Nicola: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Women at the Top of Telecoms and Tech, and I have the brilliant guest with me today. Uh, but firstly just to introduce myself, so I am Colaco getting used to the name now worry. So I’m Nicholas goco and I work with organizations in telecoms and tech, and I help them to recruit, retain, and develop women within their organization.

Nicola: So at the very, very top also their future talent, and that’s so they can create more safe and inclusive cultures. So working very much on gender pay gap. All those kind of big, meaty subjects. So today I’ve got someone that I, I knew in my past corporate life, um, that I think we’ve kinda followed each other online for quite a few years now.

Nicola: I’m really happy that she’s here today. So I’ve got with me today and we gonna be talking about mental health and the idea and the importance on it and rather than just talking about it, cause there is a lot of talk [00:01:00] about it in, especially since lockdown, especially what everyone’s experienced over the last few years, how the corporate world has.

Nicola: It’s obviously a huge conversation, but that’s great and there’s a lot of good intention there, but how to actually turn those words into action and make a real difference to people. Um, and normalize conversation around mental health. Cause we’re very open talking about physical health. You ask someone how they are, they might go into how they’re feeling or might be poorly, that’s all very accepted.

Nicola: But actually the moment you talk about your mental health is still a bit of a stigma. There’s still a bit of a awkwardness and almost like, how much can I say? What can I. Just to kind of normalize that conversation, because we all have physical health and mental health is just, is part of that. So actually it’s just really important and having struggled myself just with something I’m really, really passionate about.

Nicola: So we’re gonna be talking today just about how to take that well-meaning intention and actually turn it into actions and the importance of mental health in the workplace. So I think it’s gonna be a great, great episode today and lots of takeaways. So just to introduce Vicky, [00:02:00] so her day job is running her company, innovate Comms, so that provides marketing and PR.

Nicola: The innovation sector working with a great team of people and current clients range from Cisco to uk, telecoms Innovation Network amongst others. But she’s also a passionate mental health advocate on a mission to de-stigmatize mental health conditions. But she lives with an eating disorder and anxiety.

Nicola: And just really willing to share her experiences to help others and firmly believes that organizations should do their bits, support employees living with mental health challenges. So this year she’s created something called State of Us, and that’s a mental health network to educate, support and be a force to change in PR outcomes, ad marketing, which I just applaud and I think is absolutely brilliant.

Nicola: I’ll probably be a, I’ve got an idea for something different, but something similar that I’ll probably be picking our braids on. So welcome to show today, Vicky. Thank you so much for having me and like you say, it’s so nice to actually be talking together after largely following each other online for a good few years.

Nicola: Yeah, absolutely. We’ve already had a half an hour to catch up, so [00:03:00] come. So can you just share how you be, where you are today and kind the chapter that you were in in your career. Just share some the chats to where you’re, and how, how this focus on mental health and make being an advocate for mental health focus in the workplace really came.

Nicola: Yeah. And, and both my career and the drive for mental health has been absolutely driven through my own experiences with mental illness. So, um, I’d sort of spent, uh, you know, came outta university first, sort of 10 odd years of, of my career focused working in marketing roles and big corporate organizations.

Nicola: and you know, that sort of was worked pretty well for me. Seemed like a place where I was kinda happy to be around the time I got married I became quite unwell, physically and lingered.

Nicola: Bits of depression and um, as I got slightly older, that morphed more [00:04:00] into general anxiety and so I sort of took a bit of time out in the corporate world. Wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. Started into contracting was that was kinda working quite well for me. I quite enjoyed that. And then I basically took a massive decline in my mental health.

Nicola: I got diagnosed with a eating disorder in 16 and that just sort of, you know, blew my world apart, I suppose, the best way of putting it. Yeah. And actually I got to the point where I. Started my hours got put down to part-time from a work perspective. Um, and in the end I ended up, my contract actually ended up getting terminated.

Nicola: I made the decision that I was gonna start to try and recover, which was a, you know, a not an insignificant decision. And the person I was working for at the time, at the time, I was very, very upset by what she did. But I look at it now and realize she actually did it for the right reasons of saying that you need to focus on your recovery.

