 Hi, I'm Carolyn Davis, a Safe Work Australian member representing the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. I'd like to welcome our studio audience and those of you who are watching online to today's virtual seminar, becoming a mentally healthy small business. This important discussion is appropriately being conducted during Mental Health Week. Firstly, I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we are meeting, the Ngunnawal people. I acknowledge and respect their continuing culture and the contribution they make to their life of the city and this region. Our focus today is on the special challenge and psychological health of those who operate our work in small business. Small businesses make an enormous contribution to the Australian economy. Across Australia there are over 770,000 small businesses and about 1 million independent contractors. We estimate that small businesses and sole traders together employ over 3 million workers or about 31% of their total workforce. At Safe Work Australia and the Australian Chamber, we're very aware of the pressures experienced by many small businesses. They're long working hours, need to deliver often with very limited money and very limited people, time and equipment. And our own Australian Chamber data and Safe Work Australia research tells us that they often find the burden of paperwork quite onerous, whether it's just from the demands of the day-to-day business or the paperwork required to demonstrate their business's ability to meet the sort of quality and safety standards they want. We know that the benefits of mentally healthy workplaces are there and we know that mental illness has a serious burden, a serious human and economic costs. In 2013 there were over 9,000 accepted workers' compensation claims for mental disorders and that means with over $340 million that's paid in compensation. Whatever the figures the prevention is really the key. We know that people experience mental illnesses that can arise from a combination of factors. For example we come with our genetics, our personality exposure to stressful life events such as bereavements and serious illnesses and prolonged stress at work. Importantly we've got some recent research that shows that 1 in 5 Australians aged 16 to 85 experience a mental illness each year. These can vary from mildly distressing to seriously debilitating. The most common mental illnesses are the depressive anxiety and substance use disorders and often there are these three types of mental illnesses occurring in combination. Sadly we also have each day around six Australians that die from suicide and a further 30 people will attempt to take their own life. Given how the statistics show at one time or another we're likely to work with people or indeed ourselves experience periods of poor mental health. So it's in everyone's interest to discuss this important topic and know where to go for information or help. So it's good to have some knowledge. Today we will hear from three panellists. They're full biographies are on our website. They're a bit weighty to go through today. So first let me introduce Anne Sherry. She's the CEO of Carnival Australia, the largest cruise ship operator in Australasia and she's also our Safe Work Australia chair. Anne holds a number of non-executive roles in large Australian companies and in 2001 she was awarded a Centenary Medal and in 2004 an Order of Australia for her contribution to the Australian community. Our second panellist is Georgie Herman. She was appointed CEO of Beyond Blue in 2014. Previously the Deputy CEO at the National Mental Health Commission she's also worked in the private sector. I am delighted we've also with us today Leanne Faulkner from 2004 to 2012. Leanne established and ran Billy Goat Soap which she grew from a kitchen-based hobby to a highly successful small business. Leanne understands well the strains and pressures faced by small business owners today and fought her own battle with situational depression triggered by trough trading times and conditions. Last but not least let me introduce today's facilitator, Mr Barry Sheriff, an acknowledged thought leader in work health and safety. Before we start we're going just going to listen to a couple of compelling stories that remind us of why we are here today. Six to eight months ago I became really unwell. I started having I had a psychotic episode and it was it was really awful and I felt like I couldn't talk to anyone about it or tell anyone what was going on. I'd never told anyone before apart from my doctor after it had happened that you know I'd experienced psychosis. Elsa is my boss. She was very very encouraging and when I first told Elsa what was going on her initial reaction to me was you really need to go back to your doctor and you really need to sit down and work out a plan and discuss this further with him. My manager just generally made me feel comfortable in my role and I knew she respected me as an employee and an asset to her business so I had no problems in telling her what was going on. I felt that it would be a positive thing to do. I love going to work it's a very positive place to be. Staying well to me means taking my medication that's the number one thing on my list is that I have to take my medication and I like to run which I also find really helpful. I have regular check-ins with my doctor and you know try to be doing different things. Having a mental illness is no different to having diabetes or cancer or any of those things it's just a matter of going through finding out what works with your doctor and following through with that I think it's also very important. They both are people that don't understand it and still don't understand it to this day but considering that the support has just been phenomenal. I probably had three months off work after your first attempt and I'll probably go over a message off either one of them every week or two just asking how I was it wasn't when he came back to work it was you know how are you. Well welcome everybody to the webinar today it's a very important topic and those videos certainly demonstrate how important the issue of mental health is to us all but I must say that the videos also provide some hope and identify opportunities for us all both individually and as businesses in dealing with the issues as they arise and helping us all through the issues when they do arise. We do have an excellent panel today with a wide variety of experiences and a lot of contribution to be made to the topic but I would encourage everybody online to also contribute provide us with your questions so that we can actually make sure that this is most relevant to those who are tuning in today watching this and wanting to take away information. It's important that it's very relevant to you so