right gosh for minutes seems like an awfully long time when you're watching the clock go around so um good afternoon everybody um i'm claire fenelow executive director of evcom and i'm delighted to welcome you to this webinar zero to hero this is part of a series of events that hbaa and evcom have collaborated on uh in the last year through this past year collaboration has enjoyed a resurgence as people have found partners to work with to help them navigate these murky waters what has also been evident is the need for ongoing mental health support and during this mental health awareness week and as industry starts to reopen further we're delighted to welcome a panel who will share their insights into how to support teams through this transition and what plans can be put in place moving forward i'd like to introduce our facilitator for the day who's mark mayer from boulevard event events and also chair of event well and our panelists are nell flint fast forward 15 mentor jenna carter from lime venue portfolio paul stoddart from cwt and charlotte gentry from purecom's group and is also the evcom board chair um before we uh hand you over to mark i would just like to suggest that if you have any questions you put them in the chat box and mark and the panel will will hopefully get to those and also just a reminder that these uh sessions are recorded and they'll be made available through our websites um as of tomorrow afternoon um where they can be reviewed and hopefully there'll be some resources and some additional help there as well um we should uh go on till about quarter to four but sometimes skip over a bit if the questions are coming in um but with that i'm going to hand you over to mark and he will get the conversation started mark thanks so much claire um and also you know congratulations to you and and to your team and your collaborators for organizing this i think it's it's such an important topic to keep at the forefront um especially at the moment so so really well done um so the topic today is zero as a hero um obviously uh as people of the events industry we're very used to going from periods of you know low expectation and pressure to very high expectation and pressure um and i think perhaps this is the biggest example in living memory of a time where we've gone for a period of quite low expectation and pressure and we're we're about on the cusp of going back to what we as event profs know as normality um the first question i wanted to ask and um i think i'll come to you jenna on this one if that's all right to start with is is there anything that you've put into place for your teams and for your customers throughout the pandemic and that have worked quite well to support them with their mental health um that your this works so well that you're going to sort of continue that as we go back to normality yeah i suppose there's been quite a lot of initiatives that we've been doing that we probably wouldn't have done in a normal world um and i would say probably the team and the the venues that we represent haven't we we've had really good communication in the past but actually we speak to each other on an almost daily or weekly basis now which perhaps wouldn't have happened before so i think the first thing that's come out of it i suppose is communication but we've put certain things in place i suppose to support our immediate team as well as our venues so and the first thing that i think this is a really good one and i try to keep to it as much as possible is to um limit the amount of time we're doing this this interaction on the screen all the time so we've introduced team three hours where at least once a day we're trying to have an hour at least off the screen um where we can go and take a walk if possible um but just to get away from the screen because obviously that um in itself doesn't really help mental health when we're just sitting here all day doing that and then the other thing that um we really guess got involved with and really enjoyed is we've tried to do more walking they're encouraging one another to get out and about and last month it was obviously um stress awareness month we tried to walk the distance of the equivalent of our 80 venues and actually we did do it but it gave us a target and something to talk about and communicate about as well as being good for kind of our physical health usually it was more about the mental well-being so those are two things that we've put in place and two things that we're going to try and con you knew i would say in some format um as we come out of this that's great it's quite a creative thing on the market inside to do as well to you know it must have been quite hard to think of things to to talk about during the pandemic so you know well that's my job so i'd be in trouble if we if we didn't but um but yeah it's been great to be able to come up with different ideas and and balance them with one another awesome charlotte is um is there anything you'd like to add on that you obviously manage quite a big team as well yeah i mean i think um i think the thing to really uh mention here is that i think mental health and how people feel engaged is a very very personal individual individualized thing and so there isn't a one-size-fits-all approach and so of course yes we've done what we can to um minimize the stressful elements um of um of the pandemic but i think there's stress that's been beyond our control with certain members of the team which is you know around oh god you know job job security um the industry failing to um you know i say the industry failing the industry's done very very well but you know it's we've had a terribly tough time over the last um 15 months or so um and people watching their colleagues losing their jobs even though they haven't lost their jobs um you know so i think it's been really really tough and um trying to keep people buoyant we've landed on sending people little individual things to perk up their their week or their day actually um so we've ended up by when even if it's uh muffins or um a big bunch of flowers if they've done a really good piece of work it's trying to keep people sort of um engaged and pepped up really more than anything else because you know people are working in very very different conditions to each other so you know i've got members