May 13, 2025 • 45 mins
It's Mental Health Awareness Week and Lee and Gwilym are joined by Penelope Aspinall from the Jonathan’s Voice charity, along with Joanne Donaldson (HLK), Cathy Bailey (UK Intellectual Property Office) and Sally Bannan (Cytiva), for a powerful discussion on the vital mental health training that the charity provides for line managers in IP firms. The group explores how this training supports healthier, more compassionate workplaces—both from within an organisation and from the outside looking in—highlighting its real-world impact on teams and leaders alike.
To access the numerous resources offered by Jonathan's Voice, visit their website: http://jonathansvoice.org.uk/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
That point about learning more about your
colleagues as part of thetraining is one that certainly
hasn't occurred.
Yes, we're building a commonlanguage, working better as a
team, not just learning how tobe a better manager for an
individual.
I'm wondering also if onelearns a little bit about
oneself.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Lee Davis and Gwilym Roberts are the two IPs in a pod
and you are listening to apodcast on intellectual property
brought to you by the CharteredInstitute of Patent Attorneys.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Hey, gwilym, how are you?
I'm really good.
I'm gearing up.
I didn't even give you a chanceto reply then, did I?
I was just going to tell youhow I was.
How are you?
I'm really well.
How are you, lee?
You know I'm really good.
Just a little bit disappointedthat I put on a put on a more of
a summery shirt today.
I know I know the colorprobably doesn't look it, but
you probably can't see fromthrough the camera that it's
like crocheted.
And it was a mistake, becausethe wind was blowing through it
this morning and I felt quitecold also do give me a slight
(00:55):
headache, because it's umplaying happy it's strobing,
isn't it?
yeah, yeah, I didn't appreciate,it isn isn't summary, it's
quite goth.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I'm afraid lee from color scheme perspective it was.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
It was summary, in the sense that it's crocheted,
and I thought that that wouldgive me a feeling of sort of
being at one with the sunshine.
Uh, but the sunshine's gone, sowhy do you associate crochet
with sunshine?
Yeah, no idea.
Perhaps I thought I was gonnaget a little bit of a micro
suntan or something like thatlike sunbathing through a sieve
yeah, yeah, you know exactlythat.
Hey, it's just something like apatent, only more.
(01:28):
We disclosed it.
Oh no, of course I always make.
I always make that mistake.
You know, I always give away myinventions.
Oh well, you've been up to bankall day weekend, did you think
exciting?
Speaker 1 (01:36):
oh no, but that was a good thing, because I'm very
happy not to do exciting things.
Got, I've got beth, so he didlovely beth things.
But we are currently gearing upfor next Sunday for a giant
teddy bear's picnic.
Oh cool, why next Sunday is itbirthday time?
No, that's when it is.
It's in the local park becausethere's a giant picnic.
We don't know whether it's agiant picnic for teddy bears,
picnic for giant teddy bears.
(01:56):
There's various variants on it,so you can bring a picnic in a
giant teddy bear.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
I think it's probably that is such a typical patent
attorney way to interpret what.
What is just a way ofdescribing a very friendly event
, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
it's ambiguous and, I think, unfortunately quite
difficult to infringe, so Iwouldn't.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
I wouldn't have granted a patent on that claim
so sometimes on the podcast, uh,conversation about mental
health.
So, um, we've got a big posseof guests with us today, gullum.
So this this always taxes us,doesn't it?
Because it's it's quitedifficult to keep one person in
(02:35):
order, let alone four, which iswhere we are today.
So let's get our guests on andget them to introduce themselves
.
If that's okay, penny, shall Istart with you?
Is it?
Are you the most obvious personto come to first?
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
You can very well start with me.
So I'm Penny Aspinall and I amthe mental health consultant for
the charity Jonathan's Voice.
But at the end of May I'mstepping down and my role will
be taken over by some wonderfulperson called Donna Smith.
So this is my kind of the endof my farewell tour if you like.
So I'm pleased to be here, tobe joining you today.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
So who have you got with you, Penny?
Who do you want to bring onfirst?
Speaker 5 (03:08):
So what I really wanted to bring on today was a
sort of group of people whocould give their perspective
about why line manager trainingis important.
So we've got Joanne Donaldson,who's head of operations Well,
she can introduce herself.
So I think we've got a goodselection of people who can talk
about this really importantissue from different angles to
(03:29):
get a real 360 degree look atwhy line manager training is a
good thing.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Yeah, hi Joe, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Hi, so my name's Joe.
I'm head of operations atHazeltine Lake, kempner, where
I've been for about the last 19years.
I joined originally as a patentadministrator, was a manager
for a team of patentadministrators there for about
six years and then moved into mycurrent role about three years
ago.
I'm a member of the mentalhealth and well-being group at
HLK and I'm a mental healthfirst aider, and I've worked on
(04:01):
quite a few projects withJonathan's Voice over the last
few years, including havingPenny to come and do some mental
health for line managertraining with us last year with
a group of our line managers.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
Cool.
Who should we talk to next?
Penny.
Speaker 5 (04:16):
Let's talk to Cathy.
Speaker 6 (04:19):
Thank you.
So I'm Cathy Bailey.
I manage one of our chemistryand biotech groups in the
intellectual property office.
I previously was a patentexaminer.
Years ago actually left.
I had some counselling when Iwas suffering bereavement at the
time and left the organisationand ran wellbeing offerings in
many different places, includingmental health managers,
(04:42):
training in different places andmental health as they training
got drawn back into theintellectual property office
where I've now found actuallyall that stuff as a manager is
really really important anduseful and do lots of well-being
work whilst I'm here.
Speaker 5 (04:56):
Thank you, Finally, we thought we better have an
attorney in the mix, so we askedSally to come and join.
It's not that Gwilym isn't anattorney, of course yeah.
Speaker 7 (05:07):
So, yeah, penny asked me to to get involved in this
and I'm delighted to be here.
Thank you, penny, to bring.
I'm bringing the perspective ofa patent attorney, probably
more from an employeeperspective rather than a
manager, although I have hadmanager responsibilities in the
past.
But you know, like most people,I've hit the buffers from time
to time with my mental healthand so giving a little bit of
(05:30):
perspective about that and timeswhen you know I've been managed
well and maybe not so well,even with the best will in the
world.
You know well-meaning managersbut not necessarily the best
environment.
Sometimes in my past life and Ithink where I am now, the team
(05:50):
that I'm with now does a prettygood job, to be honest.
So can maybe talk about that abit as well and what I think
feels good from an employee.
From a patent attorneyperspective.
I'm a senior European patentattorney and I work in-house.
I've always worked in-house, sothat would be where I'm a
senior European patent attorneyand I work in-house.
I've always worked in-house, sothat would be where I'm coming
from.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Cool.
So where do we start theconversation I?
Speaker 5 (06:11):
can kick off.
So basically and I think Cathycan back this up there's been
research from various differentquarters and it's been endorsed
by the World Health Organizationthat there is a lot of benefit
to training line managers insupporting mental health in your
(06:31):
organization, both in theindividual employees but also in
creating a culture that initself supports mental health,
because I'm a great sort ofproponent of saying let's focus
on preventative and proactivemeasures as well as dealing with
individuals if they start tostruggle.
And so there's a lot of evidenceout there to show that if
(06:52):
you're going to invest inanything to support mental
health in your organisation,your best bet really is to go
for some lie manager training,and that is ideally not an hour
long online sort of talk, butsomething proper at least a day,
I would say.
That can really bring about somekind of real learning so that
(07:13):
line managers, who are oftenjust made into managers because
they're good at the job withvery little preparation, can
really get the skills and theconfidence in being able to
recognise if somebody isstarting to struggle with their
mental health or wellbeing andalso to be able to then approach
them or, if somebody comes tothem, know how to deal with it,
to put in place the right kindof adjustments, just to know how
(07:37):
to have that conversation,where to refer and so on.
This is not something I thinkyou can do by magic or by
instinct.
Some people obviously areprobably better at it than
others, but by no means noteverybody.
So, as I say, I'm a great fanof thinking okay, let's get some
training in place just to helppeople with that, and also
(07:57):
create maybe a community of linemanagers so they feel confident
.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
if they're starting to wobble with this or not quite
sure about what to do, they canget support from each other and
can I just test, uh, what wemean when we say line manager,
penny, just to make sure thatwe're all talking about the same
thing, because sometimes it'sused almost exclusively for
those people that have gotrelatively senior roles and are
managing a number of teams, manypeople, uh, sometimes it's used
(08:24):
in that more distributedfashion where it's anyone who's
got any kind of management orsupervisory role involving one
or more other people, and I'mguessing we're at that second
definition, are we?
Speaker 5 (08:33):
it's anyone who's managing people I think joanne
could answer that questionreally well.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, I think we're probably um, coming at it from
the second um approach,certainly from the work that
we've been doing at HLK.
We're looking at anyone who hasany kind of management
responsibility for someone else.
The skills and things thatwe're talking about here and a
lot of the information isactually really relevant to all
(08:59):
of our interactions with othercolleagues.
You know it's relevant foreveryone.
But yeah, from a general sense,we're looking at any form of
line management responsibilityfor one or more cool.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
I'm wondering a bit about, um, somebody who is a
line manager, as you say, at any, any level, who is told oh, you
need to do some mental healthtraining.
And certainly my immediatequestions are how long, how
often and what's in it?
And I mean, penny, you've givena hint there about the duration
a day's worth, but I mean, isthat a day that has to be run in
one block, or can you spit itout?
(09:30):
How does it all work?
How does it?
What does it?
What does it sound like whenyou actually have this training?
Speaker 5 (09:34):
oh, I can talk from my point of view, and I'm sure
kathy could sort of talk fromher point of view as well.
So I think it's reallydifficult.
There's always that tensionbetween giving up the time to do
something well and thinking Ican't spare the time, so let's
do it in smaller chunks.
And it's a huge temptation, Ithink, since perhaps possibly
(09:55):
since the pandemic, to do thingsonline and in small chunks
because they're practically muchmore doable than giving up a
whole day, ideally in person.
I'd say a minimum of a day,ideally in person.
And I think the in-person thinggives some real benefit that
you don't get from online,because you can sort of build up
a sense of trust and connectwith other people and chat with
(10:19):
other people in a way that isnot impossible, but much harder
online.