I'd really do encourage you to provide us with your web questions and we will throughout the course of the session take those questions and put them to members of the panel. Before we start I think to start what we do need to do is to make sure that it is clear exactly what we're talking about. There are many labels that are thrown around there are many descriptions what is it that we're actually talking about so if I could ask you and can we start by clearing up some of the language that people use when they talk about mental disorders and mental illness and so forth and also this is described as becoming a mentally healthy small business. What does a mentally healthy workplace look like? Weedy questions. Let me start with the last one first actually because I think healthy workplaces whether it's mentally healthy or just a healthy workplace have the same sort of characteristics you get support on the job you're treated with respect if something goes wrong people ask you how you are and look to help you so I don't think it matters whether it's mentally healthy or generally healthy the same sort of culture environment really describes a great place to work and we all know it when we work in those sort of places you want to go there and it doesn't matter what's happening in your life you feel as though you can talk about it and people will help you if you need help or treat you with respect so I think any I'm sure there's you know much more language that people would like to wrap around that but I think if we keep it simple and are just clear about the basics of great workplaces then we can get there I think in terms of the other language you know there's a lot of specific language used around anxiety depression and so on we've been using the term mental disorder and we're going to use that today so that's really when you know that things aren't excuse me things aren't quite right that but it hasn't tipped into mental illness when you need some sort of medication or a really more significant intervention and lots and lots of people have mental disorder you know I think the we heard some of the statistics a minute ago lots of people feel anxiety lots of people are stressed there's a lot going on in our lives there are people whose family members of their family have died you know going through those sorts of moments and I think that's when the term mental disorder is is widely used and probably takes away the stigma I think of some of the specific labels and others here I'm sure can talk about that better than I can but you destigmatize so you know again keep let's keep that simple mental disorders they're the the things that lots of people have anxiety depression whatever label you want to put on it and mental illness is really when you tip over into needing a full intervention a number of points come from from those answers one is that it is important to have destigmatization and that is part of the healthy workplace and also the point about early intervention and I love the point that was made by Katie on the video that it's it's an illness you know it's no different to diabetes or whatever it just happens to to be a mental illness as opposed to a physical illness but we need to to accommodate in the way we have all other illnesses and issues that people have to deal with in their lives this is just another one of those things which is why I like the idea of healthy workplaces having almost a generic flavor to them whether it's about managing some sort of mental illness or it's about managing anything else that's going on in people's lives so we all spend a lot of time at work so we want our workplaces to be places we can speak up look for support talk to other people about what's going on share share you know pain as well as joy it's it's a place that you want to go and to be able to have those sort of conversations yeah so a healthy a mentally healthy workplace is one that does in fact provide that support absolutely so whether or not it's related to the work itself or whether it's quite separate from work the workplace itself can assist and simple things help and some of the campaigns that Georgie and others have you know campaign campaign foreign champion fantastically even things like are you okay you know that the simplicity of saying to people who sit next to you or you run into all the time at work are you okay as a as just a common courtesy a good question to ask people so there's a sense of that incredible engagement which you know again is makes your workplace feel supportive you start to be able to speak about things that maybe you can't speak about in other parts of your life or other environments that you're in and certainly that came through from from particularly Katie's video as well yeah it was one it was a wonderful vignette actually about someone who not only spoke up but who spoke to her boss found she was supportive you know that's the dynamic really that you want and in small businesses which of course we're talking about today as well they're very you have very personal relationships often in small businesses you know everyone you with them a lot there might be family members or extended family in small businesses it's of all the environments where this should be manageable I know we always talk about the things that are hard to do for small business but I think the personal relationships in many small businesses and the dependence on the people who work for you and with you make it even more important that you're open to those conversations well certainly the the dynamic of the organization the environment the relationships and so forth is is very critical to this but as you've mentioned before think of it not as something that's quite separate but it is an illness of a type just as a physical illness now it might be physical illnesses of course a contributor to those is the design of the work itself as well as of course the equipment what about with mental illness and disorder I think it's the same you know the designing work around people is the way it should happen and whether it's mental illness physical illness disability I think the idea of creating workplaces that are we talk about flexibility just in terms of ours but in fact it should be around work design because what all of us want from people who work with and for us is for them to be able to contribute their best and if that requires you to slide to think differently about the way you organize work the tasks you've got people doing the way you manage them in their workplace particularly people who've got some sort of who've said to you you know that I have a problem I have some sort of mental disorder or mental illness this is what makes me anxious or this is what makes me feel uncomfortable to be able to organize work around that I think gives them the