The Small Business Health Model - A Guide to Developing and Implementing the Workplace Health System in Small Business
Appendix 5: Brainstorming
When the Small Business Health Committee is trying to generate ideas, it might like to try this approach. Sometimes, in a group, people hesitate to state ideas without backing them with logic. In brainstorming that's exactly what you don't do. You just let ideas flow without bothering to answer all the whys and wherefores.
For brainstorming to work, there are some useful guidelines:
- Appoint someone to record the ideas.
- Choose the brainstorming topic and write it on a blackboard or flip chart.
- List all ideas called out. Don't record names.
- Don't discuss, judge or evaluate the ideas at this point.
- Work within a short time limit, say five minutes.
After the ideas have been recorded, then discuss and evaluate them to determine their:
- importance
- practicality
- relationship to your objective
Sometimes the results of a Needs Assessment may not provide enough information in certain areas. For example, the results might show that 75 per cent of your small business group wants stress management. The term stress is a catch-all word for many different health-related needs. Stress to one person may mean the need for a time or money management course. Another might want a relaxation session. Still another may want a way to cope with an aging parent.
Sometimes the service providers need more information to plan health promotion activities. A reliable way to understand why stress scored high in the Needs Assessment is a Feedback Session.
Feedback Session
Gather a sample group of Needs Assessment participants and ask them to discuss stress in more depth. The Small Business Health Representatives would be asked to attend the Feedback Session.
Set specific objectives for the session, and have a good facilitator - someone who can lead discussion and make everyone feel comfortable about sharing their feelings and opinions. The group's comments can be recorded on a flip chart. Confidentiality may be important to some participants, so assure them that no names will be attached to their comments.
The facilitator should explain that participants can provide information based on their own situation or experience, or that of others (and not limited to their own workplace). It is important for them to know they are representing the small business community, not just themselves. In this way participants won't feel the information they give will be viewed as their personal history.
When dealing with complex issues (stress or environmental health, for example) it is a good idea to have an expert on hand to explain the basics of the issue and define some common terms to discuss it. By<%0> having the expert do this before discussion begins, you can eliminate confusion from different understandings among participants.
What you want to get from this session is a list of specific areas of concern regarding the issue. Using stress as an example, what does the group think are the root causes of stress? You can also learn what the group's health promotion preferences are.
You may come away from the session with ideas to approach stress problems, such as:
- a time management course held at lunchtime at the workplace;
- printed information about how certain exercise can reduce stress;
- an evening awareness session on the factors that cause stress.
What is learned should be reported to the Small Business Health Committee and the appropriate service provider to help them with health promotion planning.
The best ideas and suggestions will evolve from a free-flow discussion, but prepare a list of questions that relate to the session's objectives anyway. It takes a while for people to feel comfortable about talking freely and the questions can help prime discussion.
Personal Interviews
Personal interviews involve a Small Business Health Representative or another appropriate individual interviewing participants one-to-one, either to ask about a particular area of the Needs Assessment or to ask for more information on several sections.
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