And I think it's much harder toconcentrate over a longer
period of time if you're doing atraining online.
So in my ideal world we'd belooking at a group of perhaps a
maximum of about 18 in a roomtogether for a day.
(10:39):
That would be my ideal.
But I do recognize that we don'tlive in an ideal world and that
maybe there are other ways ofthinking about it and doing it
if one's being pragmatic.
So, for example, I did dosomething with one firm.
They couldn't do that, so I didwell, just two hours.
But I said I'm just going tofocus on one specific area of it
(11:01):
, which was about having theconversation, recognise the
signs and symptoms and havingthe conversation.
And we did that quiteeffectively online.
It had good feedback, but thatwas just one little small part,
I think, of the whole picture.
I mean, I don't know if, Cathy,you want to add anything around
your experience of delivery.
Speaker 6 (11:22):
Yeah, well, I think there's so much you can do and I
think I'd like to just move thefocus away from it being a
one-off, one-hit thing tosomething that's sort of
flexible, embedded and I thinkyou know, but also being very
responsive to the needs of themanagers and looking at the
evidence in the organisation.
What's going on.
Like, you know, if there'smassive issues with stress, it
(11:45):
might be there's a focus onstress.
Um, if there's a lot offeedback saying, actually,
managers haven't got the skillsand the resources or the time to
spend time having theconversations, yeah, maybe we
need to look at that.
So there's that kind of moreholistic view.
Um, but I think managing mentalhealth, training such an
important part of that and thereactive skill they could be,
like you know, even just havingan awareness, awareness session
at start can make a difference.
(12:06):
Um, you know, I think withtraining, it's how long is a pit
string?
And that day, penny, soundslike a brilliant idea, um, you
know, and if an organization caninvest that time in the
managers so they can spend thewhole day looking at the skills
they've got, um, and theguidance changes.
So you know, people like, sopeople might have like an
instinctive way of managing.
That's actually really good formental health.
(12:27):
But even if so, having that timeto reflect and look at how we
do it and how we can better andbe better can be really
important, and just looking atcurrent research and evidence
and what's good and also makingsure that's not the end of the
story.
So, if we do have a day'straining, have follow-up
conversations, like something wedid we had training for
(12:49):
managers, but we put in kind ofreflection sessions afterwards
so people could have time toembed the training and then kind
of reflect on what was good andwhat was working, and so it's
something that carries on and wekeep thinking about it as well.
So, yeah, there's always more,there is always more.
But guess, making sure that weput things in place, see what
happens, look at the feedbackand don't make that the last
(13:11):
thing in the story.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
Yeah, and I'd like to add just one more point that
also having a training thateverybody does can ensure some
sort of consistency of you,because because I know we found
um, even within certain smallorganizations there can be quite
inconsistent ways that peopleinterpret or understand what,
what's meant to be done, um.
(13:32):
And so I suppose at least ifyou, if you can manage to train
everybody together if trainingis the right word, or brief,
everybody together, then atleast you're getting a
consistent message across theorganization yeah, I'd like.
Speaker 7 (13:44):
Yeah, it picks up on this aspect of culture as well,
doesn't it?
And you know what Cathy wassaying about like sustaining
things?
And Penelope, getting peoplealigned is it's not about like
just ticking the box, thatpeople have been trained.
It's a mindset within anorganisation that this is what
we're doing.
(14:05):
We think it's that, um, this iswhat we're doing, we think it's
important and this is how we'redoing it.
I remember when I was youngerand I had a bit of a dip in my
mental health, being sent awayfor a series of cognitive
behavioral therapy sessions andI really felt like my manager
just ticked a box, you know, andthe manager was a very
(14:28):
well-meaning person, um, and Ithink it wasn't, you know,
coming from him.
I think it was that theorganization was in a bit of a
tick box mode about mentalhealth, um related um things, um
at that point in time.
So, um, yeah, that thatholistic, sustaining approach,
(14:49):
that this is part of our culture.
This is what we're doing, it'simportant.
Um is key.
You're creating that fertilesoil in the organization as well
, so that when the people arecoming along to the training,
they see the point.
You know, to what you weresaying earlier, guillem, um, you
know why am I here, why am Idoing this?
Um, if everyone buys into theconcept that it's part of the
(15:09):
organization's culture, then thething happens and the goodwill
is there, um, and the, thebehaviors are sustained and
people are alert to it.
So it's something that's alwayshappening rather than just
being a training that peoplehave done that's your point on
the consistent messaging isreally that resonates?
Speaker 1 (15:29):
actually, we had in my office.
We had some training on acompletely separate thing about
strategy.
We were told the strategy isabout having a vision and then
strategy is how you achieve yourvision.
But the guy had a flip chartand he blew a, drew a blue line
between where you are now andthe vision.
And the whole partnership nowtalks about whether something's
on the blue line or not.
And we have.
(15:49):
If you didn't know what thebackground was, you wouldn't
understand that at all.
But it means that we've gotthis incredible shorthand for
making sure that we're speakingexactly the same language.
So the consistency point doesit does resonate really strongly
actually.
But also that point about itfitting in with, you know, with
particular circumstances of thebusiness.
I was going to ask, jo, if Imay, you mentioned you've done
(16:11):
some of this.
What shape did it take for youguys?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Yeah, so we ran it as a full in-person day.
We did it back in November Lastyear.
We implemented a managementdevelopment program for some of
our line managers, so that was ascheme that was put in place
for sort of general linemanagement skills training for a
collection of about a dozenpeople from across the business
(16:35):
all different levels, those withline management responsibility
or those that might beprogressing to that stage.
And then we I got the agreementto run the mental health line
manager training as an extra day, sort of at the end of the
course.
That worked really well for usin the sense that we had a group
of people who were already sortof really engaged in the
(16:56):
process of learning and intaking that dedicated time out
of their work to focus onlearning new skills in relation
to line management.
I think it was a really positiveday.
It definitely makes a differencehaving it in person, being able
to sort of interact, sharestories with each other, get to
know people in a way that youprobably wouldn't if you were
(17:16):
doing this on a Teams call orsomething like that.
And certainly I found that I gotdifferent perspectives about
people that I work withregularly, just because we're
sharing things that we're notused to sharing perhaps, and I
think it was really good as well.
We sort of looked at some ofour internal policies and how we
deal with like what offeringswe have to support people who
(17:40):
might be going through difficultperiods, who might be going
through difficult periods, andthat was really useful to be
able to discuss that in a groupso that we could talk about how
might you go about reasonableadjustments or supporting
someone on return to work andwhen you're in an organisation
that has a lot of blind managers, that's really important to
make sure that you're gettingthat consistent message out and
(18:01):
the consistent experienceBecause I think that's one of
the things that I'm veryconscious of is that people,
individuals within theorganization can have very
different experiences with theirline managers.
So if we're sort of sending outthe same message, then it helps
support that consistentapproach for us.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
So, gwyneth, I know you've got more to say there,
but what I heard there, jo, ifit's okay for me just quickly
test, that is so I'm.
I think I'm hearing that thereis more to training line
managers in uh, mental healthawareness development than than
just the the individual benefit,the benefit that they would
have in their relationships withthe people that they're
(18:39):
responsible for, for managing.
I think I heard that there'skind of team building
development opportunities thereand generally encouraging people
to work better and smartertogether, but also there are
organisational developmentbenefits.
I think that's what I heard.
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think there's benefits acrossthe board.
It's for you as an individual,as a manager, to learn better
skills so you feel morecomfortable in supporting your
colleagues, you betterunderstand how to relate to your
line manager as well and tokind of keep those conversations
open.
But, yeah, it's creating thatenvironment for everyone which
(19:16):
is really important as well tomake sure that it becomes.
You know, we're all used to howto recognise changes in each
other and to support thatwithout making changes rash
judgments, um, and encouragingpeople to actually talk about
what's what's happening in theirlives and, um how that might be
(19:37):
affecting them and how we cansupport them through that,
because we're all going throughdifferent things all the time
thank you can I ask?
Speaker 1 (19:50):
oh, can I ask a tricky one, sally.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
No one suggests Sally , you mentioned.
No one suggests.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
No one said no.
Go for it.
Gwilym Sally, you said that youknow sometimes you've had good
handling and sometimes not sogood handling, and it's
generally been well-meaning,which I'd like to believe is
going to be the case.
Actually, my basic question doyou think there's any
distinction between the handlingbetween people of, maybe,
different generations, Maybejust chucking that one in as a
(20:16):
person from a certain generation?
Speaker 7 (20:18):
I think there's probably lots of factors.
You know it's someone'spersonal circumstances,
someone's personality, theirstyle of managing.
I'm just reflecting ondifferent managers that I've had
and Rolodexing through them inmy head.
You know, there was one personwho set one-to-ones in my
calendar but routinely didn'tkeep them, which was very bad,
(20:41):
you know.
And and joe, you werementioning that like about
keeping the conversation openbetween the line manager and the
people they're managing.
If you don't keep yourone-to-ones, it's just, you know
that's, it's stressful becauseyou lose.
And again, it's kind of likegoing back to that like strategy
thing, willem, you know that,um, if you're keeping everyone
(21:01):
aligned, you need to keep theinteractions going and the
conversations going, um, andsomething as simple as like
having a one-to-one on a regularbasis and keeping it
prioritizing.
It is super helpful and it'shelpful for them, like the, the
manager as well, quite frankly,because you know if something's
going on for the person you'remanaging, you want to know about
it and guide them through it.
(21:25):
So that was a stressful timefor me and I was relatively
senior then I was a senior IPcounsel in that role, but I just
, you know, it's like we're allworking 90 miles an hour and you
just need to have that likeokay, touch base, um.
So I think there's multiplethings in answer to your
question, like the generationalcan impact it.
I mean, when I think of thekind of generational thing I I
(21:47):
probably more think of, like mytrajectory over the last 20 or
so years that I've been working,that back in the day it was
done probably more traditionally, you didn't necessarily bring
your personal stuff to theoffice, it wasn't encouraged.
I think that for me anyway,that's changed and I imagine for
(22:09):
others as well, that I wasprobably, you know, guided
towards, towards.
You know, when I'm talking tomy manager, I'm talking about
professional things.
You're not talking aboutpersonal things with your
manager.
But now it's the opposite, not?
You know that.
You know you have to talk aboutthings.
Everyone should only um speakabout their personal things to
(22:31):
the extent they feel comfortable.