opportunity to continue to contribute to the business and to contribute to their best and for you running a business or running a small medium or large business it gives you the opportunity still to hang on to great people who know your business well who know your customers well all those things that you can't replace easily I think the more we think about the design of work in workplaces to accommodate people rather than everyone having to fit into a workplace or a work design that maybe you know was thought up 50 years ago and isn't that relevant in the 21st century anyway so sometimes I think it prompts us to have a good look at what's happening in our work environments so that the design of work is not only about managing out risks that might give rise to these disorders but also supporting the people through the process yeah absolutely and again these guys have got you know much better examples probably than I do but you just know that holding good people is ultimately what you want to do in your business and whatever you need to do to make that happen because if they came in with a broken leg you'd give them a chair if they come in with and say you know I need this to be adapted because this has happened and and it's no different really and I think that's the mindset that we really need to shift because and you raised the term stigma earlier that's where there seems to be more stigma about this than there is about other issues that people may raise and I think getting over that sense that somehow this is different is a really important part of the message forget any message out today it's actually getting over that stigma and that it's different in fact exactly the same principles apply Georgie stigma arises as a result of a number of things including misconceptions and it's not just the stigma it's also misconceptions around how you approach it what are the common misconceptions about people with mental illness that get in the way or cause difficulties look I could talk endlessly about this but I'll focus on a few the major one is that having a mental illness or a mental disorder or whatever label or term we want to use is rare can I say that there is nothing that can be further from the truth one in five Australian workers today are experiencing some kind of mental health problem at any point in our lifetime about nearly half of us will experience some kind of issue so this isn't about other people it's not about them it's about us and from my time working in this sector I've had the extraordinary pleasure to meet the most amazing people who live with all forms of mental illness who are highly functioning who are extremely accomplished who run their own businesses who you know are passionate about what they do and highly productive so people you know people just like us are people who live with mental illness they don't look different they don't behave differently sometimes they behave a little you know less less than they would at other times but you know at the end of the day they are people who are just getting on with their lives and we come to work bringing all of us so we don't disaggregate our depression or we don't you know leave our anxiety by the door when we go to work so you know we really need to think about the workplace as a place that needs to look after the whole person and as Anne said it's about creating a healthy environment at work that looks after people's mental health as well as their physical health the other thing I would stress is that you know I quite often hear people say it's never going to happen to me well again go back to those numbers nearly half of us at some stage in our life every single family has some kind of story whether it's a personal story whether it's something about a relationship whether it's losing someone to suicide whether that's a colleague or a loved one the other major thing that we continue to come up against is that somehow having a mental health issue or disorder is somehow a character flaw somehow a sign of weakness of your personality or of your character and again I mean I have met the most extraordinary people who I admire deeply who are highly functioning and who are far better people than I am so again I would I would really really challenge that we know that people still feel very strongly that people just need to snap out of it can you imagine the pain that you might be in if you have a huge gash in your leg and blood is spurting out would you actually go up to that colleague and say the god's sake just get up pick yourself up you know sort yourself out and just get on with it it is absolutely no different the ludicrousness of that scenario is something that we hear time and time again and the final thing I'd raise is that the mis-misperception that somehow people living with mental illnesses are violent and bad and mad and dangerous and sometimes when you pick up the papers you know it's not surprising that some sections of society still feel that way when in fact the the truth is that people living with mental illness are far more likely to be the victims of violent crime than the perpetrators so there's just a quick sort of summary of you know some of the things that we still come across perhaps if we can now move to someone who has experienced it and not only someone who has experienced it but has experienced it in the context of small business being a small business person Leanne you have recovered from a mental illness and I know that you do a lot in the space now and assist others can you just tell us about your experience what advice you'd give to small business certainly I think there's an awful lot of pressure on small business owners in particular and when you consider that over 60 percent of all small businesses in Australia are actually sole operators and and sometimes we forget that because you see a business name and you think business but in fact that business name is usually a single person it might be the accountant who works at home doing your taxes once a year it might be the hairdresser down the road could be the truck driver who contracts to lin fox and drives between Melbourne and Sydney every every week that's actually the small business person and I think there's a lot of pressure nowadays for small business people to be a particular type of stereotype and the reality is that we're not all going to be Richard Branson and generally small business is actually a lot of hard work and we don't always share that and we don't necessarily normalize that so what that meant for me was when my business went through its time of struggle back in about 2011 or so if my business in my eyes was failing then I was a failure obviously I'm not as good as everybody else because what I hear about is the success stories and the glory of being an entrepreneur resilient tough at