By Renee Hoekstra, CVS – President, SAVE International
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! We have made it to 2021 with much optimism and hope for a prosperous and healthy new year. As we say goodbye to 2020, we have learned so much, albeit driven by the current reality, it has taught us how agile, adaptable, and innovative we truly are. Although we have had many challenges, SAVE International, our affiliates, our partners and our members have shown strength, resilience, and a powerful drive to continue to deliver VALUE throughout the world. We should all be proud of what we have been able to do and I believe it will transfer into amazing opportunities in the way we think, do and act.
2021 will still have its challenges, at first, but we continue to hope that we will be able to integrate all the new changes and tools we have developed with the way we have do business. We also need to continue to address how these changes affect us, physically and mentally. I believe that although we are delivering positive outcomes during our new virtual workshops and training, we need to continue to focus on how the virtual environment affects individuals’ mental health.
I want to use myself as an example. Many of you know me, I love being with and around people. I feed off the energy of each team that I work with, which allows me to stay energized. What I have noticed is, although I am able to successfully work with teams and deliver a quality workshop or training, I must dig deep to feed off my internal energies and I walk away from each endeavor emotionally drained. I am sure there are many of you who feel the same.
We are successful in this business because we completely enjoy the team environment and the personal contact. We also have clients and Subject Matter Experts that may also struggle and need help to thrive in this new environment. Let us be thinking at the beginning of this year about how we might address and continue to expand approaches and opportunities to improve our mental acuity and health. What might we do, let us consider the following:
- Continue to expand our workshops to be more days with reduced hours each day; help yourself and your team members to stay energized.
- Continue to have more breaks and ensure that a one-hour break for meals is included and encourage your participants to walk away from their computers and take a break.
- Consider smaller and more breakout opportunities to help engage participants; establish breakout rooms where individuals can meet to discuss project elements.
- Manage the size of our teams and our training classes to encourage more engagement.
- Allow some time to build your team; add in some personal activities towards the beginning of your workshops and training sessions to get to know each other and help them feel like they are part of the team, not just a voice on the line.
- Continue to encourage the use of cameras to help people see that they are a part of a team. It is also helpful for our facilitators and instructors; it is very difficult to speak to a blank screen where we cannot see our participants.
- Continue to work on your facilitation skills. Virtual workshops and training require different and a more enhanced skill set.
Our industry’s mental health is important and must be a strong consideration as we move forward and continue to improve. I am sure many of you have other tools and ideas that represent your successes. We would love to have you share them. If you have others, we would like to update our virtual protocols within SAVE. Please share them to the SAVE business office at info@value-eng.org.
Speaking of 2021, this reminds me that my Presidency will be coming to an end this June. I am amazed at how quickly the time as passed. As I had shared with you a couple of issues ago, your Board of Directors has accomplished quite a bit to improve our industry through Promotion, Advocation, Certification and Education. We continue to focus on those areas that embrace PACE. A few things that we are working on right now include:
- Rebranding and developing a professional marketing approach for SAVE.
- Continuing to offer Education and Certification opportunities in the virtual environment to support your professional goals and aspirations.
- Refocusing our promotional efforts in the right places and with the right audience.
- A new focus on delivering our Value Summit in a virtual environment as well as in person.
- A stronger engagement to truly become an international organization with U.S. roots.
- Building more alliances with other professional organizations whereby we can help each other grow, educate, and share our experiences and our tools.
Although we continue to work on these things, I do want to remind you that we are all volunteers trying to balance our professional and personal lives while still giving back to the organization that supports everything that we do. As I have mentioned on many occasions, we cannot do this alone. Again, I would like to thank all of you who have stepped up and engaged in our Tiger Teams and I want to encourage others that have not engaged, to please do so. The more help and excitement we have from our members, the more we can accomplish together.
I am curious, how many of you have considered running for a local Chapter Board position or on the SAVE Board? Please look for opportunities in 2021 to help us grow and succeed by volunteering to bring your energy, knowledge, and time to help SAVE become the leaders for everything VALUE.
I am so excited about what 2021 has to offer for our organization and to all our partners and members. Let us continue to reach out to one another, develop new friendships, focus on seeing each other in person at our 2021 Value Summit, and remember to Spread the Word and the Word is VM.
Wishing you all the prosperity and health for this new year!
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