But bringing your whole self towork is important for you and
for the team.
And if you've got at least oneperson that you can confide in
about personal things in theworkplace, it's so helpful, it's
so so helpful, you know.
(22:51):
I mean I even noticed.
I mean I'm in, I'm in my earlyf 50s now and there's a, a lady
who left, who's a similar age tome, and I miss her being around
to talk about things likeperimenopause, like god.
You know, I feel really likeanxious today and she's like I
don't worry about it.
You know, I felt like that andhaving that sounding board and
(23:12):
you just calm down when you'vegot someone to confide in, even
if it's just one person.
Speaker 5 (23:17):
Um, so, certainly over the years that's changed
and that's probably reflecting,you know, different generational
ways of thinking, penny can Ijust add also that it's not easy
um doing this stuff and thatoften managers are expected to
somehow incorporate it intotheir everything else they have
(23:40):
to do, without perhaps beinggiven the acknowledgement that
if you have got quite I've got areason sized team and you're
doing regular one to ones, thatis going to be taking time out
of your day and your workload,out of your day and your
workload, and it's sometimesquite hard to manage that.
If it's somehow, you knowpeople somehow expect it just to
sort of happen as if by magic,without acknowledging this could
(24:02):
take up quite a big chunk ofyour time.
And if you are supportingsomebody who's really struggling
, that can take even more timeand also a certain amount of
emotional energy as well.
And again, I think that needsto be acknowledged.
And maybe that's a generationalshift, because back in the day
when you never brought your workproblems to work, perhaps the
delineations were clearer.
(24:23):
You didn't even haveone-to-ones.
I remember you might've had anannual review and that was about
it, unless you specificallywent to seek your line manager
out.
So I think it's not only agenerational shift in terms of
age and maybe youngergenerations having a more, being
able to talk more comfortablyabout their mental health issues
and their problems and expectthat, expect to be looked after
(24:46):
at work.
But maybe it's it's in systemsas well that this is all now
being built much more into yourrole as a manager, that you are
going to be expected to betaking care of your staff in a
way that maybe 20, 30 years agoyou wouldn't have the same
extent.
So I think another reason why itis good to have some training
(25:10):
and also for firms to sort ofacknowledge that actually this
can be quite difficult and needsto be factored in to what
you're expected to do in yourrole if you have managerial
responsibilities and I certainlywould like to say that from a
personal experience where I sortof ended up with 18 direct
(25:34):
reports in one job I had and Ithought, oh my God, if I'm
seeing them every fortnight fora half hour, one to one, I'm not
going to have time to doanything else this is completely
unrealistic.
So sometimes I think there is adisconnect between what these
sort of angelic line managersare meant to do and what they
can in reality do.
So just say I have a hugesympathy if line managers are
(25:57):
struggling with this or perhapsyou know, feel, oh my god, this
isn't quite realistic, so so.
So I know I was being a bitdevil's advocate here, but
that's why I think it's reallygood to have a sort of support
network around you so you cantalk around this stuff and feel
that there are people you canshare the look but, kathy, I
think you say something yeahit's gonna just answer me a
(26:19):
question about differentgenerations and I think you can
have people of any generationbeing a great line manager or
not a great line manager, andsome of the stats on how
managers impact mental healthwere told me about.
Speaker 6 (26:32):
There was a couple of years ago and I think about
half the people who respondedhad quit a job because of their
line manager and I think about aquarter of the respondents had
had nightmares because of a linemanager.
So it can have that massivenegative impact but also that
massive positive impact and as acounsellor, the people who come
and have really good linemanager support makes such a
(26:55):
difference and there was somesort of evidence saying that
actually that social supportfrom line managers can have more
of a positive effect thancounselling sometimes.
So you know we can't downplay itbut, agreeing with Penny, that
doesn't always come easily andyou know, even people are really
good at supporting their peopleand it can use time, it can use
energy and for all thosereasons, you know even people
are really good at supportingtheir people and it can use time
(27:15):
, it can use energy and you know, for all those reasons, you
know, I think, if you're a linemanager supporting somebody with
mental health problems.
Just making sure you're feelingsupported and part of that
might be the training, you know,making sure you've got the
skills, you're doing the rightstuff can make you feel more
confident, which can help youfeel supported.
But making sure you speak toother people as well and you,
(27:36):
you know you're not alone andyou're not carrying it all on
your shoulders that's prettyinteresting.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
That's definitely saying, isn't it?
You don't leave your job, youleave your boss.
I've definitely heard thatworryingly, um, and I've never
little personal revelation.
I've never had a disturbing, no, I've never had a nightmare
about a manager.
I haven't a disturbing dream ofone that I'm not going to go
into, so that was.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
That was enough.
That could be the closerquestion.
That could be the answerquestion what?
Speaker 1 (28:01):
what disturbing dream have you had about your boss?
Not sure, not sure.
I'm actually going to umcomment, though, on the go back
to very early on.
Actually penny your point aboutmaking it a day, and obviously
you can't always do it, but I do.
I can see, conversely, that thebusiness says we have put a day
aside for this, put everythingaway and go do it.
(28:22):
It feels like a reallyimportant message.
If you say, oh, dial in for onehour recordings when you've got
a minute, you're kind of notreally supporting it as a
business.
I'm not saying businesses haveto make it a day, by the way,
but I can see why that wouldgive it extra weight definitely,
and I agree with kathy that aone-off day isn't.
Speaker 5 (28:40):
You know, there needs to perhaps be follow-up in an
ideal world and maybe some otherfollow-up kind of sessions,
perhaps on oh I, I didn't quiteget it about reasonable
adjustments.
Maybe you know there'ssomewhere I could go to top up
on that, but I do think that Ifor me, I think you can't
replicate the in-person bit,because I always think you get
(29:00):
more learning from yourcolleagues and the other
participants than you do fromthe person standing up front
talking.
There's a much moreexperiential kind of learning.
Those are hard moments, thoseoh, my goodness, you do it like
that.
Or oh gosh, I'm not the onlyone who feels like that.
Or, oh, that's a good idea.
I think that's much, much more.
I think that's the kind oflearning you remember, because
(29:22):
something shifts inside yourather than listening to
somebody and you think, oh, thatwas really interesting, and
then a week later you'veforgotten all about it.
You know, I mean you.
You know, let's face it thatthat that does happen.
So something that actuallycreates that shift inside you, I
think is really important.
And in an ideal world whereyou've experienced the need for
(29:44):
it as well, where you think, ohgosh, you know I have no idea
what I'm doing here.
And then somebody comes alongand says, right, come and have
this training.
Oh gosh, yes, that'd be reallyhelpful.
Then I think you're going to getmuch more buy-in from from
people going, rather than I gotto go along to this boring old
training.
Yeah, I mean because we're onlyhuman and maybe think I haven't
(30:05):
got time for this, but, as askathy was saying, all the
evidence does show that they'reinvesting that time does pay
back dividends.
I mean, it's always difficult,isn't it as well?
But do you make it mandatory ordo you make it that you choose
to go on?
And often it's a self-selectinggroup and the kind of people
(30:27):
who choose to attend this sortof training are probably the
kind of people who don't need itas much as the kind of people
who choose not to attend it.
But I don't know how you getround that.
Speaker 7 (30:42):
That's the same with everything, I think, all these
sort of trainings.
Yeah, I was just going to say,on the kind of in-person side of
things as well, that you knowif that training's done well.
And you're talking about mentalhealth, you're talking about a
topic that's quite personal and,in an ideal world, you're
getting people to be morevulnerable than they ordinarily
would, so that even in and ofitself is helping the
organization, because you'regetting to know your colleagues,
(31:03):
your fellow manager colleagues,in a way that you wouldn't
otherwise get to know them whenthey're, like you know, sharing
things that they wouldn'tnecessarily ordinarily share,
because you have to in thecontext of a mental health
training day that point aboutlearning more about your
colleagues and everything as aspart of the training as well,
that certainly hasn't occurred.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Yes, we're building a common language, working better
as a team, not just learninghow to be better manager for an
individual.
I'm wondering also if onelearns a little bit about
oneself.
I can imagine going along andthinking hang on a minute, maybe
I should pay a bit moreattention to myself for a moment
yeah, it's honestly, that's areally good point, willem.
Speaker 7 (31:49):
Sometimes we don't realize that we're stressed out.
I've gone through probably aseries of four-day weeks, with
bank holidays and taking otherdays off, and I had a dream that
I was sitting my EQEs last week, based on the level of
preparedness that I have as I'msitting here now, and it was
really stressful.
And I woke up and I realized,because I'd had that dream, hang
(32:09):
on, you're feeling a bitanxious about work, you know,
because you're going 90 miles anhour.
So, I mean, and that's wherethe mental health for managers
training is valuable being ableto spot when people are
struggling, when they might noteven know themselves or they
might.
They might know, but they're,you know, so caught up in it
(32:29):
that they don't feel able toreach out, because you can feel
so down that you're justenclosed within your feelings
and don't feel able to reach out.
Um, and that's the scenariowhere you need people to have
the spider sense to.
You know, and it's an easyconversation to start when you
know how it's like.
(32:50):
It's not rocket science, areyou okay?
And taking someone aside forjust a little conversation like
that can be very powerful.
Um, when the person eitherdoesn't know or can't, doesn't
feel like they're able to, toseek support can I, um, can I
quickly dive in willem?
Speaker 4 (33:06):
is that all right, fab?
Thank you, uh, so, joe kathysally, and I'm sorry I should
have done my little bit ofresearch beforehand and asked
this have you all done thetraining?
Speaker 6 (33:16):
done training, but not penny's training.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
But not penny's training, okay, so I can't.
So I can't ask a question aboutthis training specifically, and
that's um, I have done thistraining.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Um, I was part of the , I organized it and then and
joined the session for it joe,that means that I'm coming to
you now.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
Sorry about that, but so I I mean I've I've obviously
done this kind of training inthe past.
Um, I've not actually done itwhilst I've been at sleep, so
that means I've not done it for13 years and I'm now feeling
quite guilty about that.
And I know that when people goon training like this it you can
feel quite apprehensive,because sometimes you feel like
(33:50):
you're asked to share stuffthat's close to you and personal
to you and these kinds ofthings.
Can you give us like ahelicopter view of what the
training's like, what whatpeople might expect to go
through?
