Policy on networking / work that explores collaborations?

I’m looking for a policy/advice for developing a policy in relation to how we log hours and pay for work that we do at the edges of our direct project and organisational work, for example attending events and having conversations with people in our networks / who we know are doing similar work.

We have limited paid hours and are part of many networks - and discussions range from our interests that overlap with the work to nascent collaborations that could at some point become paid work, but it is often impossible to know that in advance. We thought there must be other small organisations in a similar situation, and would like to be able to develop a policy which is reasonable and equitable and takes into account people’s different availability (e.g. some people have other jobs or care responsibilities hence less flexibility), we also live in different cities around the UK.

My organisation is a worker co-operative producing research to further social, economic and environmental justice. Our work focuses on local democracy. We have a flat structure. We have 3 members who are all part-time workers.

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This is a really good question and not one I’ve thought about directly before, @FJ_RfA!

The times I’ve been in similar situations have usually involved some split of time on those peripheral bits of work, to acknowledge that they might end up being more or less directly relevant to the org… Another approach that comes to mind is about allocating a certain number of paid hours per year to each member of the team for those kinds of things, as they see fit, even if you know it won’t cover all of the potential time in those spaces? A gesture towards recognising that time, without blowing the budget?

But very keen to hear what others think about this, as know there are many orgs/groups where it is just not possible to resource all of those potential hours in a clearcut way.

Interested in this as well. Any progress? We currently have a policy/process to encourage networking in general – wanting to mature this so more clearly aligned to project and organizational KPIs. Happy to share what we have atm, and our learnings from it.