all times able to solve all problems rich a go getter and I was struggling so yes I was I felt like I was the failure I must be doing something wrong because everyone else is succeeding when in fact I learned my experience as you've mentioned Georgie was in fact a shared experience we just don't talk about it enough in small business and and some of the signs that um that were triggers for red flags for me were I would cry on the way to work and I would sit outside in my car and wipe my tears away and go get it together girl you've got employees because I've got to walk in and I've got to smile and go hi it's a great day today because as a small business owner I'm actually exposed to all of these connections my employees my customers my suppliers my shareholders my bank manager if I'm not well everybody's going to know so the pressure was quite huge so I kind of I actually got to the point where I could no longer work and I ended up on the couch unable to go to work I was very fortunate I had my husband who's incredibly supportive who went look let's swap roles I'll go in and and I was so grateful for that because he he was the one who was able to to help me get through that period and once I sought out some help um and I was able to uh get myself back to work then I really had to develop a back to work program for me as the owner the employees had to get used to having me back and and how do you do that so and I I went back to work on a on a part-time basis on a casual basis and worked myself up to go and being able to go back to work and and so I don't I don't think that we always realize that there's so many facets to small business owners who do struggle with a mental disorder or a mental illness that that's quite a web I guess that you tend to be in the center of so it's small business owners sorry if I may small business owners of course have invested so much in it was you it's your baby it's your idea it's your dream it's all of those things so I mean the pressure uh there there's an implicit pressure in that I agree yeah and there certainly is and there's this wanting to to tell the world I'm okay I don't want to admit that I'm struggling when in fact for me it perhaps if I if I'd spoken up earlier and gone and and sought treatment I may not have had to have stopped work I may have been able to work through that at work because I had a great team of employees as well who loved me and loved the business but I felt I had to live up to this stereotype of what an entrepreneur actually is and and that was you know my undoing really so I think I think that's such a common experience and you know without wanting to sort of put in gender stereotypes I'm going to you know men in particular this are Australian notions of masculinity it's such a barrier to men actually saying you know what I'm really not I'm struggling yeah I need some help and and look at the proportion of males who own small business it's quite high and I think this whole idea of as Leanne said you know showing your vulnerabilities saying you know yes I might might be the boss I might be the head of this organization I might be you know your employee but I'm having a tough time I think I mean I've seen it happen you know is Leanne's staff would have rallied around her they would have said okay what can we do to support you the phrases that spring to my mind from what you've been saying are self-realization acceptance of the reality absolutely early intervention openness with people having everyone a part of the circumstances and the solutions absolutely and that that includes the suppliers that includes the finance sector that you're working with and and I think for me when I was struggling we got to the stage where I had to sit down and had some very honest conversations with my bank manager about what was going on for me and my small business and so all of those parties that are connected to me as the small business owner I need them to to help me in my recovery process as well and and I was fortunate in that I had some very proactive suppliers who said hey you know we love the brand and we love what you're doing and and we want to ride the process with you but you're absolutely right Barry you have to have a sense of authenticity and honesty about what's going on initially and and it's hard to get to that point sometimes and admit you know I need some help here it's not quite working for me that that's a big decision to come out and say that so particularly when you feel so many people are depending on you as the owner the business owner another interesting point you made is that often it's a case of not understanding that others are in the same position not only with the mental disorder or illness but also with the struggles with business absolutely and having having that peer support having a network allows it to better understand it's not just me yes and having and using the resources that give you the support in that area like the heads up program for example because I found when I was feeling like a failure I actually unsubscribed from every business list I stopped reading BRW I stopped buying the fin because all that did was compare me to somebody who's doing well and I'm failing so I think it's great to get resources from you know the areas that recognize hey we can help you George if we can look another at another element of the business Leanne's told us of her experience as a business owner small business obviously has a small number of staff very reliant on staff and obviously stresses within the business are amplified do you have any practical tips for small business when their staff are struggling and having these issues look I think the most important tip is to create from the very start of your you know whether it's you do it tomorrow or you're setting up a business today and you're kind of planning what that business is going to look like create a culture that is warm fun friendly that recognizes that people have families outside of work that people sometimes you know come to work and are not as productive as they are at other days so you know that that workplace culture where you know you value your people and that's a genuine thing I think other things like you know I mean Leanne mentioned the heads up initiative so that's headsup.org.au there's a whole range of very practical free easy to implement strategies on that make information available about supports make information available about what is a mental illness and what are the signs and symptoms talk about it talk have a culture where you know you do show your vulnerabilities as a leader you share stories where you encourage so that if and when your employees do start to struggle they feel safe in coming to talk to you and say look I've just been diagnosed with x y and z I'm going to need a little bit of