Nicola: You need the time and space to do. [00:05:00] I’m terminating your contract so you can do that. And I was so furious at the time because I felt, I felt like I’d been really betrayed cause work sort of felt like it was my safe space. Cause it’s where things kinda make sense. Yeah. Um, but I did, I did need that space and I took a few, probably about six, eight weeks out.

Nicola: And then I got invited back to another part of the business. It was actually the innovation team in that company and they invited me to come back and do two days a week. And that worked perfectly for me. Gave gave purpose, it gave, but also gave space recover. And then slowly but as started to improve the, to the point where I realized that actually.

Nicola: Providing marketing services to the innovation sector was quite a niche niche, but it’s a tiny little pond and I seem to be the only fish swimming in it. So innovate comms as a business kinda grew outta that, so it’s, it’s one of those things that probably would never happened.

Nicola: [00:06:00] Also became more apparent as I got better is as I started to get better, is that I started to be able to talk about sort of, I suppose my own experiences and I started to do that few or so I remember posted something on, remember, think. My God, this is terrifying. Like, do I really want to do this? Yeah.

Nicola: You know, people that I know very well and care very deeply about, were sort of saying to me like, I don’t think you should do this. This is, this is gonna backfire. And I gotta the point where I’m like, you know what? This is my truth. This is me. Yeah, absolutely. Actually, I spent a long time trying to hide it from work, and I think that it made.

Nicola: It made it harder for everybody. It made it harder for me. It made it harder for my colleagues. It made it harder for the people I was working for. I don’t think it served any of us particularly well. Yeah, and that first LinkedIn post, I can still remember the response to it, and it was unbelievable, like just the level of positive reaction, but.

Nicola: Also the number of [00:07:00] personal messages that I got sent. Really? Yeah. People who I didn’t know, I’d never met. Saying, just connected with your story and how great. Yeah. And telling me all their own stories of experiences they had and things they’ve done, people saying. You know, actually I feel confident enough to maybe have these discussions myself now and you know, that to me was such a expose bit of a gift that actually, like I’ve gone through a really, really hard period in my life and I still really struggle with it.

Nicola: But actually to a point where suddenly you can start to see you can positively help and influence other people. You know, if I’ve had to go through this horrible experience, there might least be one positive thing that can come outta it. And for me it was kinda that. And then that grew over time. It had the seed of an idea of wanting to do something.

Nicola: And I think as, as you touched on in your covid mental health focus, including people who never, ever kind of even thought about mental health. Yeah. Something I had before and I think that kinda solidified it for me, that [00:08:00] I really wanted to do something and I wanted to do more. Talk about my own experiences because actually that’s, that’s helpful.

Nicola: But we talk about it a lot more now. We do talk about it, we’re more open about it and that’s great. But actually the mental, the service, the provision of mental health services in this country is incomplete process. We all know that. And there is an element that actually talking about things more, actually what we do is we empower all these people to put their hands up and say, I need help.

Nicola: And that takes a lot of courage. And then if you then get into a situation where you’ve got ever increasing demand for a service that already is falling apart, you’re actually moving the problem a bit further down the line. Yeah. And that’s really what we wanted to do with State of Us was create something that actually, it was, was about talking, it was about sharing experiences, it was about sharing lived experiences.

Nicola: It was about kinda breaking down barriers and having those difficult conversations. But it was also about looking at what can we do on a practical level [00:09:00] to support people and not to replace professional health. Cause of course we, we couldn’t and shouldn’t and wouldn’t do. That can provide something that can either segue you and until you reach that professional help or can just be an additional support element to it.

Nicola: So yes, there’s so things that to STEM experience and then wanting me to, I suppose, finding a bit of. Biggest sense of purpose of, of feeling that actually I can contribute something to people that has the potential to be really, really positive and really impactful. And health that’s for me is creates a real positive, outta a really horrible situation.

