Hello everyone,
Thank you for joining us this month for another great discussion! And thank you to Lori for taking notes and writing a summary:
Initial topic: How do we manage stress and support ourselves and our colleagues?
What do we do to respond when we feel stressed?
· Regular meditation session in staff break room with colleagues, led by a trained staff member. Serves as a good mid-week reset. There are different apps that people use for individual meditation, including Headspace that has some freely available content.
· Taking a walk either with colleagues or once at home to get outside in the fresh air.
· Yoga and other types of aerobic or weight training exercises
Are there campus or organizational support structures that managers and employees can avail themselves of?
· Forming and maintaining a cohort among new hires or peers to bounce ideas off of one another or just have people to turn to on a bad day.
· Employee Assistance Program - support groups and crisis groups
Open discussion of other topics on peoples' minds:
Strategies for managing frustration we may feel as managers/leaders?
· Deciding when to bring a problem or challenge to your boss; when to address something an employee has done
· Leaning of partners, family (even kids!) or friends
Frequency of communication to all-staff
· Monthly all-staff emails with a lot of updates; efforts to surface the work of the executive leadership group
· Weekly email message to all staff
Meeting formats
· Hybrid for large meetings continues to be hard to execute well
· Lean toward in-person, some with a social/food component to encourage participation
As a reminder, you can register for our upcoming sessions here: https://ala-events.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJApc-ipqDkiG9XgOpKE8gOzJvsk7ltZGWGe#/registration. See you in October!
Lori, Erik, and Cinthya
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Cinthya Ippoliti
Auraria Library Director
University of Colorado Denver; Metropolitan State University of Denver; Community College of Denver
she/her/hers
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