flexibility can we work out what that looks like and then you sit down with that person with empathy even though every fiber of your being as a small business owner might be saying oh my god I've only got five people and this is going to be massive and how am I going to figure out how am I going to move the chest pieces around to cover all of the things that we need to do sit down with that person and have a genuine conversation you know I'm worried about you you're not being yourself what is going on for you how can we support you if we do this for you do you think you can pick up a bit of work here you know so reallocate duties it's really about just as Anne said treating people like human beings and and if a person has a broken leg you'd say right okay do you need a taxi to and from work or you know how how are we going to adjust your workspace so that so that you can actually work productively so there's a whole range of things but I think you know in essence it's about the culture it's about leadership it's about being open and honest and talking about this stuff and then it's about understanding what adjustments you can make and and being assertive and confident in having those negotiations with with the individual staff member who may be struggling and I think to add to that we've got to also that's why de-stigmatizing is really important and taking the fear out of it you know because once we did anyone who showed any signs of not coping you know was sort of suddenly to be feared and sent away I mean it's not that long ago that that's how we used to manage any sort of mental illness and I think we now are in a completely different world where supporting people keeping them engaged we know is the right way forward and of course Safe Work Australia on its website has got a lot of advice and support for small business operators as well so there's lots of areas you can go if you're not sure if you're thinking what the hell do I do now how do I manage this oh my goodness there's plenty of places to go for very hands-on practical advice simply written that you can step through and really help to think about it I'm confident that you're getting a lot out of this but I'd again remind the studio audience and those online that it is very important that you get the most out of this session and I again encourage you to send us any questions we do have a web question so are farmers being included in the small business group I'll throw that open we're actually running a project at the moment with Beyond Blue and we're we put together a group of small business owners to look at some of the material that Beyond Blue are working under the heads up umbrella and so I would extend that invitation to any any farmers to come please join us because we're we're really looking for a diversity in in opinion from small business and and farms are you know often a family owned you know traditional type small business and yes please come and join us send me an email contact me through Safe Work Australia and and I'll gladly add you to to our group absolutely and from a safe work point of view of course yes is the answer to that you're absolutely in the target sweet spot for small business but the other thing of course we understand that farming is a classic one of those classic businesses with lots of highs and lots of lows where you're weather dependent technology you know there's lots of stress points and so in fact we're very keen to make sure that we reach out to the farming community as part of what we're doing as well we've just finished a a national roadshow where we got a beautiful old 1980 Bedford bus called Roadshow Ronda we drove 65,000 kilometers I think around Australia and spent a lot of that time out out of cities where every time we went into a farming area or a rural community it's extraordinary how struck we were and it's you know it's it's not surprising the number of farmers and farmers wives who came up to us and and were very open about their experiences I mean it's as Ann said it's a tumultuous time and the vagaries of the weather and and stock markets and all kinds of things can have a profound effect on your business success so what I mean we've a bit of an offshoot from that we've got one of our staff the dad he was a volunteered bus driver for a while Charlie Charlie and Barb his wife who are old farmers from country Victoria are now driving their Winnebago around country Victoria country New South Wales and Queensland and going to all the agricultural shows actually giving out free information resources and talking to farmers about this stuff so there's a whole bunch of stuff that we're doing to target farmers we have another web question if we can go to that as a supervisor of staff with serious mental health conditions what support can I get Georgie look there are a range of supports that you can get I mean I think you know as I said earlier the heads up website contains a range of very practical guides and resources tips tricks about how to effectively and empathetically but also you know with confidence and and firmness manage you know the the the ebbs and flows of someone who works for you has has a severe mental illness so those range from you know phone lines to call where you'll speak to somebody who knows what they're talking about there's our online forums where you can share information we have got a LinkedIn community where which is growing by the day in terms of membership where again you can swap stories and you can get some ideas from people who work in you know in a similar environment that about what worked for them what didn't there's also you know a range of supports on that and resources on that on the heads up website that for example teach you how to approach having a decent conversation with someone how to plan a return to work that's effective how to you know what to say what not to say and and you know again it's about building confidence it's about saying you don't have to be an expert you don't have to diagnose please don't diagnose in fact but just know you know build your skills rehearse it and you know again it's just about sitting down and having a very human conversation with someone a very honest conversation and saying okay how can we work together on this because as an employer you have your rights and your responsibilities just as your employee has their rights and responsibilities it is a two-way street and the only way it's going to work is if everybody realises that and comes to the party together we do have another web question and I'm very pleased to see them coming through not everyone works in an enlightened workplace how do you convince the CEO or line manager to change that is bottom-up driven initiative and I suppose that's something in common with all aspects of health and safety and do you have