Is that okay?
Speaker 2 (34:05):
like what what people might expect to go through.
Is that okay?
Yeah, of course.
Um.
So the I think the benefit ofhaving the full day is that you
get the um sort of more coverage, um of the different topics.
So, um, for us the day startedwith talking about sort of
mental health and well-being ingeneral and then also looking at
how we fit into that asindividuals, how we need to look
(34:25):
after ourselves to be able tolook after other people, um how
to spot if people are struggling, how to have conversations, and
then leading into what ourorganization itself might be
offering to support people.
So there was, there was a realbroad range that we covered.
Penny was great.
(34:46):
We did it in sessions ofpresentation sections and then
having sort of breaking intosmall groups to have discussions
about it, and I think that wasreally useful in helping people
open up.
I mean, the group that we hadmost of them had been working
together in a group periodicallyfor over sort of a six month
period, so they were used totalking to each other and
(35:08):
opening up to each other already.
But breaking down into thesmall groups helped.
You're only talking to oneperson, two people maybe and so
it's a little bit easier to be abit more vulnerable rather than
saying it to the full group.
But we did also have bits wherewe stopped and opened up to the
group.
Penny would ask a question andpeople sort of spoke up and I
think that was really helpfulpeople that you didn't have to
(35:30):
speak out if you weren'tcomfortable with doing that.
But I think when you starthearing from other people, you
get like you, you feel morecomfortable yourself and I think
, going into these sessionsknowing that it's essentially,
you know, a safe space to talkabout these topics yeah, no
judgment, you're not.
You know you might saysomething that other people
(35:51):
wouldn't.
That wouldn't be their firstreaction, but that's okay and
that's the point of thesesessions is to find out how
people react in these situationsand how we can learn from each
other and from materials.
So you know, from a totallypractical point of view of the
day, I think we started at halfnine and finished sort of around
three.
You know we had a few breaksduring the day, so there's a lot
(36:11):
of material covered.
But then you need that becausethere will be different things
that are relevant to differentpeople.
Speaker 5 (36:18):
So it means that everyone gets something really
valuable out of it that way Ithink breaking into small groups
and things, it gives you timeto process the information.
If you're just bombarded with aload of information, you don't
remember it at all.
So I think that's helpful and,and I think another, the whole
day does help people build uptrust.
(36:39):
I remember trying to do atruncated version half a day and
I think one of the feedbackthings was that by the end of
the half day people hadn't feltquite safe enough to open up
with their colleagues.
They were a bit more cageyabout what they were able to
share.
And I think also we can tackledifficult things like, well,
(37:00):
what happens if somebody refusesto accept that they may be
experiencing mental healthdifficulties, or how you deal
with the dynamics in a wholeteam, because it can have impact
on the whole team.
Um, these are kind of thingsthat are really helpful to
discuss with other people.
And also it's kind of helpfulif you have we had someone from
hr in joe's group it's alwayshelpful to have someone that who
(37:23):
can actually say what thepolicies are, because I do find
that you might know in theory oh, I think there's a policy
somewhere that deals with that,but I can't remember what it is.
And in the heat of the momentyou might forget to even look at
it.
So I think it's quite useful tohave somebody there who says,
yeah, we have got a policy here,or we do have this EAP or
(37:44):
whatever, just to sort ofconfirm that people actually do
know what's on offer.
And, with Jonathan's voice, wewill always have a conversation
with the company to sort of geta sense of what's going to
really work best for you, what'sappropriate for you, what kind
of help do you provide?
It's not a sort of one size fitsall kind of one.
(38:05):
We always try and tailor it tothe actual organization, um, so
that it does actually resonatewith you, it does feel
appropriate to that thatparticular company.
We, we, we can do that, whichis which is great and I think,
really really important, becausebe wasting everyone's time, if
(38:26):
you know you went in and thought, well, that's all very well,
but it it's, you know, itdoesn't.
It doesn't, um relate to ourcompany, so.
Speaker 4 (38:33):
So I was going to give you the opportunity to do a
sales pitch, penny, but thatfelt like it, except for the how
do people organize it?
How do they go about making thearrangements?
Speaker 5 (38:42):
yeah, well, um simple , just go on our website and
send us an email, or I thinkthere's a little form you could
fill in.
There's what we offer.
There's something about theline manager training there.
But probably your best way isjust to send jonathan's voice um
an email and all theinformation there on our website
, which is umwwwjonathansvoiceorguk, I think,
(39:07):
or just google it where where?
Speaker 4 (39:09):
make sure it's in the blurb, don't worry yeah, yeah,
make sure.
Speaker 5 (39:12):
It's one of those things I get a bit of a blank
about.
Is it orguk?
I think it is at the end.
Um, yeah, and all theinformation is in there.
Um, we are a charity and one ofour sort of things is that we
don't charge an actual specificsum for the training we do, but
we do make you know, we do relyon donations.
(39:32):
So we have a suggested donation, a suggested minimum donation,
which would, in an ideal world,at least cover the costs of us
putting on the training,especially the line manager
training.
So so, again, there'sinformation about that on the
website.
Speaker 4 (39:56):
Well, I think we're kind of there or thereabouts.
But so, sally and Penny, you'vebeen on before, so you know
that me and Gwilym tried to endwith some kind of tangential,
closer question.
I'm not sure we've done it withthis many guests on the podcast
, william, so I don't know howwell this is going to work.
So I've been, I've been tryingto come up with a question that
might have a very short answer,so people feel comfortable
giving it.
Okay, uh, so for kathy andjoanne's benefit, I'm going to
(40:20):
ask a question to Gwilym, who'sstill there on my screen, um,
and then roll it around all ofyou and then Gwilym will come
back to me.
Gwilym, this time around I'venot done any thinking in advance
on what my answer might be.
Okay, so, no, no, I have anadvantage over no one, and I
(40:42):
don't know whether this us downa wee bit and we couldn't all
get in the room and we couldn'tstart recording.
And then you realize thatyou're in this digital world
where it's actually quitedifficult to communicate with
people, because it means sendingan email and you don't know if
they've read it.
So, so, consciously, we allstarted this in a bit of a
stressed state.
Hopefully we're not in thatstressed state now.
Hopefully, we're not in thatstressed state now.
(41:04):
So I was wondering, willem, ifyou had to describe how you feel
at the moment in the form ofmaybe an animal or a vegetable
or some such thing, how, how doyou?
How do you feel?
Can you speak?
Are you too busy laughingmushroom?
Do you need to explain that tous?
I think I know why no, I think.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Um well, life is a great experience.
Mushrooms grow, so I feel likeI'm as ever.
I've grown through this.
Um, at the same time, mushroomsgive me a bit of tummy ache, so
a little bit stressed too.
So there you go.
That's the first one that cameup.
Um okay analyze that.
Speaker 5 (41:36):
So penny, probably to you next, then well, I'm
feeling a bit like my firstimage was a cat on a hot tin
roof, and not a cat sleeping ona hot tin roof.
Hopefully I will be that inabout 10 minutes time, but the
cats are jumping about a littlebit.
So that's a bit how I'm I'mfeeling at the moment.
Speaker 4 (41:56):
Sally, how about you?
Speaker 7 (41:58):
well, if I'm going to say the first thing that came
into my head, it was a teddybear and then I started thinking
willem planted that thereearlier, though I was thinking
why?
Why am I thinking about teddybear?
Yeah, it might be subliminalfrom something that was said
earlier.
Um, and it may be that I want acuddle, or it may be that I
want to give somebody else acuddle there's a sort of.
There's a hug aspect.
(42:19):
The dutch for teddy bear isknuffle bear, which means like
hug bear, which is oh lovely.
It's a nice word for hugknuffle.
I'm probably not saying thatright, apologies dutch speaking
listeners joe, how about you?
Speaker 2 (42:33):
I think my mind went to the classic swan scenario of
feeling trying to appear reallycalm and measured on top but
feeling slightly franticunderneath and kathy, how about
you?
Speaker 6 (42:48):
I was like a cat as well, penny but fluffy cat, and
for some reason I was you knowthese big stretches you have and
probably is wanting to getoutside in the sunshine I think
it turns out that was a greatquestion that's okay, that's
okay you weren't prepared.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
I'm gonna guess what you're gonna say and I'll write
down hold up.
I'm gonna hold up afterwards,but I'm don't say yeah, I'm
gonna hold up to this group.
So you know what I think you'regonna say you're doing your
derren brown bit.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
It's just, it's impressive it's not gonna work.
I'm just curious go on so so theone thing that came to my mind
I don't know if it's how I'mfeeling now, how I'm feeling on
top of all of the other thingsI'm dealing with today um and
this was something that was saidto me by past president of
seeper, roger burke um, notdescribing me at that time, but
just using it as a, as a sort ofway of describing a particular
situation and he said he felt atone time like a bit of a post
(43:39):
tortoise or post turtle, andthen he showed me a picture of
it and it's a post in the middleof nowhere with a tortoise sat
on top of it and the kind oflike the text accompanying it
was something like you know, itshouldn't be there.
You have no idea how it gotthere, you have no idea how it's
getting down, and sometimesthat's what it feels like to be
kind of managing in situations,and I kind of feel a little bit
like that at the moment, likehow have I got here?
(44:00):
Why am I here?
How am I going to get away?
So, um, yeah, look a little bitof a tortoise on a pole for the
audience we always talk abouttortoises on the podcast.
It was a given, it was a given,but it genuinely wasn't the way
of me squeezing that into theconversation.
(44:21):
That was sort of like how I wasfeeling so how cool is that?
oh, um, penny, joe kathy sally,thank you so much for um taking
times out of your busy day totalk to us about kind of what is
probably one of the mostimportant conversations we could
have at the moment.
Um, and always, penny, thanksfor all you've done.
We know that you are off to topastures, greener, newer,
whatever they might be, so sogood good luck in wherever you
(44:43):
go next and um, and obviously welook forward to continuing to
work with jonathan's voice onall things mental health and
supporting our members by byworking together.
I've really enjoyed the podcast.
I'm hoping that everyone who'slistened has enjoyed it too and
feel inclined to leave us alittle message telling us that
they've done so on the, on thepodcasting platform of their
choice, because that means thatpeople will find us.
I'm getting better at this kindof closing thing around that.