Nicola: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I think I resonate with a lot of that. Cause I think when I was in the midst of covid struggling and I’m gonna work and everyone’s. You know, people that know you well can send somethings off. And it was actually when my, my marriage was breaking down. I was going through a separation and then ultimately a divorce, and I [00:10:00] was, I had this real high functioning anxiety of, yeah, my work, like you said, was my safe space.

Nicola: And I could go in and I could switch all that off and I could really focus. Yeah, being a very emotional person, a highly sensitive and an empath and all those things, yeah. That those emotions would ble out. So something would, wouldn’t, wouldn’t happen on a project that needed to, and it, it’s just my reaction could be out of proportion or Yeah.

Nicola: You know, if it’d been a really bad night and I came into work in the morning, it would just be out. I just really wanted to sit in the corner and get on with stuff. I didn’t wanna, you know, the huge part of me that’s an extrovert just didn’t really exist. Cause it’s like I just wanna sit here and heal and kind of process everything that happened.

Nicola: And it was only when I was sat down with my boss and I literally, I remember the conversation was just sat down, said what? What is actually going on? Well, I’ve just separated from my husband and we’re still living in the same house together. We’re going to counseling once a week and it’s just, I’m going to counseling separately as well, and it’s just my life’s just kind of falling apart.

Nicola: And then it was into the conversation power. [00:11:00] Okay, how do we help you? What do you. But it took me, I think it took me nine months to get there. Cause I didn’t know the React, what the reaction would be. Yeah. I didn’t know what support there might be. I didn’t, I didn’t know if I needed to take some time off.

Nicola: How would that work? For example, I didn’t know if I told someone, would they tell everyone else? I think, I mean, I’d like to think that that’s getting better. And actually we did some work with Colemans when we launched Data Bus, um, where we surveyed a thousand people across the marketing com and PR industry.

Nicola: And what those results showed were in some ways really hopeful and some ways. You know, quite scary. So that what they did show is that actually people are on hold, are more comfortable or confident now about putting their hand up and saying, actually this is going on and I need help. And so I’d like to think that actually perhaps.

Nicola: Compared to your own experience. Now, people wouldn’t, wouldn’t be, I mean, you know, obviously some exceptions, but you’d like to think on the holiday is improving, wouldn’t wait nine months. Where things starts to down is they’re looking at how those [00:12:00] people felt as a result of that and you had, you know, huge percentages of people, you know, over 80% of those people who put their hand up and have said that they needed.

Nicola: Who then went on to feel some degree of discrimination from Okay. Yeah. The organization, you know, that people were on the whole by vast majority, unhappy with the changes that have been made. I think this kinda show how complex this whole situation is. HR departments been bringing theirselves to work.

Nicola: That’s great and admirable. We absolutely should be doing it. But if you are asking people to do that, you have to be able to back it up with leaders who are equipped, empowered to be able to support those individuals when they do bring theirselves to work with all technical and messiness that Yeah, absolutely.

Nicola: Yeah, and I, I do think there’s something I, I love the point you made. Leaders role model what a culture is. They kind of, they bring it to life in how, what they say, what they think, what they feel, what [00:13:00] they do. And I, you know, from working predominantly in telecom and tech, you know, whether, whether we love it or it, it’s still middle-aged white men, predominantly.

Nicola: I’m not here to criticize men, you know, that’s just the state in the nation. But I just think when I see those, what models. Sharing that they’ve been on paternity leave, for example. You know, and at the most senior level it’s like, actually it’s really important to have this time, or men or women at the very top sharing mental health stories or, yeah.

Nicola: Some of the women that I’ve coached, you know, are reaching a stage where they’re going into menopause and actually them sharing and they’re driving some education around it of this is the impact on me, but I’m no less capable. But these are some of the things that might happen. Yeah, yeah. That then, you know, drives that awareness.

Nicola: I think it’s, we’re humans, so we connect free stories. So, but we also connect with both what we see and what we think and what we feel. So when I work with leaders, I love working with a person, but I also love shaping not the point of seeing their own value and worth as much as maybe they should. It’s also thinking about as a role model, what do you, [00:14:00] what do you want to role model here?