any thoughts on that well I think you know I've mentioned are you okay day I think the great things about those sort of campaigns is that they do tend to be bottom-up and I know there are and I've heard stories of a number of workplaces where that question was asked and suddenly people are saying well actually I'm not you know I'm really struggling and that their peer workers start to gather around them and then collectively go to their management and say you know we think we need to deal with this differently so I think there are ways of doing that it's not as easy in a workplace where you don't have support maybe you can sit your CEO or line management down and you can watch a replay of this so there is another way that lots of workplaces are talking about it people do think it's an important issue that does need managing differently or refer them to the website if they need a bit of support and advice but you know work your peer group in a workplace can also come together and I think ask for change in workplaces they can get engaged in a number of the public campaigns get someone to come in and speak at your workplace to all to your management and your co-workers there are lots of ways and small things you can do I think just to create awareness in a workplace again exactly the same way as you know once no one talked about the fact that they're they had breast cancer and now everyone's you know shaving their hair and raising money so I think those things have changed very quickly over you know just it's only taken a few years for workplaces to grab hold of those issues I think exactly the same thing applies when we're talking about mental disorder and mental illness as well gather together and support each other my my tip would be figure out what the CEO who's reluctant what pushes his or her buttons I mean quite often I go into boardrooms and to executive meetings and I say to CEOs very directly if you are not taking this stuff seriously firstly you're losing money you're not an employer of choice you're not going to attract the best and brightest people who are going to be loyal productive and hard working for you and quite frankly you're behind the time so get get with the program I mean so we're pretty direct about it we've got some really strong evidence that shows that for every dollar that you invest in a mentally healthy initial mental healthy mentally healthy workplace initiative it's a bit of a mouthful isn't it you see on average return of $2.30 so those are really good returns and that increases for small business because of the proximity between a CEO or a leader and their staff so I mean I put it as a business proposition and and also that you know if you want to be considered a strong and effective leader you need to be doing this and you need to be doing this authentically if I might make a comment you might ask the question of the CEO we have first aid officers who are trained what about mental health first aid officers and I might say as a trained mental health first aid officer myself I've found it to be an incredibly incredibly fulfilling role personally but also the benefits for the organization from that transparency the destigmatizing getting it out there it's it's an enormous benefit some of the most effective results we're seeing in the businesses that we're working with is those who embrace the idea of peer champions so you know again the work the workshop foreman you know the union delegate the or you know or just the you know the person who slices the bread but that people trust that that is empathetic yes and that understands you know the realities of the work the workplace I think and you know applying that into a small business environment say you might be a micro business and only have yourself the owner and three employees so four of you you don't really have a CEO you're all working side by side on the you know same level on the same project and I think in that instance it comes down to developing a business culture so for example for me with Billy Goat we would have once a month we'd have small staff luncheons we called them bleed and eat where you could sit and eat but you could also talk about things and I think if you have in a small business where it's not as formal you don't have you know a mental health safety officer you don't have those resources but what you do have is an intimate connection with one another and I think if you can create that in a small business environment that may in fact initially not have anything to do with mental health and my mental my mental well-being but I have a culture where we feel comfortable enough to talk and share with one another then I may be more comfortable even going to the boss and saying to the boss are you okay one thing if I may before we take another web question the question about the farmer raises something which has kind of been underlying under the surface but not discussed today and that is the the male side of things men are the macho we're strong we don't cry and so forth far from the reality and that may have a number of bases to it how do we overcome that it's an interesting question because I'm on the board of Australian rugby and we've talked about this quite a lot the use for example of sports people both as role models on the positive but also to talk about their own struggles and we've seen a bit of that lately when quite high profile sports people have been prepared to say I have an issue I need time out I'm not managing I do have a long-term issue that I need to sort through and we saw that with in the AFL and some of the other codes so I think given sport and masculinity in Australia in particular are so inextricably linked I think it is an issue that is getting prominence through sport but also inside sporting organisations we're talking about it a lot because we know fear of failure is you know often an anxiety trigger it's really a make or break for lots of players you're either in the big team or you're not you know there's a there are lots of stress points as you go through it and often we're we're dealing with young people when they're relatively vulnerable and and so on as well so I think the issue of men speaking out is an important one that we've got to grapple with and you're right to align that with the issue with farmers as well because we've seen such high suicide rates for example among the farming community where clearly the inability to find someone to talk to at a critical point throws you over the edge and we've seen it in sport as well you know where the inability to connect at the right time so we're focused on partnering with organisations like Beyond Blue to make sure those conversations are had we're very focused on bringing it out into the open so that if you are suffering any sort of mental disorder or you're anxious