(45:05):
Leave yourself and review thingslike yeah thanks, all that's a
wrap, thanks thanks thank youvery much, thanks for having us.
Thank you everyone.
We'll see you next time.
That point about learning more about your
colleagues as part of thetraining is one that certainly
hasn't occurred.
Yes, we're building a commonlanguage, working better as a
team, not just learning how tobe a better manager for an
individual.
I'm wondering also if onelearns a little bit about
oneself.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Lee Davis and Gwilym Roberts are the two IPs in a pod
and you are listening to apodcast on intellectual property
brought to you by the CharteredInstitute of Patent Attorneys.
Speaker 4 (00:34):
Hey, gwilym, how are you?
I'm really good.
I'm gearing up.
I didn't even give you a chanceto reply then, did I?
I was just going to tell youhow I was.
How are you?
I'm really well.
How are you, lee?
You know I'm really good.
Just a little bit disappointedthat I put on a put on a more of
a summery shirt today.
I know I know the colorprobably doesn't look it, but
you probably can't see fromthrough the camera that it's
like crocheted.
And it was a mistake, becausethe wind was blowing through it
this morning and I felt quitecold also do give me a slight
(00:55):
headache, because it's umplaying happy it's strobing,
isn't it?
yeah, yeah, I didn't appreciate,it isn isn't summary, it's
quite goth.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
I'm afraid lee from color scheme perspective it was.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
It was summary, in the sense that it's crocheted,
and I thought that that wouldgive me a feeling of sort of
being at one with the sunshine.
Uh, but the sunshine's gone, sowhy do you associate crochet
with sunshine?
Yeah, no idea.
Perhaps I thought I was gonnaget a little bit of a micro
suntan or something like thatlike sunbathing through a sieve
yeah, yeah, you know exactlythat.
Hey, it's just something like apatent, only more.
(01:28):
We disclosed it.
Oh no, of course I always make.
I always make that mistake.
You know, I always give away myinventions.
Oh well, you've been up to bankall day weekend, did you think
exciting?
Speaker 1 (01:36):
oh no, but that was a good thing, because I'm very
happy not to do exciting things.
Got, I've got beth, so he didlovely beth things.
But we are currently gearing upfor next Sunday for a giant
teddy bear's picnic.
Oh cool, why next Sunday is itbirthday time?
No, that's when it is.
It's in the local park becausethere's a giant picnic.
We don't know whether it's agiant picnic for teddy bears,
picnic for giant teddy bears.
(01:56):
There's various variants on it,so you can bring a picnic in a
giant teddy bear.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
I think it's probably that is such a typical patent
attorney way to interpret what.
What is just a way ofdescribing a very friendly event
, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (02:09):
it's ambiguous and, I think, unfortunately quite
difficult to infringe, so Iwouldn't.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
I wouldn't have granted a patent on that claim
so sometimes on the podcast, uh,conversation about mental
health.
So, um, we've got a big posseof guests with us today, gullum.
So this this always taxes us,doesn't it?
Because it's it's quitedifficult to keep one person in
(02:35):
order, let alone four, which iswhere we are today.
So let's get our guests on andget them to introduce themselves
.
If that's okay, penny, shall Istart with you?
Is it?
Are you the most obvious personto come to first?
Yeah, I don't know.
I don't know.
Speaker 5 (02:45):
You can very well start with me.
So I'm Penny Aspinall and I amthe mental health consultant for
the charity Jonathan's Voice.
But at the end of May I'mstepping down and my role will
be taken over by some wonderfulperson called Donna Smith.
So this is my kind of the endof my farewell tour if you like.
So I'm pleased to be here, tobe joining you today.
Speaker 4 (03:06):
So who have you got with you, Penny?
Who do you want to bring onfirst?
Speaker 5 (03:08):
So what I really wanted to bring on today was a
sort of group of people whocould give their perspective
about why line manager trainingis important.
So we've got Joanne Donaldson,who's head of operations Well,
she can introduce herself.
So I think we've got a goodselection of people who can talk
about this really importantissue from different angles to
(03:29):
get a real 360 degree look atwhy line manager training is a
good thing.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Yeah, hi Joe, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Hi, so my name's Joe.
I'm head of operations atHazeltine Lake, kempner, where
I've been for about the last 19years.
I joined originally as a patentadministrator, was a manager
for a team of patentadministrators there for about
six years and then moved into mycurrent role about three years
ago.
I'm a member of the mentalhealth and well-being group at
HLK and I'm a mental healthfirst aider, and I've worked on
(04:01):
quite a few projects withJonathan's Voice over the last
few years, including havingPenny to come and do some mental
health for line managertraining with us last year with
a group of our line managers.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
Cool.
Who should we talk to next?
Penny.
Speaker 5 (04:16):
Let's talk to Cathy.
Speaker 6 (04:19):
Thank you.
So I'm Cathy Bailey.
I manage one of our chemistryand biotech groups in the
intellectual property office.
I previously was a patentexaminer.
Years ago actually left.
I had some counselling when Iwas suffering bereavement at the
time and left the organisationand ran wellbeing offerings in
many different places, includingmental health managers,
(04:42):
training in different places andmental health as they training
got drawn back into theintellectual property office
where I've now found actuallyall that stuff as a manager is
really really important anduseful and do lots of well-being
work whilst I'm here.
Speaker 5 (04:56):
Thank you, Finally, we thought we better have an
attorney in the mix, so we askedSally to come and join.
It's not that Gwilym isn't anattorney, of course yeah.
Speaker 7 (05:07):
So, yeah, penny asked me to to get involved in this
and I'm delighted to be here.
Thank you, penny, to bring.
I'm bringing the perspective ofa patent attorney, probably
more from an employeeperspective rather than a
manager, although I have hadmanager responsibilities in the
past.
But you know, like most people,I've hit the buffers from time
to time with my mental healthand so giving a little bit of
(05:30):
perspective about that and timeswhen you know I've been managed
well and maybe not so well,even with the best will in the
world.
You know well-meaning managersbut not necessarily the best
environment.
Sometimes in my past life and Ithink where I am now, the team
(05:50):
that I'm with now does a prettygood job, to be honest.
So can maybe talk about that abit as well and what I think
feels good from an employee.
From a patent attorneyperspective.
I'm a senior European patentattorney and I work in-house.
I've always worked in-house, sothat would be where I'm a
senior European patent attorneyand I work in-house.
I've always worked in-house, sothat would be where I'm coming
from.
Speaker 4 (06:07):
Cool.
So where do we start theconversation I?
Speaker 5 (06:11):
can kick off.
So basically and I think Cathycan back this up there's been
research from various differentquarters and it's been endorsed
by the World Health Organizationthat there is a lot of benefit
to training line managers insupporting mental health in your
(06:31):
organization, both in theindividual employees but also in
creating a culture that initself supports mental health,
because I'm a great sort ofproponent of saying let's focus
on preventative and proactivemeasures as well as dealing with
individuals if they start tostruggle.
And so there's a lot of evidenceout there to show that if
(06:52):
you're going to invest inanything to support mental
health in your organisation,your best bet really is to go
for some lie manager training,and that is ideally not an hour
long online sort of talk, butsomething proper at least a day,
I would say.
That can really bring about somekind of real learning so that
(07:13):
line managers, who are oftenjust made into managers because
they're good at the job withvery little preparation, can
really get the skills and theconfidence in being able to
recognise if somebody isstarting to struggle with their
mental health or wellbeing andalso to be able to then approach
them or, if somebody comes tothem, know how to deal with it,
to put in place the right kindof adjustments, just to know how
(07:37):
to have that conversation,where to refer and so on.
This is not something I thinkyou can do by magic or by
instinct.
Some people obviously areprobably better at it than
others, but by no means noteverybody.
So, as I say, I'm a great fanof thinking okay, let's get some
training in place just to helppeople with that, and also
(07:57):
create maybe a community of linemanagers so they feel confident
.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
if they're starting to wobble with this or not quite
sure about what to do, they canget support from each other and
can I just test, uh, what wemean when we say line manager,
penny, just to make sure thatwe're all talking about the same
thing, because sometimes it'sused almost exclusively for
those people that have gotrelatively senior roles and are
managing a number of teams, manypeople, uh, sometimes it's used
(08:24):
in that more distributedfashion where it's anyone who's
got any kind of management orsupervisory role involving one
or more other people, and I'mguessing we're at that second
definition, are we?
Speaker 5 (08:33):
it's anyone who's managing people I think joanne
could answer that questionreally well.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, I think we're probably um, coming at it from
the second um approach,certainly from the work that
we've been doing at HLK.
We're looking at anyone who hasany kind of management
responsibility for someone else.
The skills and things thatwe're talking about here and a
lot of the information isactually really relevant to all
(08:59):
of our interactions with othercolleagues.
You know it's relevant foreveryone.
But yeah, from a general sense,we're looking at any form of
line management responsibilityfor one or more cool.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
I'm wondering a bit about, um, somebody who is a
line manager, as you say, at any, any level, who is told oh, you
need to do some mental healthtraining.
And certainly my immediatequestions are how long, how
often and what's in it?
And I mean, penny, you've givena hint there about the duration
a day's worth, but I mean, isthat a day that has to be run in
one block, or can you spit itout?
(09:30):
How does it all work?
How does it?
What does it?
What does it sound like whenyou actually have this training?
Speaker 5 (09:34):
oh, I can talk from my point of view, and I'm sure
kathy could sort of talk fromher point of view as well.
So I think it's reallydifficult.
There's always that tensionbetween giving up the time to do
something well and thinking Ican't spare the time, so let's
do it in smaller chunks.
And it's a huge temptation, Ithink, since perhaps possibly
(09:55):
since the pandemic, to do thingsonline and in small chunks
because they're practically muchmore doable than giving up a
whole day, ideally in person.
I'd say a minimum of a day,ideally in person.
And I think the in-person thinggives some real benefit that
you don't get from online,because you can sort of build up
a sense of trust and connectwith other people and chat with
(10:19):
other people in a way that isnot impossible, but much harder
online.
And I think it's much harder toconcentrate over a longer
period of time if you're doing atraining online.
So in my ideal world we'd belooking at a group of perhaps a
maximum of about 18 in a roomtogether for a day.
(10:39):
That would be my ideal.
But I do recognize that we don'tlive in an ideal world and that
maybe there are other ways ofthinking about it and doing it
if one's being pragmatic.