Nicola: What sort of female leader do you want to be? And if, if it’s at the moment, if we’re still working on your value of worth and you seeing all of that step into what role model do you wanna be for your team, for your peers, for your senior leaders? Yeah. Cause that will drive you on until we get to the point where you see your value of worth and that will help you step into that.

Nicola: When leaders, it’s so interesting because I think you know’s sort of mentality of. You have to lead from the front and you have to protect your team and that you know your team can’t see you being vulnerable and actually being a good leader when it comes to your team’s. I like wellbeing and, and mental health is not just about supporting them when they’re struggling, it’s about also showing a degree of vulnerability.

Nicola: Actually, you are also not super, and actually you might wanna, you know, bear your entire soul to them and there’s an interest. Discussion about, you know what, what is too, too much Vulner. Yeah, absolutely. showing that, and I think I’ve seen in the last couple of years, male and female leaders do that.

Nicola: Honesty [00:15:00] and it’s, so just to see how people react to it, I think says it all. Like, it’s so refreshing and people do respond to it. And especially what we’ve been doing looking at the kinda the com industry, it’s, it’s to your point, like we’re an industry, our storytellers like, you know, we, we, we do this and it’s important that we tell the right stories.

Nicola: And part of that is, is around openness. It’s about providing safe spaces for people to be able to talk. Lived experiences and to share. And you know, it’s one of the things that I do and I, I, I been fortunate enough to be invited into a number of organizations to talk about my own experiences. And I’ve always kinda opened the floor up to questions.

Nicola: And the same thing happens every time, which is this silence.

Nicola: Ask me something. And you can see it’s this very British thing of everyone being. I don’t wanna say the wrong thing. I don’t wanna upset her. I don’t wanna offend her in my view, and you know, everyone is different, but my take has always been, there are some hard red lines that I won’t talk about cause I don’t think it’s [00:16:00] helpful.

Nicola: But fundamentally, if you ask me a question I don’t wanna answer, ill tell you. I’m here for you asking me the kind of slightly awkward, slightly embarrassing questions because actually it’s only when you ask those things that we start to break down those barriers that we’re doing better as a society of breaking down stigma.

Nicola: But my personal experience is that. Breaking down the barrier exists very well at an abstract level, so we’ll talk at a conceptual level about mental health and how important it’s, and it should be on Paro to physical health, but when people are like smack going face to face with it, it still scares them and that’s cause scary.

Nicola: The people that I have always found. To be the most respectful and the most supportive are the people that, that don’t assume that they know it all, that don’t try and give you advice about how to fix you. The, the people that I, the most, the people that say, I don’t really understand what that is, or, you know, can you explain to what that means?

Nicola: And so what we want do is to [00:17:00] sort of provide forums for lived experience, provide opportunities for people to have discussions, but also to kinda collaboratively problem solve of, okay. We know that there are so many research pieces of research that show that our industry as a whole really, really struggles with poor mental health.

Nicola: What are we gonna do about that? How do we fix that? How do we empower leaders to make decisions about how to support people when they’re struggling? How do we empower people to show vulnerability, you know, ways? What, how are the ways that we can better work with suppliers and vendors and, you know, partners to, to ensure that we’re being open and we’re communicating?

Nicola: I don’t think a lot of this is rocket science, but I think just providing a place in a forum for those to have those discussions and agree to commit to take the steps to make a difference. I was just talking to a client just before we came on and we were talking about, you know, what does next year look like from a HR focus and perspective?

Nicola: And actually what I kind of seen more and more of in the organizations I work with, that employee experience is at the heart of [00:18:00] winning. Say the great resignation and the war on talent, which in telecoms and tech we know, got really great talent at the moment. If you’re cutting OPEX budgets for training and you are freezing headcounts, they can’t actually move anywhere that talent is gonna go.

Nicola: It’s a really interesting time almost to like set some frameworks for discussing more, or help someone have some more coaching skills rather than being, you know, maybe as a manager, more mentoring kind of style. How do you take your mental health first Aiders, which I did earlier this year as pass and work I was doing, how do you take that already invested money and actually make that a framework?