of the team who are in their mid-20s who are living in flat chairs you know where working conditions are really not very easy at all and they are desperate to be in the office so at any given opportunity they've been in our office rather than having to work from home whereas other people who've got small kids um they've got different challenges and so you know trying to have a conversation with them at the end of the day it's not very easy because it's tea time and whatever so it's it's flexibility and communication that is really really key it's interesting and the the general sort of topics of how you look after your team you know communication and flexibility stay the same but i guess the tactics on how you deliver those um have had to change during the pandemic and it leads me nicely onto them to the next question actually which paul will come to you for this one if that's all right um is there like do you feel that the needs of your teams and your customers have changed now um and if so how do you sort what plans do you have to to sort of facilitate that going forward um yeah thanks i think um this everything's changing isn't it at the moment um in in our world and i think what charlotte said earlier about treating everybody as an individual and being massively flexible is is it's got to be a watchword for everybody in approaching how we um move forward i think one of the things that that we're looking at is you know we're looking at a date when we're going to move quite you know a large number of people back from a working from home situation to working in the office environment for the first time in a year or more for most people because we're not actually open at the moment we're not planning to open you know within the next three months say so you know it could well be that we don't open until um q4 by which time we're gonna have a really interesting mix aren't we you know we're gonna have as charlotte said some kind of older people who are really comfortable working from home younger people who have got really inappropriate conditions or desperate uh to get back into the office but also you're gonna have people who have been on mat leave who are coming back for the first time you've got a bunch of people who've started with the organization so i think the idea of trying to kind of treating everybody as a as a new starter is probably a good way to approach that the task and i think um you know first and foremost we've got to reassure everybody that we've got their health and safety and well-being at the forefront of all of the decision making that's taking place in the organization about when we're going to start working again in the office what the new protocols are going to be in the office who we're going to allow in the office you know formally we've had a kind of a [Music] mentality that you know all are welcome but you know is everybody welcome do we want lots and lots of uh supply meetings in offices on a daily basis which is kind of what we had in the past uh how we are we what processes are we going to put in place to make sure that anybody whether it's a client or a business partner coming into the office to make sure that they've gone through the necessary protocols to to ensure that our staff are protected you know all of those things are really coming back to the point that you know we've got a duty of care to our employees so we've got to make sure that everything is perfect for when they return it's not just about making sure that their tech works although to be fair that is going to be a a challenge in its own right to make sure that everybody's i.t is set up correctly if you think about the amount of effort that you put into setting up a new starter you've got to kind of do that for everybody i think on their day of return but most of all it's about planning it's about making sure that there's a there's a really clear plan in place for when and how we're going to return back to the office to to make sure that there's lots of communications lots of opportunities for people to input into the protocols of the office for how we're going to kind of work with each other and to make sure that we're massively flexible so that if whatever reason some you know any individual or a number of people potentially don't feel comfortable coming back and working in an office environment that we you know we we accommodate that i think it'll be interesting paul because there's so much reassurance that we can do and safety measures we can put in place and i think all of our businesses will have that but it's i think would be interesting to see how quickly it becomes the new normal so when we all have to wear masks to go to the supermarket for the first time we all thought that was completely strange and actually after a couple of trips it became the normal so it's i suppose it everyone's going to take their own individual time to understand and appreciate and as we're getting back into to work but actually it i think it'd be surprisingly quick once we're back in how normal it will feel yeah i think that's a really good point um but it's it's there's only so much we can control isn't it as employees we can control the environment that we set up for our employees but we can't you know we've got no control over how they get to from work the public transport system and you know the kind of um the protocols that are in place there you've also got people not everybody's circumstances is the same so if you're living with somebody you know if you're living with elderly people or people who are vulnerable for any reason it doesn't matter how safe we make the office or our safe that the public transport system is you're going to be you know have their needs at the heart of your decision making and so that you know i think as employees you've just got to be cognizant of all of those things having said that i mean obviously the majority of those people have already been vaccinated haven't they so i think i think it'll be interesting to see when the vaccination program is actually through and done what that does to people's mental health as well because knowing that they're 85 or 90 um you know covered in that respect um you know will make a difference i think moving forwards and that's not that far off um the the you know the government having