The Way Back is a shared practice that cultivates meaningful connection in your organization.
Paperback format
KINDLE FORMAT
Virtual Ready
Play the video to see a virtual The Way Back live.
What is The Way Back?
What challenges can The Way Back help your organization solve...and what opportunities can it create?
In this uncertain time with physical distancing,
many people are feeling isolated, burned out, and disconnected.
The Way Back can change that.
Select each benefit to learn more.
How do you get employees to relate to company initiatives and values personally and professionally? Send them in an email? Explain them in a company-wide meeting? Ah, the dilemma.
The Way Back provides customization options to bring your values to life by incorporating them in the weekly content. This provides an organic way for employees to discuss how the company mission, goals, and values relate to them personally and professionally.
How is The Way Back different from other employee experience programs?
- It focuses on group interactions in a team setting (rather than mobile apps and other computer-based programs that employees access on their own).
- The Way Back goes beyond just disseminating company initiatives and values. Customized content unique to your organization provide a way for employees to discuss how company initiatives and values relate to them personally and professionally.
- It fosters deep, rich connections between employees, and brings a multitude of additional benefits (click here for more details).
With just a 30-minute commitment per week, The Way Back offers benefits to any organization far exceeding the minimal recurring time investment required.
Customized Books
Customization options:
If you choose to bring your values to life by having the content customized, you'll simply send your organization's mission and values, and we'll take care of the rest. The book cover will reflect your organization's branding and 12 sparks (one spark for every month) will be customized specifically for your organization.
See an example of a customized book (cover/spark) to the right. In this example, one of the guiding principles of the company (AvidXchange) is "Be passionate about customer service." The customized spark was written specifically for them, to help bring this principle to life in discussions.
Bulk order discounts:
We offer bulk discounts on orders of 20 books or more.
Free Month
Cultivate a sense of belonging and community among employees to improve workplace culture, productivity, and engagement. Sign up and you'll receive the first month of The Way Back free, instantly.
Frequently asked questions
It’s both! The Way Back explores many areas including mindfulness, self-care, leadership, being the healthiest version of yourself, developing your strengths, increasing focus, and more. With our gold and platinum book customization packages, The Way Back books can be customized to better connect employees to your organization’s mission and core values.
Me too! A few months ago, I moved my own in-person gathering to virtual. And, here’s how you can make your own gathering a great success virtually:
- Use a video conferencing tool, like Zoom. Zoom is free for up to 40 minutes.
- Although the typical limit for in-person gatherings is up to 20 people, to provide the most meaningful experience, virtual gatherings should have no more than 12 people, if possible.
- Everyone should have their own book. This ensures that each member can reflect on the day’s spark while also seeing other members clearly via video.
- Provide a quick tutorial of the conferencing tool at the beginning. Be sure to go over how to share video, options for viewing videos (gallery vs film strip), and how to raise your hand.
- Encourage members to share their video to get the most out of the gathering.
- For optimal audio, ask members to dial-in using their phone (vs using computer audio).
- Don’t start the gathering with everyone on mute. Allow for a bit of background noise. There’s nothing more awkward than someone sharing their thought with a response of stark silence. Members will want to hear others responses to their thought.
- Use the “Raise hand” feature when someone would like to share their thought. This provides a feeling of safety and comfort so the person sharing knows that they have everyone’s full attention.
Your role as a facilitator becomes even more crucial in a virtual environment. Ensure you can see every member’s video so you can quickly determine who has their hand raised (or literally raising their hand on-camera), if someone is trying to speak, but on mute, or if someone has excessive background noise and needs to be muted.
- Incorporate it with your wellness program
- Make it part of a leadership program or personal development plan
- Send a sneak peek email
- Offer refreshments
- Get it on the calendar!
No, but it is recommended to have a facilitator as it ensures the conversation flows more smoothly. However, this doesn’t have to fall on just one person. You can have several The Way Back gathering leaders that can facilitate. If a facilitator isn’t available, whoever feels most comfortable could read the week’s spark and then the group can discuss the prompt together.
This varies among organizations and depends on culture, organization/department size, and other factors. A general rule of thumb is to limit a gathering to around 20 people at in-person gatherings and 12 people at virtual gatherings. This will help ensure everyone feels comfortable sharing and has an opportunity to participate.
Yes. Many members (especially introverts) will connect more deeply by reading along in gatherings and having the sparks and kindling for reference outside the gatherings.
Most employee experience programs feature mobile apps and other computer-based programs that employees access on their own. The Way Back is the exact opposite, focusing on face-to-face interactions in a team setting. Instead of reading about company initiatives and values on your own, The Way Back creates a collaborative gathering for employees to discuss how company initiatives and values relate to them personally and professionally. This enables The Way Back to go beyond just disseminating company initiatives and values. The Way Back also fosters deep, rich connections between employees, and brings a multitude of additional benefits (click here for more details). With just a 30-minute commitment per week, The Way Back offers benefits to any organization far exceeding the minimal recurring time investment required.
Be sure to incorporate people from every department in each separate gathering. We suggest not having separate gatherings, specifically by department. For example, if you are implementing 3 separate gatherings, include folks from IT, Training, Marketing, Sustainability, Finance, etc. in each gathering. This will ensure your organization receives the benefit of breaking down interdepartmental silos while improving communication, collaboration, and productivity.
Need help implementing The Way Back? Contact us for a complimentary consultation that will allow us to get to know you, identify your current gaps, pain points, opportunities for growth, and assemble a customized plan to ensure that launching The Way Back at your organization is a brilliant success.
The Way Back fosters deep, rich connections between employees, and brings a multitude of additional benefits (click here for more details).
These benefits include:
- Bringing your values to life
- Promoting diversity and inclusion
- Creating a sense of community and belonging (especially in our current virtual environment)
- Improving communication, collaboration, and productivity
- Growing future leaders
- Integrating new hires and changing roles
With just a 30-minute commitment per week, The Way Back offers benefits to any organization far exceeding the minimal recurring time investment required.