My Organisation's Commitment

• Drive forward the actions and change necessary to support the Mindful Business Charter.
• Promote a culture where people can speak up early about any concerns that they might have with their wellbeing (or the wellbeing of colleagues).
• Make performance against the Mindful Business Charter / responsible business a priority standing agenda item for all client and supplier relationship review meetings.
• Ensure responsible business is included as an area of assessment during significant procurement processes.
• Once established, introduce the Mindful Business Charter to one new member every 12 months and report
  annually on your broader activity to the Mindful Business Charter community.

My Commitment

Openness & Respect

BUILDING TRUST AND EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION:

• Treating internal colleagues and external contacts with the appropriate level of respect and courtesy.
• Discussing upfront with my colleagues, clients and contacts their preferred method of communication and clarifying any relevant implications of an individual’s working patterns.
• Asking for and providing feedback to others on a regular basis.

Smart meetings and communications

ADHERING TO SMART MEETING AND COMMUNICATION GUIDANCE:

• Being respectful of others’ time by planning meetings properly (considering who needs to attend / giving appropriate notice / setting clear agendas and objectives) and avoiding last minute cancellations.
• Unless otherwise necessary, allowing people to join meetings by the method they deem suitable, providing video and call-in details as default on meeting invites to allow everyone to participate regardless of their physical location.
• Running meetings effectively, including
  (a) allowing contribution from participants regardless of location and
  (b) giving consideration to how different people process information and make decisions.
• Avoiding over-use of email and instant chat and avoiding copying people into messages that they don’t need to receive.
• Where multiple communication media are used, agreeing how each is expected to be used and allowing people to log out for periods to enable focussed attention.
• Making use of subject lines in messages and ensuring these are reflective of the message’s content.

Respecting rest periods

CONSIDERATION GIVEN TO THE NEED TO ‘SWITCH OFF’:

• Where support is required outside of someone’s core working hours, giving them options for when that could be (early morning or evening / weekend).
• When sending emails outside of business hours, being clear in the title whether it needs to be read / actioned promptly or considering sending pre-timed emails (so emails are not received late at night and at weekends).
• Including working hours / availability as part of my email signature, so people are aware of each others’ working patterns.
• Respecting people’s right to take annual leave without the expectation of them checking emails / being on call, and role modelling the same behaviour myself where possible.

Mindful delegation

IMPLEMENTING A BEST PRACTICE APPROACH TO COLLABORATION, INSTRUCTION AND DELEGATION:

• Respecting the need to provide sufficient context and information for a piece of work, ideally including the purpose and ultimate recipient.
• When instructing on a task, negotiating rather than imposing a deadline, being transparent where possible on the wider timetable, and promptly communicating timing changes which impact others.
• When being instructed on a task, being confident to flag when a deadline is unrealistic and / or unachievable.