In our work as business psychologists we have always facilitated face to face and strengths cards have been a mainstay of our facilitation practices for many years. Using the cards as a simple prompt to help people to explore when they are at their best allows us to help our clients to build a narrative around their strengths which is both illuminating and empowering. We have always maintained that ‘being in the room’ is an important part of the learning and sharing experience.
In March 2020 everything changed; our usual ways of working were no longer valid; we couldn’t meet our clients face to face and we couldn’t help them to explore their strengths in the ways that we were used to.
Yet our clients still needed our help; mental health and wellbeing were key areas of focus for organisations as the COVID 19 pandemic started to impact.
During this session we will tell our story of how we adapted our ways of working during the pandemic and what we learned along the way. We will demonstrate the online platform we developed to help us to continue to run interactive sessions with our clients, and share case study examples of how it works in practice. We will discuss how many of our preconceptions of virtual facilitation were unproven and how we overcame challenges such as building connection and psychological safety when working online.