or all of those things that ultimately could lead to a longer term problem we start to talk about them early rather than late because it you don't want to leave it too late because then people have sort of got themselves into the zone of not talking and feeling you know as you described a feeling as though the world was against them there's no one to talk to and you get you end up on the couch or even worse so I think you know real men real men talk real men do cry we need to start talking about the world we live in in a different way and for men to be talking about it like that as well and I think we need to be hearing some honest small business stories more in the media so we need more real stories to be told about the realities of running and owning a small business and and you know the majority of men actually are small business owners when you look at the breakdown the demographic so we should have some more male business leaders telling their truth living their truth so I think that would definitely help to encourage more in the community to speak up combination of role models to normalise but also to provide that community community understanding community support absolutely there's a really important factor that we found out through our research in targeting our work towards men and that's using humour we don't when we're when we're engaging with men we don't talk about mental illness we don't we talk about you know relationship difficulties or you know you're worried about losing a job or you've got financial stresses you know you talk about mental illness crickets so we've we've developed a campaign called man therapy which is basically a therapy that so manly it'll put hairs on your brain and that's fronted by a fictional doctor called Dr Brian Einwood who is incredibly rude incredibly inappropriate but you know speaks in manly ways to men and gives manly tips yeah through using humour so I mean there's a whole range of resources out there and and again you know if you're a small business owner worried about a bloke who's working for you you know just leave a you know write down mantherapy.org.au and just leave it on his desk called Beyond Blue for some man therapy resources we've also Dr Brian didn't work with blue collar workers so we've just introduced a new character called Davo who's larrican tradie and again he's you know he tested his socks off with blue collar workers and we launched him a couple of months ago and again you know he talks in in in very plain English he swears he farts he you know he does all kinds of inappropriate things and he's fantastic and he's fantastic and men love him but you know what there's a very serious message underneath and very very practical ways to engage men and then point them towards the supports that are available well I will pick up the manly voice part of all that and throw to the next web question if I can are there workplace programs I can sign staff up to so they can get some training and guidance about how to deal with mental illness in the workplace well I think excuse me the work the Safe Work Australia website has a whole lot of material there but it's not actually a training program which is probably more in your space yeah so again you know I sound like a crack record but headsup.org.au is is a one-stop shop for this for this kind of stuff it's it's a Beyond Blue initiative but it's actually powered by a mentally healthy workplace alliance of which Safe Work Australia is a fantastic partner and on that website the final section is about resources and information and supports and there's a whole range of online learning online training education materials but also links to evidence-based workplace training programs some of which are free some which are user pays not just from Beyond Blue but from other fantastic organizations like Black Dog and saying so everything if you go to that section there's a whole range of ideas there you can choose the one that you think will fit you and your business the best the other thing I'd suggest that you do is think about getting someone with a lived experience of mental illness into your workplace to actually break down that stigma we've got a speakers bureau of about things about 350 fantastic people now who we support to to tell their stories and they're all over Australia so again just pick up the phone give your blue call and we can arrange a speaker for your workplace and to flip back on the question it's probably also all of those things are absolutely important but if you think you've got an issue and you want to change the way your workplace is thinking about this maybe the first thing to do is just get everyone together and to have a conversation about it so maybe step one isn't a training program maybe step one is a conversation with everyone together using some of the external material perhaps but you know asking people if if they have issues if they've got stories to share have they worked in other workplaces where it's been done differently and better because I'm I'm sure inside every workplace are a lot of great ideas that haven't ever been surfaced and that's true on every issue but I I think on this issue in particular where people haven't been prepared to speak publicly or maybe you know the opportunity hasn't been there to just get you the team together and say what do you think would be the next way forward and here's some material we can use to inform it I agree I agree and I think in the conversation we had the other week you used the term vulnerable leadership and I thought that that was just a brilliant way to capture how we might be able to help one another in the workplace is it's not it's not particularly easy to sit here and go listen everyone I think I failed and I had depression it's actually not easy to do that however by sharing my story and by saying I'm in a leadership role and I'm not quite sure about what's going on here then we open the way for others to then say hey if if she doesn't feel that way then it maybe it's okay for me to you know be unsure myself so this is this is my first CEO gig and what I found works really well for me it makes me look really intelligent is to um ask my staff what they think it's amazing the depth of knowledge and the the kind of and it quite often we we get it wrong as leaders you know we assume we know what our workers want or what's going to make the biggest difference to our employees quite often we get it wrong so that's the great myth of leadership that it all resides you get to the top of the organization and there it all sits in one that's right that's not how it works at all yeah that's the smartest leaders actually are the people who ask their own teams for ideas yeah most great ideas actually sit close to where the problems are unfortunately we could go on for quite