So, for example, I did dosomething with one firm.
They couldn't do that, so I didwell, just two hours.
But I said I'm just going tofocus on one specific area of it
(11:01):
, which was about having theconversation, recognise the
signs and symptoms and havingthe conversation.
And we did that quiteeffectively online.
It had good feedback, but thatwas just one little small part,
I think, of the whole picture.
I mean, I don't know if, Cathy,you want to add anything around
your experience of delivery.
Speaker 6 (11:22):
Yeah, well, I think there's so much you can do and I
think I'd like to just move thefocus away from it being a
one-off, one-hit thing tosomething that's sort of
flexible, embedded and I thinkyou know, but also being very
responsive to the needs of themanagers and looking at the
evidence in the organisation.
What's going on.
Like, you know, if there'smassive issues with stress, it
(11:45):
might be there's a focus onstress.
Um, if there's a lot offeedback saying, actually,
managers haven't got the skillsand the resources or the time to
spend time having theconversations, yeah, maybe we
need to look at that.
So there's that kind of moreholistic view.
Um, but I think managing mentalhealth, training such an
important part of that and thereactive skill they could be,
like you know, even just havingan awareness, awareness session
at start can make a difference.
(12:06):
Um, you know, I think withtraining, it's how long is a pit
string?
And that day, penny, soundslike a brilliant idea, um, you
know, and if an organization caninvest that time in the
managers so they can spend thewhole day looking at the skills
they've got, um, and theguidance changes.
So you know, people like, sopeople might have like an
instinctive way of managing.
That's actually really good formental health.
(12:27):
But even if so, having that timeto reflect and look at how we
do it and how we can better andbe better can be really
important, and just looking atcurrent research and evidence
and what's good and also makingsure that's not the end of the
story.
So, if we do have a day'straining, have follow-up
conversations, like something wedid we had training for
(12:49):
managers, but we put in kind ofreflection sessions afterwards
so people could have time toembed the training and then kind
of reflect on what was good andwhat was working, and so it's
something that carries on and wekeep thinking about it as well.
So, yeah, there's always more,there is always more.
But guess, making sure that weput things in place, see what
happens, look at the feedbackand don't make that the last
(13:11):
thing in the story.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
Yeah, and I'd like to add just one more point that
also having a training thateverybody does can ensure some
sort of consistency of you,because because I know we found
um, even within certain smallorganizations there can be quite
inconsistent ways that peopleinterpret or understand what,
what's meant to be done, um.
(13:32):
And so I suppose at least ifyou, if you can manage to train
everybody together if trainingis the right word, or brief,
everybody together, then atleast you're getting a
consistent message across theorganization yeah, I'd like.
Speaker 7 (13:44):
Yeah, it picks up on this aspect of culture as well,
doesn't it?
And you know what Cathy wassaying about like sustaining
things?
And Penelope, getting peoplealigned is it's not about like
just ticking the box, thatpeople have been trained.
It's a mindset within anorganisation that this is what
we're doing.
(14:05):
We think it's that, um, this iswhat we're doing, we think it's
important and this is how we'redoing it.
I remember when I was youngerand I had a bit of a dip in my
mental health, being sent awayfor a series of cognitive
behavioral therapy sessions andI really felt like my manager
just ticked a box, you know, andthe manager was a very
(14:28):
well-meaning person, um, and Ithink it wasn't, you know,
coming from him.
I think it was that theorganization was in a bit of a
tick box mode about mentalhealth, um related um things, um
at that point in time.
So, um, yeah, that thatholistic, sustaining approach,
(14:49):
that this is part of our culture.
This is what we're doing, it'simportant.
Um is key.
You're creating that fertilesoil in the organization as well
, so that when the people arecoming along to the training,
they see the point.
You know, to what you weresaying earlier, guillem, um, you
know why am I here, why am Idoing this?
Um, if everyone buys into theconcept that it's part of the
(15:09):
organization's culture, then thething happens and the goodwill
is there, um, and the, thebehaviors are sustained and
people are alert to it.
So it's something that's alwayshappening rather than just
being a training that peoplehave done that's your point on
the consistent messaging isreally that resonates?
Speaker 1 (15:29):
actually, we had in my office.
We had some training on acompletely separate thing about
strategy.
We were told the strategy isabout having a vision and then
strategy is how you achieve yourvision.
But the guy had a flip chartand he blew a, drew a blue line
between where you are now andthe vision.
And the whole partnership nowtalks about whether something's
on the blue line or not.
And we have.
(15:49):
If you didn't know what thebackground was, you wouldn't
understand that at all.
But it means that we've gotthis incredible shorthand for
making sure that we're speakingexactly the same language.
So the consistency point doesit does resonate really strongly
actually.
But also that point about itfitting in with, you know, with
particular circumstances of thebusiness.
I was going to ask, jo, if Imay, you mentioned you've done
(16:11):
some of this.
What shape did it take for youguys?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Yeah, so we ran it as a full in-person day.
We did it back in November Lastyear.
We implemented a managementdevelopment program for some of
our line managers, so that was ascheme that was put in place
for sort of general linemanagement skills training for a
collection of about a dozenpeople from across the business
(16:35):
all different levels, those withline management responsibility
or those that might beprogressing to that stage.
And then we I got the agreementto run the mental health line
manager training as an extra day, sort of at the end of the
course.
That worked really well for usin the sense that we had a group
of people who were already sortof really engaged in the
(16:56):
process of learning and intaking that dedicated time out
of their work to focus onlearning new skills in relation
to line management.
I think it was a really positiveday.
It definitely makes a differencehaving it in person, being able
to sort of interact, sharestories with each other, get to
know people in a way that youprobably wouldn't if you were
(17:16):
doing this on a Teams call orsomething like that.
And certainly I found that I gotdifferent perspectives about
people that I work withregularly, just because we're
sharing things that we're notused to sharing perhaps, and I
think it was really good as well.
We sort of looked at some ofour internal policies and how we
deal with like what offeringswe have to support people who
(17:40):
might be going through difficultperiods, who might be going
through difficult periods, andthat was really useful to be
able to discuss that in a groupso that we could talk about how
might you go about reasonableadjustments or supporting
someone on return to work andwhen you're in an organisation
that has a lot of blind managers, that's really important to
make sure that you're gettingthat consistent message out and
(18:01):
the consistent experienceBecause I think that's one of
the things that I'm veryconscious of is that people,
individuals within theorganization can have very
different experiences with theirline managers.
So if we're sort of sending outthe same message, then it helps
support that consistentapproach for us.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
So, gwyneth, I know you've got more to say there,
but what I heard there, jo, ifit's okay for me just quickly
test, that is so I'm.
I think I'm hearing that thereis more to training line
managers in uh, mental healthawareness development than than
just the the individual benefit,the benefit that they would
have in their relationships withthe people that they're
(18:39):
responsible for, for managing.
I think I heard that there'skind of team building
development opportunities thereand generally encouraging people
to work better and smartertogether, but also there are
organisational developmentbenefits.
I think that's what I heard.
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah, absolutely.
I think there's benefits acrossthe board.
It's for you as an individual,as a manager, to learn better
skills so you feel morecomfortable in supporting your
colleagues, you betterunderstand how to relate to your
line manager as well and tokind of keep those conversations
open.
But, yeah, it's creating thatenvironment for everyone which
(19:16):
is really important as well tomake sure that it becomes.
You know, we're all used to howto recognise changes in each
other and to support thatwithout making changes rash
judgments, um, and encouragingpeople to actually talk about
what's what's happening in theirlives and, um how that might be
(19:37):
affecting them and how we cansupport them through that,
because we're all going throughdifferent things all the time
thank you can I ask?
Speaker 1 (19:50):
oh, can I ask a tricky one, sally.
Speaker 4 (19:53):
No one suggests Sally , you mentioned.
No one suggests.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
No one said no.
Go for it.
Gwilym Sally, you said that youknow sometimes you've had good
handling and sometimes not sogood handling, and it's
generally been well-meaning,which I'd like to believe is
going to be the case.
Actually, my basic question doyou think there's any
distinction between the handlingbetween people of, maybe,
different generations, Maybejust chucking that one in as a
(20:16):
person from a certain generation?
Speaker 7 (20:18):
I think there's probably lots of factors.
You know it's someone'spersonal circumstances,
someone's personality, theirstyle of managing.
I'm just reflecting ondifferent managers that I've had
and Rolodexing through them inmy head.
You know, there was one personwho set one-to-ones in my
calendar but routinely didn'tkeep them, which was very bad,
(20:41):
you know.
And and joe, you werementioning that like about
keeping the conversation openbetween the line manager and the
people they're managing.
If you don't keep yourone-to-ones, it's just, you know
that's, it's stressful becauseyou lose.
And again, it's kind of likegoing back to that like strategy
thing, willem, you know that,um, if you're keeping everyone
(21:01):
aligned, you need to keep theinteractions going and the
conversations going, um, andsomething as simple as like
having a one-to-one on a regularbasis and keeping it
prioritizing.
It is super helpful and it'shelpful for them, like the, the
manager as well, quite frankly,because you know if something's
going on for the person you'remanaging, you want to know about
it and guide them through it.
(21:25):
So that was a stressful timefor me and I was relatively
senior then I was a senior IPcounsel in that role, but I just
, you know, it's like we're allworking 90 miles an hour and you
just need to have that likeokay, touch base, um.
So I think there's multiplethings in answer to your
question, like the generationalcan impact it.
I mean, when I think of thekind of generational thing I I
(21:47):
probably more think of, like mytrajectory over the last 20 or
so years that I've been working,that back in the day it was
done probably more traditionally, you didn't necessarily bring
your personal stuff to theoffice, it wasn't encouraged.
I think that for me anyway,that's changed and I imagine for
(22:09):
others as well, that I wasprobably, you know, guided
towards, towards.
You know, when I'm talking tomy manager, I'm talking about
professional things.
You're not talking aboutpersonal things with your
manager.
But now it's the opposite, not?
You know that.
You know you have to talk aboutthings.
Everyone should only um speakabout their personal things to
(22:31):
the extent they feel comfortable.
But bringing your whole self towork is important for you and
for the team.
And if you've got at least oneperson that you can confide in
about personal things in theworkplace, it's so helpful, it's
so so helpful, you know.
(22:51):
I mean I even noticed.
