Revolutionaries of Wellbeing: Breaking Burnout Culture

Episode 16: What workplaces can do to support people with a serious mental illness

In this session, we're joined by Hannah Hardy-Jones, CEO of Kite, to discuss serious mental illness and what workplaces can do to better support people through their journey.

Hannah was leading a successful career in human resources before the traumatic birth of her first child led to what was later diagnosed as postpartum bipolar disorder. In this discussion, Hannah will share her lived experience with bipolar, plus the myths and misconceptions of the illness. She will also share her tips and ideas for taking care as a person with a mental illness, and share tips for family, friends, and colleagues. We will also discuss the role that workplaces play in supporting people with a serious mental illness.

Hannah is CEO of the Kite Program and has an extensive background in HR, specialising in leadership development and employee relations. She developed the concept of Kite as a result of her experience with postpartum bipolar disorder after the birth of her first child, coupled with the lack of support and tools for employees she saw in the workplace to manage their mental health, focus on their wellbeing, and to improve themselves both professionally and personally. 

Using the principles of microlearning, Hannah created Kite to be the beautiful app that it is now. It launched globally in Feb 2019 as a tool for mothers (Kite for mums) and is now available as a template for any client or group to shape, so that it is applicable and relevant to their audience - under the arm of Kite for Business. Hannah has a team of 20 consultants rolling this solution out across Latin America, the USA, UK/Ireland, Europe, Australia, and NZ.

Hannah speaks openly about her mental health and has been featured in Forbes, appeared on TV1 Seven Sharp and TV3 The Project, the front page of The Press- as well as numerous magazines, radio, articles and podcasts. She is an active mental health advocate - with a passion for maternal and paternal mental health in particular.

 

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Episode 15: Developing a wellbeing framework

In this interview, we look at how to develop and measure a wellbeing framework.

Trust Tairāwhiti is a regional development funder on the East Coast of New Zealand. Over the past few years, the team has designed and developed a wellbeing framework and wellbeing impact assessment tool to support their Board and staff to make measurable wellbeing investment decisions into the communities of Tairāwhiti, Gisborne. The framework, He Tohu Ora, was launched in late 2020 and work continues to refine the measures and determine: how do we track wellbeing across a diverse community group and how do we best measure success over a long period of time?

Joining us in this session is General Manager, Wellbeing and Impact, Erina Hurihanganui to discuss the Trust’s journey to this point. It reveals the complexities of such a framework not only in its development but how it now starts to translate into the operations of the Trust which focuses on community and economic wellbeing.

While the framework is aimed at community wellbeing, there are many lessons organisations can take away and apply to the development of their own wellbeing framework. 

You can view the Trust Tairāwhiti framework here: trusttairawhiti.nz/he-tohu-ora-tairawhiti-wellbeing/

 

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Episode 14: Leadership through recovery

In this episode, we're joined by guest Jolie Wills, a Christchurch-based cognitive psychologist specialising in disaster recovery.

During the recovery phase of Covid19, resilient leaders need to inspire their teams to navigate through uncertainty. From a wellbeing perspective, it is important leaders both support their team and their own wellbeing to sustain that energy and focus.

Drawing on her expertise in assisting leaders through prolonged pressure, Jolie shares her tips and recommendations for ensuring leaders can work through the challenges ahead. We also discuss strategies and initiatives that workplaces can put in place to create critical support structures and we reflect on managing stress through times of crisis.

Jolie is a co-founder of Hummingly, along with Elizabeth McNaughton. The duo have worked in disasters around the world for more than two decades. The realisation that helping one person, one community, one disaster at a time was no longer enough, lit the spark that became Hummingly. Jolie and Elizabeth set about creating easy to use tools that people, communities and workplaces the world over could access to do well in tough times. Hummingly’s products are now helping thousands of people and organisations around the world.

Jolie has a Masters in Cognitive Psychology and is a leading psychosocial expert in disaster and disruption. Jolie has studied how the mind works under prolonged pressure, how we make decisions and how our reactions and behaviours are impacted by stress. Jolie is a survivor of the Christchurch earthquake and has lived disaster recovery with her family first-hand.