some time we are getting near the end of the session there is another web question but before we do and I should have perhaps made mention of this earlier this is a very serious topic now when we talk about support obviously organizations have their employee assistance programs and they should be encouraged to be used but also and understand they are on the system for you to see the very critical and important contacts for beyond blue lifeline and others who can provide that immediate support to you so if this is causing you any concern if this session is raising issues and you would like to talk to somebody we really would encourage you to take advantage of that and do so the next web question I'm afraid we'll need to make this the last as an employer what are my legal obligations well again I'd encourage you to have a look at the Safe Work Australia website your legal obligations are the same as they are in every environment you have an obligation to provide a safe workplace you have an obligation to your employees have an obligation essentially to take all reasonable steps and we can help you work through that if you have a look at the website and the material on this that helps you make your judgment call on that but I think the common sense says that as an employer your obligation is to provide a safe workplace and that means making sure you understand your people you understand their needs that you do again what's reasonable and the test is a reason less test yeah I'm not sure I mean I could you know there's I'm sure there's a very long winded legal answer around this but I you know I'm in the position I think of really encouraging you to look for the good advice that look at the good advice that's available for you as an employer where we've stripped away a lot of the noise so that you can read it simply and understand your obligations Safe Work Australia website and if I may as a lawyer the the practicality of it is twofold you mentioned design before things like understanding the way you structure work rosters work pressures and so forth which can contribute to the problem but the other is relationships and we talked about the dynamic and how supporting it can be the other side of that coin is destructive relationships and interactions so it's as much about things like making sure that workplace behavior is appropriate stamping out inappropriate workplace behavior such as bullying and that's part of the legal obligation of the employer thank you one of the questions I think that we get asked quite a lot is can I actually ask about a mental health you know details about someone's mental illness and you absolutely have a legal right to ask legitimate questions or certain questions where it's legitimate where it's beneficial for you and the employee and where it's actually necessary so for example if someone is operating heavy machinery you and they've you're aware through you know the disclosure of that person that they have a mental health diagnosis you have every right to ask them about their medication for example does it make them drowsy so there are certain questions that you are actually legally entitled to make to protect the safety of that person and other people working with them I think there's a common sense test in this really isn't there and I often hear people say oh I can't do it you know I'm a business owner I'm not allowed to do anything that's not true I mean you have obligations but also you have plenty of rights as well to ask reasonable questions to ask people if they're all right to make sure that you are creating a safe work environment for everyone else you know there's a there's a lot in that dynamic which ultimately I think is about you asking plenty of questions and getting the right amount of information to make good judgments so the idea that you're not allowed to do anything you're not allowed to ask you're not allowed it's a lot of that is hearsay and myth and again I'd encourage you to get good information before doing anything if you're not sure ask pick up the phone go to the website there's lots of information out there but ask the question and I think to conclude on that point Lee Ann made the point very well early on is that with a small business it is like a family and you do talk to your family you do care about your family and it's the same with your employees we do need to finish that after a short break the each of the panel members will be available online to answer questions I'd certainly encourage you to but before we do conclude and I'll need to be very brief can ask for an insight from each of you starting with Lee Ann I think from a small business owner perspective and from my lived experience is I've had a realization that my mental health challenges were actually survivable and I at the time when I was experiencing experiencing it I would have said no but in fact it's just day by day and there is light at the end of the tunnel and I think you know if when I sit down and talk to small business people who are who are struggling it it's just so important to to say that there there is hope at the end and it is survivable mental illness is everywhere you know it affects all of us stress is anxiety depression whatever you want to call it so I think you know let's stop pretending let's start getting real about this being something that is not about other people the second thing I'd say is um and and this is this was said to me by the most magnificent woman who lives with schizophrenia Janet Ma who is uh was was an inaugural national mental health commissioner is an internationally renowned consumer advocate for people living with mental illness and she once said to me and I remember this very clearly she said Georgie having a mental illness is not an excuse for bad behavior it affects me sometimes it affects my performance but it is not an excuse for bad behavior and that's I think you know so don't be scared about this stuff um I'll stop there I guess my last point is that ultimately great workplaces have great cultures and are led by great people and in all the talk of what happens in workplaces those three things are really at the core of everything that we want to see and all of that is underpinned by great communication so talk talk talk talk talk talk well that produces a very good final message we all need to be and want to be as great as we can but we can't necessarily be and if you have struggles or concerns or issues with what you perceive to be failure do something about it get it out there in the open the earlier it's dealt with the better thank you all very much for attending today hopefully everyone got something out of it as I say with a after a short break the panelists will be available to answer questions online and good luck to you all be safe and be healthy thank you very much