Nicola: Yeah. How do you promote them? How do you let people know that there’s someone there in the area they can just call on at any time and it’s know what that role is and it’s known that actually it’s part of that person’s priorities. I would love to live in a. Where every business leader invested in creating environments which support employers mental health and enable people to thrive.

Nicola: Cause it’s the right thing morally, ethically, to do. Yeah. You know, I also don’t believe in unicorns, [00:19:00] so I know that that’s probably not gonna happen. But I think there is increasing evidence now that even if you are not swayed by the moral and ethics of it economically, it’s the best thing for you to do because these people will leave, you know?

Nicola: We conducted show, we, we asked people, you know, based on your experience, how likely are you to now lift the company? And the stats don’t lie. Right. You know, people will go, and I think as you say, especially in the tech sector at the minute across recruitment, right? Like it’s a good time to be looking for work and people will go.

Nicola: So it’s the last lot of. Employment stats that came out. Were showing that we’ve got, you know, the, the number of people who are not working and they were saying, ok, there’s the number of factors that contributing to that. Things like covid, people taking time out to care and stuff, but the mental health crisis will be contributing to that as well.

Nicola: Absolutely. From a financial perspective of your business, from an economic perspective of our country, as well as from the actual wellbeing of people as a hub, this is something that all businesses should be thinking about. Absolutely. Similar views on kind of gender parity that actually [00:20:00] it’s not nice to have, it’s a need to have telecom.

Nicola: If women are making the majority of decisions around the home, um, home broadband, they’re making the majority decisions around the network that you, you run off, all those sort of things. You are choosing, like it’s, if you don’t have enough women in your organization, you are, you’re outta touch, you’re a competitive disadvantage.

Nicola: You’re outta touch with your main audience, your audience, your decision makers. So this isn’t a nice to have and we. Stats to support. Similarly, you have more women at the top. You have more women in your organization. There’s more loyalty. There’s more productivity. There’s more long tenure. All of those sort of things.

Nicola: More innovation because it’s a very different perspective. So all of those positives, and it does get to the point where it’s not just, uh, I understand opex challenges. I’ve being in the corporate world, I understand you need to meet certain things, I need to deliver certain things. But if you’re doing that, the expense of your employee’s mental health, then you are just pushing that problem down the road that is gonna destabilize your entire [00:21:00] business.

Nicola: Exactly that. I think that’s the same. I think that we’re getting to a point. People are starting to realize now that this is actually just something that you have to do for your company. Yeah. Financially, you know, be stable and to succeed. This isn’t something that we can afford to ignore anymore. And I, I think, like you said as well, I don’t think this is about, you know, huge sways of investment continually.

Nicola: It’s, is it about, so for example, when I. I’m very conscious of the environment at the moment, and I see the women that I work with, you know, the glue of the organizations at the heart of delivery, holding teams together, that under in Nordic pressure, delivering more with less resource. All the things that we know yet, they can’t be because of a headcount freeze, even though they’ve been promised roles.

Nicola: Those promises are now broken, and actually what we have at the beginning of sessions now, it’s just like an open, what I call a sharing. So before we get into, you know, I want you to learn, I want you to take away some actions. That’s all great, but if you’re carrying all the weight of the world, it just doesn’t work.

Nicola: If you’ve already been in meetings and something’s not happened the way you want to, or you’ve had an email that’s [00:22:00] just, you know, negative response for you or not feeling great, it ends up being what was meant to be 10 minutes and a couple of sessions end up being half an hour because needed to share, needed to talk, needed to just be.

Nicola: Yeah, because they were carrying all of that round with them all the time. So it’s almost like the dust panel brushed it actually, these are the emotions that I had and swept it out. And then you’re into learning. Then you’re into, I can focus on me. What does that cost, that cost a bit of someone’s time or having a, a focus on it in a team meeting.