I mean I'm in, I'm in my earlyf 50s now and there's a, a lady
who left, who's a similar age tome, and I miss her being around
to talk about things likeperimenopause, like god.
You know, I feel really likeanxious today and she's like I
don't worry about it.
You know, I felt like that andhaving that sounding board and
(23:12):
you just calm down when you'vegot someone to confide in, even
if it's just one person.
Speaker 5 (23:17):
Um, so, certainly over the years that's changed
and that's probably reflecting,you know, different generational
ways of thinking, penny can Ijust add also that it's not easy
um doing this stuff and thatoften managers are expected to
somehow incorporate it intotheir everything else they have
(23:40):
to do, without perhaps beinggiven the acknowledgement that
if you have got quite I've got areason sized team and you're
doing regular one to ones, thatis going to be taking time out
of your day and your workload,out of your day and your
workload, and it's sometimesquite hard to manage that.
If it's somehow, you knowpeople somehow expect it just to
sort of happen as if by magic,without acknowledging this could
(24:02):
take up quite a big chunk ofyour time.
And if you are supportingsomebody who's really struggling
, that can take even more timeand also a certain amount of
emotional energy as well.
And again, I think that needsto be acknowledged.
And maybe that's a generationalshift, because back in the day
when you never brought your workproblems to work, perhaps the
delineations were clearer.
(24:23):
You didn't even haveone-to-ones.
I remember you might've had anannual review and that was about
it, unless you specificallywent to seek your line manager
out.
So I think it's not only agenerational shift in terms of
age and maybe youngergenerations having a more, being
able to talk more comfortablyabout their mental health issues
and their problems and expectthat, expect to be looked after
(24:46):
at work.
But maybe it's it's in systemsas well that this is all now
being built much more into yourrole as a manager, that you are
going to be expected to betaking care of your staff in a
way that maybe 20, 30 years agoyou wouldn't have the same
extent.
So I think another reason why itis good to have some training
(25:10):
and also for firms to sort ofacknowledge that actually this
can be quite difficult and needsto be factored in to what
you're expected to do in yourrole if you have managerial
responsibilities and I certainlywould like to say that from a
personal experience where I sortof ended up with 18 direct
(25:34):
reports in one job I had and Ithought, oh my God, if I'm
seeing them every fortnight fora half hour, one to one, I'm not
going to have time to doanything else this is completely
unrealistic.
So sometimes I think there is adisconnect between what these
sort of angelic line managersare meant to do and what they
can in reality do.
So just say I have a hugesympathy if line managers are
(25:57):
struggling with this or perhapsyou know, feel, oh my god, this
isn't quite realistic, so so.
So I know I was being a bitdevil's advocate here, but
that's why I think it's reallygood to have a sort of support
network around you so you cantalk around this stuff and feel
that there are people you canshare the look but, kathy, I
think you say something yeahit's gonna just answer me a
(26:19):
question about differentgenerations and I think you can
have people of any generationbeing a great line manager or
not a great line manager, andsome of the stats on how
managers impact mental healthwere told me about.
Speaker 6 (26:32):
There was a couple of years ago and I think about
half the people who respondedhad quit a job because of their
line manager and I think about aquarter of the respondents had
had nightmares because of a linemanager.
So it can have that massivenegative impact but also that
massive positive impact and as acounsellor, the people who come
and have really good linemanager support makes such a
(26:55):
difference and there was somesort of evidence saying that
actually that social supportfrom line managers can have more
of a positive effect thancounselling sometimes.
So you know we can't downplay itbut, agreeing with Penny, that
doesn't always come easily andyou know, even people are really
good at supporting their peopleand it can use time, it can use
energy and for all thosereasons, you know even people
are really good at supportingtheir people and it can use time
(27:15):
, it can use energy and you know, for all those reasons, you
know, I think, if you're a linemanager supporting somebody with
mental health problems.
Just making sure you're feelingsupported and part of that
might be the training, you know,making sure you've got the
skills, you're doing the rightstuff can make you feel more
confident, which can help youfeel supported.
But making sure you speak toother people as well and you,
(27:36):
you know you're not alone andyou're not carrying it all on
your shoulders that's prettyinteresting.
Speaker 1 (27:40):
That's definitely saying, isn't it?
You don't leave your job, youleave your boss.
I've definitely heard thatworryingly, um, and I've never
little personal revelation.
I've never had a disturbing, no, I've never had a nightmare
about a manager.
I haven't a disturbing dream ofone that I'm not going to go
into, so that was.
Speaker 4 (27:56):
That was enough.
That could be the closerquestion.
That could be the answerquestion what?
Speaker 1 (28:01):
what disturbing dream have you had about your boss?
Not sure, not sure.
I'm actually going to umcomment, though, on the go back
to very early on.
Actually penny your point aboutmaking it a day, and obviously
you can't always do it, but I do.
I can see, conversely, that thebusiness says we have put a day
aside for this, put everythingaway and go do it.
(28:22):
It feels like a reallyimportant message.
If you say, oh, dial in for onehour recordings when you've got
a minute, you're kind of notreally supporting it as a
business.
I'm not saying businesses haveto make it a day, by the way,
but I can see why that wouldgive it extra weight definitely,
and I agree with kathy that aone-off day isn't.
Speaker 5 (28:40):
You know, there needs to perhaps be follow-up in an
ideal world and maybe some otherfollow-up kind of sessions,
perhaps on oh I, I didn't quiteget it about reasonable
adjustments.
Maybe you know there'ssomewhere I could go to top up
on that, but I do think that Ifor me, I think you can't
replicate the in-person bit,because I always think you get
(29:00):
more learning from yourcolleagues and the other
participants than you do fromthe person standing up front
talking.
There's a much moreexperiential kind of learning.
Those are hard moments, thoseoh, my goodness, you do it like
that.
Or oh gosh, I'm not the onlyone who feels like that.
Or, oh, that's a good idea.
I think that's much, much more.
I think that's the kind oflearning you remember, because
(29:22):
something shifts inside yourather than listening to
somebody and you think, oh, thatwas really interesting, and
then a week later you'veforgotten all about it.
You know, I mean you.
You know, let's face it thatthat that does happen.
So something that actuallycreates that shift inside you, I
think is really important.
And in an ideal world whereyou've experienced the need for
(29:44):
it as well, where you think, ohgosh, you know I have no idea
what I'm doing here.
And then somebody comes alongand says, right, come and have
this training.
Oh gosh, yes, that'd be reallyhelpful.
Then I think you're going to getmuch more buy-in from from
people going, rather than I gotto go along to this boring old
training.
Yeah, I mean because we're onlyhuman and maybe think I haven't
(30:05):
got time for this, but, as askathy was saying, all the
evidence does show that they'reinvesting that time does pay
back dividends.
I mean, it's always difficult,isn't it as well?
But do you make it mandatory ordo you make it that you choose
to go on?
And often it's a self-selectinggroup and the kind of people
(30:27):
who choose to attend this sortof training are probably the
kind of people who don't need itas much as the kind of people
who choose not to attend it.
But I don't know how you getround that.
Speaker 7 (30:42):
That's the same with everything, I think, all these
sort of trainings.
Yeah, I was just going to say,on the kind of in-person side of
things as well, that you knowif that training's done well.
And you're talking about mentalhealth, you're talking about a
topic that's quite personal and,in an ideal world, you're
getting people to be morevulnerable than they ordinarily
would, so that even in and ofitself is helping the
organization, because you'regetting to know your colleagues,
(31:03):
your fellow manager colleagues,in a way that you wouldn't
otherwise get to know them whenthey're, like you know, sharing
things that they wouldn'tnecessarily ordinarily share,
because you have to in thecontext of a mental health
training day that point aboutlearning more about your
colleagues and everything as aspart of the training as well,
that certainly hasn't occurred.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Yes, we're building a common language, working better
as a team, not just learninghow to be better manager for an
individual.
I'm wondering also if onelearns a little bit about
oneself.
I can imagine going along andthinking hang on a minute, maybe
I should pay a bit moreattention to myself for a moment
yeah, it's honestly, that's areally good point, willem.
Speaker 7 (31:49):
Sometimes we don't realize that we're stressed out.
I've gone through probably aseries of four-day weeks, with
bank holidays and taking otherdays off, and I had a dream that
I was sitting my EQEs last week, based on the level of
preparedness that I have as I'msitting here now, and it was
really stressful.
And I woke up and I realized,because I'd had that dream, hang
(32:09):
on, you're feeling a bitanxious about work, you know,
because you're going 90 miles anhour.
So, I mean, and that's wherethe mental health for managers
training is valuable being ableto spot when people are
struggling, when they might noteven know themselves or they
might.
They might know, but they're,you know, so caught up in it
(32:29):
that they don't feel able toreach out, because you can feel
so down that you're justenclosed within your feelings
and don't feel able to reach out.
Um, and that's the scenariowhere you need people to have
the spider sense to.
You know, and it's an easyconversation to start when you
know how it's like.
(32:50):
It's not rocket science, areyou okay?
And taking someone aside forjust a little conversation like
that can be very powerful.
Um, when the person eitherdoesn't know or can't, doesn't
feel like they're able to, toseek support can I, um, can I
quickly dive in willem?
Speaker 4 (33:06):
is that all right, fab?
Thank you, uh, so, joe kathysally, and I'm sorry I should
have done my little bit ofresearch beforehand and asked
this have you all done thetraining?
Speaker 6 (33:16):
done training, but not penny's training.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
But not penny's training, okay, so I can't.
So I can't ask a question aboutthis training specifically, and
that's um, I have done thistraining.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
Um, I was part of the , I organized it and then and
joined the session for it joe,that means that I'm coming to
you now.
Speaker 4 (33:30):
Sorry about that, but so I I mean I've I've obviously
done this kind of training inthe past.
Um, I've not actually done itwhilst I've been at sleep, so
that means I've not done it for13 years and I'm now feeling
quite guilty about that.
And I know that when people goon training like this it you can
feel quite apprehensive,because sometimes you feel like
(33:50):
you're asked to share stuffthat's close to you and personal
to you and these kinds ofthings.
Can you give us like ahelicopter view of what the
training's like, what whatpeople might expect to go
through?
Is that okay?
Speaker 2 (34:05):
like what what people might expect to go through.
Is that okay?
Yeah, of course.
Um.
