potentially complicated skills. In addition to providing tangible tools like laptops, we also make a point of asking EST members about their familiarity with Google Workplace platforms at hiring, and we include how-to guides as part of our onboarding package. As a result, all members of the EST, regardless of previous familiarity with online tools, have rapidly adapted and have had no difficulties managing these tools. It is always essential that we not assume the needs or capabilities of our staff, and this area is no exception.
If you are, for instance, a large organization with a central location, some amount of in-person work would likely be helpful. However, we would recommend that you stay intentional about use of time and space. Meetings that can be held virtually can be much more accessible for staff who are left to juggle travel, family care, and other barriers to physical attendance. EST meetings have very high attendance, and the team experiences very little staff turnover. Part of this is due to the low barriers to participation we offer.
Decision-making and conflict resolution
While other-ing team members with lived experience is harmful, it can be equally harmful to overlook power imbalances at play. Successful teams must develop an intentional process for group decision making that prioritizes both staff autonomy and organizational mission.
Fear of interpersonal conflict is one of the key worries we hear when working with groups interested in creating a lived experience engagement strategy. It’s important to recognize that some of these fears may be rooted in subconscious stigma and bias. The EST has seen very little workplace conflict, and team members credit this to a few key preventative factors:
- Sense of ownership in the work
- Intentional hiring and onboarding practices
- Supportive supervisors
- Open communication
- A sense of being valued and heard
While interpersonal conflict is very rare, healthy disagreements do happen. We plan ahead for disagreements, setting standards for conflict resolution practices early and affirming their utility often. These include:
- A commitment to assuming good intent
- A commitment to let expertise guide decision making
- Acceptance of a consensus protocol to be used when informal discussions are insufficient*
- An orientation for new members that includes how conflict can be healthy, and what “Calling out” and “Calling In” mean.