She developed services and training to help her fellow citizens for the Red Cross, local government and academia. Jolie is a Winston Churchill fellowship recipient, a Leadership New Zealand alumni, an Edmund Hillary Fellow and the co-author of Leading in Disaster Recovery: A Companion through the Chaos, primary author of the New Zealand Psychological First Aid guide and is Co-Chair of the New Zealand chapter of Australasian Women in Emergencies Network.

 

Get the Professional Development Pack for this episode: rowwellbeing.com/podcast

 

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Episode 13: Influencing wellbeing at the board table

In this session, we turn our focus to wellbeing at the board table. To better understand the views and perspectives of those at the most senior levels, we're joined by Francois Barton, Executive Director at the Business Leaders' Health and Safety Forum.

We explore the views and concerns of those at the most senior levels when it comes to wellbeing and we review the lessons learned so far from the Covid-19 crisis.

Francois shares his insights and we discuss how we, as wellbeing leaders, can influence the wellbeing discussion at the board level to support better wellbeing across our organisations.

Francois Barton took over as Forum Executive Director in May 2015. Prior to joining the Forum Francois established and ran WorkSafe NZ’s national programme team, which has delivered major safety campaigns in construction, agriculture, forestry and manufacturing. He previously held roles at MBIE - including being involved in early discussions that led to the development of the Canterbury Safety Rebuild Charter - and at the Department of Labour, where he was part of the team that set up the Forum in 2010.

 

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Episode 12: ’Green Light to Talk’ - Mental health at PwC

In this session, we discuss PwC Australia's 'Green Light to Talk' initiative with Kate Connors from PwC Australia's Wellness Centre of Excellence. 

PwC Australia launched 'Green Light to Talk' in 2018, as part of the firm's commitment to dial up the dialogue on mental wellbeing.  A key component of the initiative is leaders sharing their stories on how mental ill health has impacted them personally during their career. 

In this podcast, we discuss how the 'Green Light to Talk' program was developed and it's aims and success. We'll also explore some of the challenges and Kate's tips to other organisations looking to improve the mental health of their team.

Kate has been the leader of PwC Australia's Wellness Centre of Excellence for over three years and has worked at PwC for five and a half years.  Prior to joining PwC she worked in corporate health & wellbeing for over 20 years and her passion is creating mentally healthy workplaces.  Kate is a registered psychologist with a Masters degree in Counselling Psychology from Curtin University in WA. Kate's experience in supporting mental health at PwC includes supporting the NZ firm following the Christchurch mosque attacks in March 2019.

 

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Episode 11: How to support men’s mental health

In this session, we're joined by guest Gerard Vaughan from the Mental Health Foundation to discuss men's mental health.

Businesses can play an important role in helping men to manage their mental health - including reducing stigma, opening the conversation, and sharing positive role models. In this discussion, we will discuss the role organisations can play in more depth, some of the challenges and myths, and Gerard shares his tips for engaging with men to improve mental wellbeing.

Gerard has worked as a consultant for the Mental Health Foundation for the last four years leading the Farmstrong project. He also helps organisations to establish, design and deliver behaviour change programmes. Prior to consulting, Gerard was the National Project Manager of the Like Minds, Like Mine campaign in New Zealand and was CEO of the Alcohol Advisory Council for five years. He has an MA in Community Psychology from Waikato University.

 

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Episode 10: Ask an Expert - Jacqui Maguire

Our first Ask an Expert guest is Jacqui Maguire. Jacqui is a registered clinical psychologist and media commentator with a particular interest in lifting organisational performance by developing the resilience and wellbeing of employees. Jacqui's passion is to work closely with clients to understand the unique needs of their organisation and develop tailored programmes to best fit.

Note Revolutionaries of Wellbeing (ROW) was formally known as My Health Revolution.

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Episode 9: Case study - wellbeing at Environment Canterbury

Environment Canterbury (ECan) began their wellbeing journey back in 2017 and its current vision is to have a culture where the wellbeing of its people is at the heart of what they do and is interwoven in all they do. They have integrated hauora or the Māori perspective of wellbeing into their strategy and actions, and take a holistic perspective to consider the four pillars of wellbeing (physical, mental and emotional, social, and spiritual) across three dimensions (individual, organisational, and environmental). Mary Abbott is the Human Resources Advisor (OD)at ECan.

Note Revolutionaries of Wellbeing (ROW) was formally known as My Health Revolution.

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