Branch Tap-Ins
Brooklyn Public Library
Innovation Synopsis
Branch Tap-Ins are a response to the recent past’s toll on branch staff. Senior leaders and their teams assume a branch’s daily activities while the staff enjoy a team-building day outside the library. The branch’s staff have time to reconnect and reset while administrators gain new insights into how their work can better support operations.
Challenge/Opportunity
Branch Tap-Ins grew from a question: how can BPL proactively invest in staff through a trauma-informed lens? Staff have felt the anxiety and grief that characterize recent times. Through system closure and an incremental reopening, staff were displaced from their work locations and teammates. Staff stretched themselves to support their communities’ needs, and our culture absorbed this stress. Branch Tap-Ins were designed to reposition team engagement and reconnect staff with each other and with the institution.
Key Elements of Innovation
A new “Day of Service” model: each week, an interdepartmental mix of administrators take over a branch while its staff enjoy an offsite retreat for team building and strategic planning.
Goals:
- Support staff self-care with opportunity to disengage from daily branch life and build relationships.
- Build stronger bonds between branch staff and admin.
- Admin receive training and experience with direct public service and operations.
- Admin encounter issues firsthand and produce real solutions.
Achieved Outcomes
We’ve reached nearly half of our 60 branches so far!
Results:
- Strengthened collective culture—improved relationships between departments and between admin and branch staff, and cohesion amongst branch teams.
- Branch staff report feeling stronger and more resilient as a team.
- All teams report looking forward to Tap-Ins, providing renewed sense of mission and enthusiasm.
- Admin see community needs up close and strategize ways to support staff.
- Gratitude from public for admin support of their branch's staff.
