iClick2Learn team's mental health and wellbeing

iClick2Learn Focuses on the Team’s Mental Health and Wellbeing

Investing in our team's wellbeing is critical. It's part of our DNA and our values. It's not only building resilience in the face of current challenges or doing this as a ‘one-off’. Campaigns like Liptember hit home how important it is that we continue to invest in our people.

Authored by:

iClick2Learn Team

Translate Text

[playht_player width="100%" height="90px" voice="en-US-AriaNeural"]

Pictured top left to bottom right, Leticia Whelan (Riders and Elephants) Glen Dunkley and Natalie Bramble, Lisa Griffiths, Kellie Jennar, Flavia Young and Mick Wallis

It’s the final day of Liptember month; a month dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of women’s mental health. And with a large representation of women in the community and not-for-profit sectors (85% of the workforce), ensuring the women that are giving their time and leading such organisations, shining a light on mental health for women makes sense.

With 71% of our iClick2Learn team being female, and managing a remote team during a global pandemic, our CEO and Cofounder Natalie Bramble is more focused than ever on her team’s wellbeing. This is why she jumped at the opportunity to work with Leticia Whelan, through Riders and Elephants, to facilitate a workshop with the team using the Emotional Culture Deck (ECD).

“Soft skills and emotional intelligence are critical to building a healthy resilient culture, particularly in these times. It’s what builds stronger communicative teams who not only celebrate the good times, they are there for each other when support is needed. We’ve invested in building a well-being framework for our team because our culture is built on the value of investing in our people. This was a good opportunity to explore a new tool to include in our framework and understand the value it offers.” said Natalie.

Through her own work and organisation, Leading with Heart Leticia has dedicated more than 30 years to working in the community services and health sector in learning and development roles and works from a strength-based approach expressed in her organisational HEART values: Hopeful. Empathetic. Authentic. Respectful, and Truthful.

We asked Leticia her thoughts about why women’s mental health is important?

“Where do I start? In both my life and professional experience, women carry so many responsibilities that are unspoken in the workplace.

“Even though it’s 2020, women still carry the main caring responsibilities for children and families. So often when women arrive in their workplace, they are completing their second shift (their first started early in making breakfast and getting everyone off to school/work), and then they go home to the third shift (after school activities, dinner, caring for elders) before collapsing into bed exhausted to do it all again the next day!

“Add to this the fact that women are significantly over-represented in the workforces of the health and community sectors, which requires them to provide compassionate care to people who are the most vulnerable.

“I think we have a social obligation to support and applaud women for carrying this load, and for doing this with humility and grace (most of the time!)”

For the iClick2Learn remote ECD workshop, Leticia asked a set of questions about our thoughts and feelings during the week. She then shared her screen which showed a range of words on it.

For each question, we had to choose three words that appeared on the screen that best described the emotions or feelings we experienced during that week.

We also chose words that best described the emotions we need to feel to be positive and empowered at work and about the work that we do.

We also asked Leticia why it’s important for not-for-profit and community-based organisations such as iClick2Learn to invest time and resources into their team’s mental health.

“In the NFP sector, I think this [investing in mental health] is even more important – it’s an active self-care commitment that we can provide for the people that care for others. And I believe it helps us to connect with the human beings we work with,” Leticia said.

“Often in workplaces, we don’t have intentional conversations about how our people feel, and I think this is important for everyone at work,” Leticia added.

Back to Liptember 2020. From September 1 to 30, women across Australia have been buying and wearing lipstick as part of the Liptember campaign to start conversations around women’s mental health. And at iClick2Learn we used this campaign as an opportunity to highlight, recognise and check-in with our own team.

“In relation specifically to women, so often they are the ones focused on how others are feeling and going – having these conversations as part of the routine way that an organisation talks with each other are so healthy, and it promotes the importance of talking about how we feel – both the positive and the more challenging emotions we all experience,” Leticia said.

Let’s keep the conversation about mental health going. October is mental health month. Here’s a final thought from Leticia.

“Our mental health is so precious, and it needs to be cared for. Talking about how we do, and how we want to feel at work is such an important part of taking care of ourselves and each other,” Leticia said.