achieved achieve that so yeah it's uh it's interested like that the thing that resonated for me there is treating everyone as a new starter and obviously that that theme of flexibilities come up again um and sort of over accommodation um which seems common the more conversations i have the more people are saying that you know we need to be overly flexible and overly accommodating to because everyone's needs are going to be different um nell you're you're a mentor at fast forward 15. um is there anything you'd like to add on that um in terms of the the customers that you serve and the mentees that you serve i think that there's i would echo a lot of what all the people on the panel have said i think that there is a an element when you're looking at flexibility that you actually do look at it so lots of there has been a huge amount on social media um especially this month's mental health awareness month i've um corporate companies agencies hotel groups talking about what they're doing about mental health awareness months but as a mental health first aid to myself i also think that it shouldn't just be used as a marketing tool and it's great to hear people saying that they're going to look at individuals needs but i think that's what you really need to do so don't just use it as a marketing employee um and to charlotte's point i think it's it's also about recognizing that and people's anxiety for example might not necessarily be about them catching covid it might be that they have been working in the house for a year um and they're finding actually working anywhere else quite difficult to cope with but equally paul raised a really good point that you've got some people that are in their early 20s that absolutely need to get out of their flat share and they need to be in an office because that's impacting their mental health as well so um loads of different things that i think that we can all do but let's be authentic um and if we say we're going to do something do it because you actually want to help people rather than it looks good on your website that's a really nice point to make and i think you know we've all seen it with sustainability inclusiveness some companies and some individuals genuinely take it seriously and they are authentic about it and and others sort of can jump could be accused of jumping on the bowmage and just you know to be seen to be doing the right thing and um it leads me on to the next question actually um and uh charlotte i'll come to you for this one that's all right if has this sort of changed as an organization has this changed you in any way this experience of the pandemic do you feel like it's changed the way you see mental health and the way you tackle it internally and externally we had quite a um fleshed out mental health and well-being policy in the business anyhow um i think it's made me more aware of the absolute personality traits that we've got within the business and i think it's become a lot more apparent so i think i've been more aware of what people are able to cope with and what they're not able to cope with um i i mean i've had a bit of a interesting personal experience the pandemic anyhow because i had a baby in april last year so for me excuse me um maternity leave didn't didn't happen i think i took 10 days and that was it um and so it's just been um to be honest a lot of it i'd say a lot of it's been a blur i mean it's been kind of the decisions that have had to be made have had to be made very quickly and you go into a process of as a business owner kind of into survival mode because that's essentially what it has been when you think that actually you know the industry is largely going to come to a close for a good 18 months which is absolutely kind of what's happened um there's been a lot of activity in the virtual world but um you know whether people have really been making a huge amount of money out of it is a different conversation altogether um so you know i think um i think there's been a much more collaborative attitude in the industry as a result of the pandemic and i think that's been a very positive change i've certainly been very fortunate to be on a number of agency leading forums and uh conversations and was part of one industry one voice which i thought was a very interesting initiative and i think that's all been a very positive uh side to what's happened i think it's it's widened communication with people within the industry and lessened the competitive element between agencies and i think that's been very very positive um but i think it's you know it has accentuated um how we look at mental health and how people are handling things differently no i agree 100 it's interesting you touched on um there's a there's a lot of sort of case studies from like world war ii um in world war one where that experience of sort of collective adversity sort of brings people together and i think that's definitely been the case in our industry a hundred percent um but you're right it's an interesting time now seeing how once we go back to normal we're back in our teams and we we're competing again and how that's all going to play out i think i think we've definitely got a new set of challenges now which is you know we work in one of the most stressful industries around so people having been working in a very isolated capacity and certainly i'm hearing that people are really keen to get out and about again but then you know being told that they need to travel potentially later on this year how that makes people feel not being used to that very very high paced um quality of life that we've all been living in our industry for a very long time where it's you know getting pitch work out but running around talking to clients getting on a plane you know living in a very highly stressed environment um you know logistics teams are going to have to go back to that mentality again come september or potentially even earlier um and how people adapt back to that after spending 15 months basically of looking at a screen that's quite a big jump 100 um paul or jenna have you have you noticed any sort of changes within your teams in terms of like approaches to mental health and attitudes towards towards this topic at all and that you've had to sort of deal with as an organization i think if i could i mean in general i