Mindshare Australia has partnered with mental health program WeCARE to provide a 12-week mental health eLearning program for managers.
Aiming to create a strong and mentally safe workplace environment, the program is intended to help anyone who manages people within the agency to support their team and promote a culture of care and psychological safety.
The program provides practical ways to stop little problems becoming bigger ones and provide easy access to additional mental health and wellbeing resources such as professional helplines and support, Mindshare’s EAP, connecting with Mindshare’s accredited Mental Health First Aiders, and relevant Workplace Health & Safety Policies.
It will teach simple strategies that better enable managers to recognise when someone is struggling, know how to have an R U OK? conversation with empathy and guide others towards expert help if it’s needed.
By equipping people managers to support others, they also learn tangible ways to support themselves and become part of a movement to proactively breakdown the stigma of mental health.
Maria Grivas, Mindshare AUNZ CEO, said Mindshare's philosophy of Good Growth isn’t just about how the agency delivers for clients - it begins with the people.
"Our Mindshare leadership team firmly believe to achieve a high-performance culture, every individual has to be able bring their whole self to work every day," Grivas said.
"We recognize that for our people to perform at their best, they need to be physically, mentally, and emotionally strong and healthy. Therefore, to truly embody a high-performance culture, it is crucial that our Mindshare people thrive."
Discussions with Mindshare teams found that 70% had either personal experience or close encounters with mental ill-health among friends and family. This revelation made it clear to leadership that they have a responsibility to ensure managers possess the knowledge and skills to support mentally healthy teams and foster a culture of care.
"To ensure its effectiveness, I personally trialled the WeCARE program and recognized how it could empower all our managers with practical training and skills applicable not only in team management but also in their personal lives," Grivas said.
"I believe implementing the WeCARE program will have a profound and positive impact on our people and extend far beyond the workplace."
Mindshare welcomed Graeme Cowan, WeCARE co-founder, the founding Board Director of R U OK?, host of The Caring CEO podcast and author of 5 books, to launch the program to Mindshare.
“Creating a culture of care where you treat people with care and kindness and everyone can be made to feel safe, respected, valued and supported is how you build trust," Cowan said.
"It’s important that employees, future leaders, and managers know that their employers care about developing skills that will enable them to be mentally healthy, and support mentally healthy teams. The #1 priority for every manager should be ‘to be more caring’. I’ve loved working with the strong and committed leadership team at Mindshare who want to bring this to life within their agency.”
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