Nicola: I think you’re right. It doesn’t have to be. Hugely expensive. There are certain things that I think businesses should do. I really strongly believe that anybody who manages people should have their mental health first stage training, qualifications or an equivalent. I, I didn’t realize you’d done it, but yeah, it in general, I really enjoyed it actually.

Nicola: Shock some, it’s quite understanding, you know, the different, um, what people struggled with and the different diagnosis and. I’m so pleased I do that. I would encourage anybody to do it, and I think it’s [00:23:00] such a good investment, but you, and you’ve made this point earlier yourself, that actually it’s only valuable if you then create the form for people to be able to actually access and recognize those people.

Nicola: One of the things that we kinda realize is that, especially in small organizations, what often happens is people, you, they might train one or two people. You might not feel comfortable talking to that person. You know that person could be your peer. They could be, yep. They could actually be somebody that works for you.

Nicola: And if work is actually the main thing that’s contributing to the struggles you’re having at the minute, you might not feel comfortable doing it. So one of the things that we’ve done is we’ve created a database of mental first aid. Oh, that’s brilliant. On the basis that actually, you know, this person could be anonymous to you, but they’re work in the same industry and shoes.

Nicola: It is related to work, they, they probably get, get it or they get the pressures of it. So I think it’s sometimes being a bit creative on following through on those things. And I think it’s, it’s not enough just to do a, kinda a course on mental health once a year and think that you’ve ticked everything off.

Nicola: It’s about how actually [00:24:00] embed it and enable people to actually, you know, provide that. But yeah, just giving us space in people’s. Team meetings to be able to sort of actually ask how people are doing and, and creating an environment where people actually feel that they can answer that rather than doing the typical.

Nicola: Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks. You know, it’s, yeah, I remember doing that a lot. Yeah.

Nicola: Video, not lept, but yeah, I’m fine. Fine. Yeah. The other one I suggest the other way. When someone asks me how I’m, and I tell how I really am and their eyes thinking, oh, you just wanted me to say fine. Yeah, I do My mom sometimes like, oh my God, way the, yeah. A really lovely life, but I’m like, oh wow. Ok.

Nicola: That’s. Yeah, you just said, yeah, thank you. And I think that’s also wanna dismiss how she’s feeling, but when it’s like comes out, you’re not expecting like, wow. I also, that’s[00:25:00]

Nicola: like on the one hand, you wanna kinda create a culture where people feel that it’s OK for me to ask you how you’re doing, but if we’re creating environments where people. Are encouraged or feel and empowered to have those honest conversations and to ask those sometimes difficult questions. People also need to be empowered and prepared to hear difficult answers.

Nicola: And sometimes people aren’t. You know, like I, and as I say, I mean I joke, but I have heard this, you know, people ask the question, like even honest answer and then you think, well you shouldn’t have asked me if you didn’t wanna hear. It comes back to this creating a safe space and it’s mechanism and processes, but it’s also culture, right?

Nicola: That’s openly shared. And I think I said that I’ve been invited into organizations to talk about my own experiences and I think those organizations I take my hat off in cause it really shows that. Serious about stuff and that they, they dedicated this and they’re also, that they’re wanting to kinda [00:26:00] educate their employees around what the realities of this stuff is.

Nicola: You know? And I think if nothing else, it’s, you probably know from your own experiences that when you are really struggling like this, if nobody else talks about it or you don’t feel it’s, it can feel like the loneliest place in the world. Nobody else is talking about it. So it’s obviously just you and actually just knowing.

Nicola: Actually isn’t just you, that everybody’s probably got something going on that, that it’s OK to talk about it. You know, you might not wanna talk about it all the time, every time, but actually, We can make, not make allowances, but we can, we can take actions to support people, but we can only take actions to support people if we know that they need support.

Nicola: And I think just that it’s, it’s that full circle of making sure people feel comfortable to ask for help, making sure that people feel. Comfortable hearing that and that everybody takes steps that support the individual and the organization. Cause ultimately that is what drives an organization. There are needs to make sure that actually that can become something where people feel supported and that individual can continue to [00:27:00] thrive.

