The All Staff Day was designed to:

• Respond to post-pandemic worklife challenges, including re-opening, COVID risk management, anti-masking protests, and burnout.
• Create time and space for community while building a more cohesive culture among almost 500 employees across 27 locations.
• Bring down barriers between management and staff, Central and branches, and other silos that impede collaboration.
• Expand on a previous half-day gathering; be participatory/interactive for employees.

• Keynote from Mayor Wu highlighted how BPL’s services are critical to residents.
• Every employee, from library assistants to IT to Facilities, was off-duty.
• Structure and schedule built around employee feedback.
• Employees were free to create the day they wanted – health workshops; yoga; an escape room challenge; cross-racial dialogues – or just a few minutes in a massage chair.
• A frank Q&A session with BPL’s president, David Leonard.
• High quality, diverse partners lent their expertise.

We judged the success of the day in a few ways. First, although it was a required work day, very few employees “opted out” through use of sick or personal time. Second, the overall feel of the day was extremely positive – people commented on how happy they were to be there and gave enthusiastic feedback to our presenters. Last, we sought quantitative measures through a post-event survey. 90% gave the day a positive overall rating, with 60% of respondents rating the day Very Good or Excellent.