think certainly i've been in this business for quite a long time and i think it's it's now you know much more recognized and um i think people are much more comfortable than they ever were five definitely 10 years ago talking about mental health as a really big challenge um and something that we all need to um recognize and support in as many ways as we can obviously uh there are only certain things you you can do as a as an employer as an employer i think in terms of you know really practical stuff one of the things that the pandemic has forced all of us to do i think probably more than we would do otherwise is to just have the the kind of the weekly checkup with with the people that report into you and i i was reading something um the other day about you know how how valuable that is and how important that is and as nell was saying earlier to do that genuinely not from an employer's point of view as you know how much work can squeeze through this individual are they are they running at 110 which is what i want but you know what is there have they got an equitable workload you know have they got enough to keep them busy but not stressed and that's a sometimes that's a fine balance and i think it's you know as a manager it's incumbent on you to uh to understand that and recognize when you are overloading uh your staff and and to do something about it um i know now actually you know we needed a capital a lot of stuff in in terms of uh workforce management but i think you know just general common sense and um manager training is absolutely vital because it's the managers who are looking after you know young kids a lot of the time in our industry uh ambitious kids who maybe sometimes don't speak out uh early enough when they're overloaded with work or they can't do stuff they don't understand something you know there's often a fear in our business or in any business so people are just scared to put their hand up and say listen i didn't understand that can you go through it again when people are reluctant to do that that can lead to all kinds of problems further down the line but i think you know for me it's about having managers who are aware of the issues of mental health and have got the proper training um as managers to recognize that the symptoms and the confidence to do something about it i think it's not just managers as managers do need to have that understanding but it's not always a manager that a colleague would want to turn to in the first instance if they did want to discuss mental issues mental health issues so what we've done um in many of the venues across across our portfolio is we've said by the end of the year we're going to have a mental health first trained person at least one in each of our venues um and it doesn't actually have to be a manager we've tried to encourage it to be more at a grassroots i suppose level um because we feel that that might be the first person that they want to speak to and many of our staff don't have english potentially as their first language so we've tried to encourage mental health first aid plain people to sign up where they perhaps don't have english as a first language so they can support colleagues but i think it's it's it kind of starts from the top down doesn't it it's a it's a culture it's from the board level it's to the managers and then it's to the employees and actually it's the employees where we'll see the the hub i suppose and the the hubbub around this this conversation and that's where we need to really support them and give them the tools i suppose at that level i think um charlotte raised an interesting point charlotte where you talked about you know the business that our industry opening back up and people going back to having been at home doing a lot of stuff virtually and then having to go from here to here really quickly and i think it is about looking at how are we going to support people through that change and do we need to go back to what we did or are there more effective ways to do that and we've all proved over the past 15 16 months that you can have a panel session that's on a screen um you can have a customer meeting that is on a screen and so do you need to send somebody from wherever to wherever on a train at five o'clock in the morning to go for a two-hour meeting sometimes yes absolutely because that face-to-face involvement with the client is really really important but sometimes it's more effective to do it from an office it's more effective to do it virtually so i think that is a big um a big topic of discussion about how are we going to go from learning about the great things that we've had to learn how to do during the pandemic and putting that into practice when the world returns to somewhat some normality yeah um so really it's a great point that you raised paul and you touched on as well jenna about um the responsibility of managers and leaders and i i i feel like sometimes um it can be sort of the responsibility of everyone's mental health can be placed at the feet of the managers and the leaders in the organization and sometimes that can be unfair because we haven't it hasn't been a a requirement in the past for us to be mentally health trained in order to go into a management or a leadership position and but now mental health come into the forefront a lot more i think we need to sort of perhaps take on a bit more responsibility on that front if we can and make sure that people in positions of influence are trained and so yeah i'm glad you bought out um taking our management hats off now and it'd be great if you could all sort of jump in on this one if if you're up for it um but i'll come to you first general that's all right what what are you doing personally that's perhaps different to a pre-pandemic and to support your own sort of physical mental health and going back into into normality um well as i said at the start in terms of team activities i suppose we're getting involved with lots of things in terms of walking and stuff like that that we wouldn't have done before um we've also had a hydration competition just try and keep people and engaged i suppose but also again for that for their well-being but i suppose personally some of the things that i i have to do is we might have all heard of this stress bucket where you're filling it at the top and