Nicola: We’ve seen the last. Few months politically, that we almost seem to be at a point of society now where it’s like capitalism is greater than the needs of people. And I think we fundamentally need to shift how we think about how we do business. And that, you know, people are not just resources. They’re not the people.

Nicola: Resource. Yeah. Government being, they’re living, breathing people. Oh. And that their needs will change over time. Human capital. Yeah, I mean, awful. Oh, it makes my skin crawl. That’s awful. Yeah, but nobody stays constant. What? You know, one week somebody might need something, another week they need something else.

Nicola: And when we had the launch, we had some really great speakers. And one of the things that resonated with me was that someone sort of said then this work is never done. Different situations that, you know, pandemic might happen and you know, all that kinda stuff. And this work is never, never done. Every time you think you’ve completed it, there’ll be something else that will shift and.[00:28:00]

Nicola: So it’s a long-term commitment. This isn’t something that you can just think, oh, we sent some on a two day course. Like tick, that box is done. It’s, it’s ongoing and that can feel a bit daunting. But actually the best place to start is just to start. What I’ve seen, it’s, it’s really in structures and process and policy, like, you know, so there’s that clarity and what support is available, but then it’s also developing what I call kinda like coaching culture of being listened to active listening.

Nicola: But then also the Brene Brown style of, if you have watched it, please go and watch it. The power of vulnerability and connecting over stories and being a bit vulnerable and knowing that you can, I always say when I set up sessions, like share what you want to share. You judge your level of confidence and comfort.

Nicola: Like if you want to share more over time, that’s great. Yeah, but if you want to start with where you are, absolutely start there. But know that this is safe. This is judgment free, and this is confidential. It doesn’t go back to the sponsors. This goes back to themes and how to support the group. This doesn’t go back as so and [00:29:00] so said.

Nicola: I think that’s a really important point as well about showing what you know is that for me, I’m at a point where kinda very physio are, if you ask me the question, I’ll give you the answer. But , it’s taken me a long time to get there. Like you, for a long time I wouldn’t even admit that was a problem and I, I was literally disappearing in front of people’s eyes and I was just, you know, pretending everything was fine.

Nicola: So people get to that in their own time. Right. And not everybody will ever get to that point of wanting to, to sort of air all of their dirty laundry phrase. Kind of. Okay. I mean, I think one of the other things is that we also need to, you know, there’s a lot of heavy lifting sometimes that’s done by the employee assistant hotline in an organization and stuff like that.

Nicola: And I think it’s. The other kind of potential thing is, again, viewing it in the round and you know, things like you say that active listening is so important because it’s not enough to treat your people like human capital to get them to be, you know, online every single moment, every [00:30:00] single day, responsive to everything, holidays, weekends, all the rest of it.

Nicola: And then cut yourself on the back. Cause all we’ve got the employee wellbeing program that people can find when they’re incredibly and burn out. It’s like, well maybe have you made them like that ? Yeah, exactly. Maybe it’s, it’s great to, to help people support whether a point of crisis that actually maybe let’s look at how we can actually have to that point in the first place.

Nicola: So it’s. Again, that’s ultimately, it’s that whole thing. Prevention better than cure, right? Like actually, yeah. It’s not always as simple as that. And obviously it’s not only work that causes mental difficulties, people will bring like myself, mental illnesses into the workplace and that’s a whole different Yeah.

Nicola: You know, thinking about how you can support somebody. I think one of the things that I felt most when I was starting to come back into work was that, and at that point I was only able to do part-time work and there was a sense. I’m still valuable. I have all of these skills. Actually I do need some sort of [00:31:00] announcements they’ve made for me and at that point, like I wasn’t able to travel.

Nicola: I just wasn’t well enough, wasn’t strong enough. And that yes, I do eat lots of times a day and yes, I can’t really like come out for a dinner and I still have so much to offer. And it’s funny cuz I think, you know, this is whole thing they say, isn’t it? Like you dunno about the glass ceilings when you smack your head on it.