So the I think the benefit ofhaving the full day is that you
get the um sort of more coverage, um of the different topics.
So, um, for us the day startedwith talking about sort of
mental health and well-being ingeneral and then also looking at
how we fit into that asindividuals, how we need to look
(34:25):
after ourselves to be able tolook after other people, um how
to spot if people are struggling, how to have conversations, and
then leading into what ourorganization itself might be
offering to support people.
So there was, there was a realbroad range that we covered.
Penny was great.
(34:46):
We did it in sessions ofpresentation sections and then
having sort of breaking intosmall groups to have discussions
about it, and I think that wasreally useful in helping people
open up.
I mean, the group that we hadmost of them had been working
together in a group periodicallyfor over sort of a six month
period, so they were used totalking to each other and
(35:08):
opening up to each other already.
But breaking down into thesmall groups helped.
You're only talking to oneperson, two people maybe and so
it's a little bit easier to be abit more vulnerable rather than
saying it to the full group.
But we did also have bits wherewe stopped and opened up to the
group.
Penny would ask a question andpeople sort of spoke up and I
think that was really helpfulpeople that you didn't have to
(35:30):
speak out if you weren'tcomfortable with doing that.
But I think when you starthearing from other people, you
get like you, you feel morecomfortable yourself and I think
, going into these sessionsknowing that it's essentially,
you know, a safe space to talkabout these topics yeah, no
judgment, you're not.
You know you might saysomething that other people
(35:51):
wouldn't.
That wouldn't be their firstreaction, but that's okay and
that's the point of thesesessions is to find out how
people react in these situationsand how we can learn from each
other and from materials.
So you know, from a totallypractical point of view of the
day, I think we started at halfnine and finished sort of around
three.
You know we had a few breaksduring the day, so there's a lot
(36:11):
of material covered.
But then you need that becausethere will be different things
that are relevant to differentpeople.
Speaker 5 (36:18):
So it means that everyone gets something really
valuable out of it that way Ithink breaking into small groups
and things, it gives you timeto process the information.
If you're just bombarded with aload of information, you don't
remember it at all.
So I think that's helpful and,and I think another, the whole
day does help people build uptrust.
(36:39):
I remember trying to do atruncated version half a day and
I think one of the feedbackthings was that by the end of
the half day people hadn't feltquite safe enough to open up
with their colleagues.
They were a bit more cageyabout what they were able to
share.
And I think also we can tackledifficult things like, well,
(37:00):
what happens if somebody refusesto accept that they may be
experiencing mental healthdifficulties, or how you deal
with the dynamics in a wholeteam, because it can have impact
on the whole team.
Um, these are kind of thingsthat are really helpful to
discuss with other people.
And also it's kind of helpfulif you have we had someone from
hr in joe's group it's alwayshelpful to have someone that who
(37:23):
can actually say what thepolicies are, because I do find
that you might know in theory oh, I think there's a policy
somewhere that deals with that,but I can't remember what it is.
And in the heat of the momentyou might forget to even look at
it.
So I think it's quite useful tohave somebody there who says,
yeah, we have got a policy here,or we do have this EAP or
(37:44):
whatever, just to sort ofconfirm that people actually do
know what's on offer.
And, with Jonathan's voice, wewill always have a conversation
with the company to sort of geta sense of what's going to
really work best for you, what'sappropriate for you, what kind
of help do you provide?
It's not a sort of one size fitsall kind of one.
(38:05):
We always try and tailor it tothe actual organization, um, so
that it does actually resonatewith you, it does feel
appropriate to that thatparticular company.
We, we, we can do that, whichis which is great and I think,
really really important, becausebe wasting everyone's time, if
(38:26):
you know you went in and thought, well, that's all very well,
but it it's, you know, itdoesn't.
It doesn't, um relate to ourcompany, so.
Speaker 4 (38:33):
So I was going to give you the opportunity to do a
sales pitch, penny, but thatfelt like it, except for the how
do people organize it?
How do they go about making thearrangements?
Speaker 5 (38:42):
yeah, well, um simple , just go on our website and
send us an email, or I thinkthere's a little form you could
fill in.
There's what we offer.
There's something about theline manager training there.
But probably your best way isjust to send jonathan's voice um
an email and all theinformation there on our website
, which is umwwwjonathansvoiceorguk, I think,
(39:07):
or just google it where where?
Speaker 4 (39:09):
make sure it's in the blurb, don't worry yeah, yeah,
make sure.
Speaker 5 (39:12):
It's one of those things I get a bit of a blank
about.
Is it orguk?
I think it is at the end.
Um, yeah, and all theinformation is in there.
Um, we are a charity and one ofour sort of things is that we
don't charge an actual specificsum for the training we do, but
we do make you know, we do relyon donations.
(39:32):
So we have a suggested donation, a suggested minimum donation,
which would, in an ideal world,at least cover the costs of us
putting on the training,especially the line manager
training.
So so, again, there'sinformation about that on the
website.
Speaker 4 (39:56):
Well, I think we're kind of there or thereabouts.
But so, sally and Penny, you'vebeen on before, so you know
that me and Gwilym tried to endwith some kind of tangential,
closer question.
I'm not sure we've done it withthis many guests on the podcast
, william, so I don't know howwell this is going to work.
So I've been, I've been tryingto come up with a question that
might have a very short answer,so people feel comfortable
giving it.
Okay, uh, so for kathy andjoanne's benefit, I'm going to
(40:20):
ask a question to Gwilym, who'sstill there on my screen, um,
and then roll it around all ofyou and then Gwilym will come
back to me.
Gwilym, this time around I'venot done any thinking in advance
on what my answer might be.
Okay, so, no, no, I have anadvantage over no one, and I
(40:42):
don't know whether this us downa wee bit and we couldn't all
get in the room and we couldn'tstart recording.
And then you realize thatyou're in this digital world
where it's actually quitedifficult to communicate with
people, because it means sendingan email and you don't know if
they've read it.
So, so, consciously, we allstarted this in a bit of a
stressed state.
Hopefully we're not in thatstressed state now.
Hopefully, we're not in thatstressed state now.
(41:04):
So I was wondering, willem, ifyou had to describe how you feel
at the moment in the form ofmaybe an animal or a vegetable
or some such thing, how, how doyou?
How do you feel?
Can you speak?
Are you too busy laughingmushroom?
Do you need to explain that tous?
I think I know why no, I think.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Um well, life is a great experience.
Mushrooms grow, so I feel likeI'm as ever.
I've grown through this.
Um, at the same time, mushroomsgive me a bit of tummy ache, so
a little bit stressed too.
So there you go.
That's the first one that cameup.
Um okay analyze that.
Speaker 5 (41:36):
So penny, probably to you next, then well, I'm
feeling a bit like my firstimage was a cat on a hot tin
roof, and not a cat sleeping ona hot tin roof.
Hopefully I will be that inabout 10 minutes time, but the
cats are jumping about a littlebit.
So that's a bit how I'm I'mfeeling at the moment.
Speaker 4 (41:56):
Sally, how about you?
Speaker 7 (41:58):
well, if I'm going to say the first thing that came
into my head, it was a teddybear and then I started thinking
willem planted that thereearlier, though I was thinking
why?
Why am I thinking about teddybear?
Yeah, it might be subliminalfrom something that was said
earlier.
Um, and it may be that I want acuddle, or it may be that I
want to give somebody else acuddle there's a sort of.
There's a hug aspect.
(42:19):
The dutch for teddy bear isknuffle bear, which means like
hug bear, which is oh lovely.
It's a nice word for hugknuffle.
I'm probably not saying thatright, apologies dutch speaking
listeners joe, how about you?
Speaker 2 (42:33):
I think my mind went to the classic swan scenario of
feeling trying to appear reallycalm and measured on top but
feeling slightly franticunderneath and kathy, how about
you?
Speaker 6 (42:48):
I was like a cat as well, penny but fluffy cat, and
for some reason I was you knowthese big stretches you have and
probably is wanting to getoutside in the sunshine I think
it turns out that was a greatquestion that's okay, that's
okay you weren't prepared.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
I'm gonna guess what you're gonna say and I'll write
down hold up.
I'm gonna hold up afterwards,but I'm don't say yeah, I'm
gonna hold up to this group.
So you know what I think you'regonna say you're doing your
derren brown bit.
Speaker 4 (43:16):
It's just, it's impressive it's not gonna work.
I'm just curious go on so so theone thing that came to my mind
I don't know if it's how I'mfeeling now, how I'm feeling on
top of all of the other thingsI'm dealing with today um and
this was something that was saidto me by past president of
seeper, roger burke um, notdescribing me at that time, but
just using it as a, as a sort ofway of describing a particular
situation and he said he felt atone time like a bit of a post
(43:39):
tortoise or post turtle, andthen he showed me a picture of
it and it's a post in the middleof nowhere with a tortoise sat
on top of it and the kind oflike the text accompanying it
was something like you know, itshouldn't be there.
You have no idea how it gotthere, you have no idea how it's
getting down, and sometimesthat's what it feels like to be
kind of managing in situations,and I kind of feel a little bit
like that at the moment, likehow have I got here?
(44:00):
Why am I here?
How am I going to get away?
So, um, yeah, look a little bitof a tortoise on a pole for the
audience we always talk abouttortoises on the podcast.
It was a given, it was a given,but it genuinely wasn't the way
of me squeezing that into theconversation.
(44:21):
That was sort of like how I wasfeeling so how cool is that?
oh, um, penny, joe kathy sally,thank you so much for um taking
times out of your busy day totalk to us about kind of what is
probably one of the mostimportant conversations we could
have at the moment.
Um, and always, penny, thanksfor all you've done.
We know that you are off to topastures, greener, newer,
whatever they might be, so sogood good luck in wherever you
(44:43):
go next and um, and obviously welook forward to continuing to
work with jonathan's voice onall things mental health and
supporting our members by byworking together.
I've really enjoyed the podcast.
I'm hoping that everyone who'slistened has enjoyed it too and
feel inclined to leave us alittle message telling us that
they've done so on the, on thepodcasting platform of their
choice, because that means thatpeople will find us.
I'm getting better at this kindof closing thing around that.
(45:05):
Leave yourself and review thingslike yeah thanks, all that's a
wrap, thanks thanks thank youvery much, thanks for having us.
Thank you everyone.
We'll see you next time.
Popular Podcasts
United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com