Ways of working

The ARC aims to use a variety of ways of working to make our work as inclusive as possible:

In person – group work, meetings and events
Pros	Cons	Examples
Often more satisfying and productive (eg people often work better when in the same physical space)   Opportunity to build relationships (eg possible to have ‘social time’, 1:1 ‘refreshment time’ chats etc)   Really useful for personal support.	Can be time consuming and expensive (eg catering, travel time can be prohibitive, expenses increase eg travel, accommodation and carers costs etc)   It can be difficult for people to attend (eg some people struggle with travel, travelling for a short meeting can be difficult to justify)   May favour ‘local’ people as it is ‘cheaper’ to meet in person if no accommodation costs and limited travel costs.	We aim to meet in person once or twice a year and build in social and team building activities.   When we do meet in person we aim to make sure people are comfortable and have the space/time to ‘recharge’ their personal batteries’ as they need to.
Online – group work, meetings and events
Pros	Cons	Examples
Time and cost efficient.   Can be more accessible for some people.   Easy to involve a broader geographical area as costs are limited.   Can be a great way to offer personal support in a more cost and time efficient way.	Can be more challenging for some people eg limited IT resources/ability, limited bandwidth or for other reasons.   Long online meetings can be tiring and difficult.   Can be less inclusive unless well chaired.   Papers are often only provided digitally so this can be problematic eg if people only have one device or if their device is small such as a phone.	We often meet virtually for full PPI Champions meetings and for Working Groups.   We offer to post paper copies of any papers.   We make sure meetings include plenty of breaks, eg for 2 hour meetings we include a short comfort break in the middle.   For longer meetings we try to add more breaks and use different ways of working eg break out rooms, different interactive ways of collating ideas, ‘work breaks’ where people stay online but work independently for a short while.
Written – often used to review materials and documents
Pros	Cons	Examples
Allows people to work in their own time and at their own pace.   Can be more equitable as everyone has the chance to contribute.   Can be more accessible for some.	Can be very isolating.   Can be challenging for those who might lack confidence or experience.   May exclude those where English is not a first language, people with dyslexia, vision impairment, a learning disability or difficulty.	ARC annual reports or funding applications will usually be undertaken as a written task.  People get sent a document to read and review in an agreed timeframe.
Other – for example we may use telephone calls or emails
Pros	Cons	Examples
Can be useful when something needs to be done quickly.   Can provide flexibility if needs or timelines change.   Useful for day to day planning and administrative tasks.   Useful for personal support.	Similar to online and written.	The PPI Lead and Public Chair of the PPI Champions group use email, messages and calls to facilitate planning for group meetings.

To decide which method to use we consider different things including:

• Cost versus budget – we need to consider what financial resource is available. For example if resources are limited online is usually a cheaper option.
• How many people are involved – we try to think about who and how many which has a bearing on cost and practicality.  What we are trying to do also has a bearing on the decision – a lot of people on an online interactive meeting can be a challenge.
• How quickly do we need to do something – if something needs to be done quickly it might be easier to arrange a short online meeting rather than try and organise a meeting in person.
• Pragmatism – we have had all day online meetings when we want to achieve something quickly that we might usually do over a number of shorter online meetings. To do this you need to be well prepared, use different methods of interacting and allow plenty of breaks.
• What do people want to do – where possible we like to give choice about how to work but it is not always possible to meet everyone’s needs every time so we try to adapt, where we can, for individuals eg we might arrange a call with someone to go through a written document, provide written material in a different format

We don’t always know the best way to do things so we test it out and have an honest review of how it felt!