Nicola: And I think for most women, that’s probably at the point where, Kids. I don’t have kids, so I probably haven’t experienced it quite as much as other people maybe have. But I was talking to my sister when this happened, who has children? She was kinda laughing and being like, yeah, this is exactly, pretty much like every mom returning to work kind goes.

Nicola: Yeah. It’s a similar thing that actually I might only be able to do part-time hours, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not valuable and that if somebody’s a valuable member of a staff, they’re a valuable member of staff. If they can contribute something useful for and be part of that culture and that team and that work and the productivity and the, then don’t assume that because they have a mental illness or that they’re struggling at that point in [00:32:00] time, that there can’t be all of those things.

Nicola: It’s not kinda one or the other. I. So is there any final message that you wanna leave with our audience today? The first is, if I can give it a plug, the state of website is literally state dos information about what we’re doing. But I think the second thing is whether you have mental illness or not, whether you are struggling with your mental health or not.

Nicola: Don’t be afraid to start to have those conversations in the workplace. I think for too long that that is not suitable for work. And actually, I’m here to say it absolutely appears whether we like it or not, it feeds into work and that we are about accepting that and acknowledging that. Then actually the more positive environment so we can create for all of, I think it fits Brilliant.

Nicola: The human leadership from the top. Yeah. But then also like bringing your whole self to work. It’s like we want to create that inclusive culture and that safe space for people, but actually with it comes the challenges that they bring. Yes. What they’re facing. So we just need to develop, make sure that we’ve got support around them for so that they feel [00:33:00] safe doing that.

Nicola: And almost the next step of, I’m my whole self at work, but beyond that, actually I’m struggling. I don’t need some. What, how does that work and what, where do I go and what happens? I think that’s it. And it’s like bring yourself self to work is a great catchphrase, but actually with it as an employer responsibility.

Nicola: Yeah. You can’t tell that people that on the one hand and then just sort of leave them flailing at the point where they’re struggling. So Yeah, absolutely. Picture again isn’t So yeah, do go and have, look. We’ll pit all the details in show notes and just say, I think this is. It’s definitely something that I feel really strongly about.

Nicola: Cause I know that I struggled and I wore a mass for a long time. I was in a very male dominated business and actually showing emotion and bringing up subjects like that were very hard, and it was interesting to go off on a tangent to finish, but had a colleague that had gone off and had a baby and was coming back.

Nicola: I had mental health challenges also kind of break down my marriage and actually felt that she was treated differently to me because that was known and recognized. Whereas my journey. [00:34:00] Kind, struggle and difficult and challenging where it’s like, oh baby, great. That’s a known process, whereas don’t really know what to do with Nick’s.

Nicola: A bit messy. Yeah, bit messy. So yeah, start with active listening. Start with having the conversation. Start with sharing a little bit of your experience, and we all have mental health, so that’s what we need to kind of make. Make a really easy conversation to have. Right. Thank you so much. Thank you, Vicky.

Nicola: That’s been brilliant today. I think we’ll be having more chats. Definitely, yes. Do go and look at the website and if you’re interested in getting my support to focus on women within your organization around, especially during challenging times that are at the moment, all my contact details will show notes, so yeah.

Nicola: Thanks so much and we’ll see you on the next episode. Bye. Hi, it’s Nick here. I just wanna take a moment just to say thank you for listening when I’m sat recording the podcast in the deepest steps of Cornall. It’s incredible to think that it’s reaching women across the world in 30 different countries, and we have thousands of downloads a month, so thank you so much [00:35:00] for being part of that and being part of the.

Nicola: It means the world to me. But I do want to grow this audience. I would love you to help me reach more women like you so that we can really drive positive change in the corporate world. So you can do that one of three ways. First of all, you can subscribe to the podcast. You never miss an episode. It’s always a new episode’s always delivered straight to your inbox.

Nicola: You can review the podcast and leave us a rating, and the more ratings we have, we also go up in the podcast chart. And finally, you can just share a favorite podcast with a peer, with a colleague, or on your social media. So I would love you to do that. Thank you for all your help, and I can’t wait for what’s next.