you can't let it out at the bottom well i have to let it out at the bottom and some of the ways that i have supposed to have been controlling that over the pandemic is through um trying to eat well where i can although the chocolate does sneak in um but trying to consider what i am eating and taking part in a bit more exercise even if it's just a walk at lunch time if you or even at the end of the day if you can't fit in during normal hours but those are two things that i'm gonna try and keep to as we come out of the normality is just checking on what i'm eating to really support my physical but mental health as well because food does have an impact on your mood and try and move a little bit more i suppose perfect paul what about yourself um i think the thing that that's um that i did early on was uh i kind of did a trade with myself and said look i'm from saving three hours a day on travel what am i gonna what we're going to do with that extra three hours and i did i did think you know longer and hard about uh working an extra three hours every day and i reasonably quickly dismissed that and so i basically you know look looked after us i'm looking after myself more than i than i than i have done previously so um yeah doing a lot more exercise uh every day like like jenna uh the other thing i think um maybe i'm a little bit more disciplined about um now certainly than i was a couple of years ago is kind of switching off and so you know the physical manifestation of that over the last few months has been you know at a certain time of day unless there's something critical going on i will pack up pack up the the laptop and put everything away so that there's no signs that i'm using that my home as a as a as a workspace so um you know there are two things that have really helped me out to say brilliant was really healthy mate um anything to add uh charlotte um i've been getting some lovely dog walks actually um which has been great usually first thing in the morning like sort of 8 8 30 or whatever and then kind of at the end of the day um and it's very beautiful where i am so um that's just been really good to clear my head at the beginning of the day and also uh get rid of all the anything that's been irritating me at the end of the day um so that's been great um and if i've had time at lunchtime i've gone for a bike ride um which has been lovely so i guess it's been fresh air actually and having the ability to have fresh air that's not polluted fresh air has been really nice for me yeah and nil um so i could probably go on about this for hours but um and a lot of people will know this but i left my role per capita um at the beginning of december last year out of choice i am like everybody else that's running a large agency last year was pretty horrific and i felt like i'd spent the you know 10 months making people redundant and so i chose to move roles and go and work for a charity still incredibly involved in the industry as a fast forward 15 mentor because that's really where my passion lies in helping and supporting um women to succeed in in our in our industry um but like uh paul and charlotte have mentioned definitely over the course of the block down i have refound my love of exercise and especially early in the morning i think there is nothing better than getting out of bed getting kicked on going for a run or into a class i did loads of classes on on the screen as well um by zoom which i never thought i would enjoy but it's it's that for me movement and being outside that's the thing that i know keeps me balanced it's brilliant guys i mean i'm trying to resist sort of jumping in with opinions because i'm here to moderate but i am i actually built a a gym in lockdown so i changed my role as well and and a couple of things that you've all said have really resonated um one was uh what jenna said about a hydration competition because the the facility that we've got is is built around gamify and fitness and making it competitive um and i run a crossfit facility and and it really does get get the best out of people and i think it is a really good idea to to try and introduce those things into the organization where you pick a healthy activity and try and make it a little bit competitive and try and make a game out of it because it does keep people accountable and it does sort of encourage them and to make positive changes and the other one which i think really resonates for me is putting my event professional hat back on um is that we're so we rank our days in how productive they were we're we we get to the end of the day and we go yeah it was a good day because i was really productive and i think we need to try and get more towards ranking our days in terms of how present we were and it's really taught me this it's been such a change of pace coming from from boulevard and running events and catering events all the time to to running a gym which is so much slower in terms of its pace and i've had to really get used to slowing down and just trying to be present and not worrying about how many things i ticked off the to-do list was i there in the room with the people that i was there with and so sort of trying to switch from uh ranking how successful our day was in terms of productivity to ranking it in terms of how present we were is just what i wanted to add um lastly guys um one more question uh to all of you and paul i'll just come back to you um if that's all right in terms of your team um and the people that you're working with and and your your customers what uh what should what are your expectations now of each other what should our expectations be of each other going into this from sort of zero back to hero role um have they changed at all is it is it again just that being flexible i think um i think everybody's just got to be more aware of other people's situations and circumstances than maybe we have been previously um yeah it's still we're in a brilliant we work in a brilliant industry and and uh it's you know full of um people are really passionate about what what they do but there are you know there is a tendency sometimes when you're working on a big high pressure project you know to uh to to all work uh too hard and i think we've just got to watch out for each other really whether it's you know a client or a business partner or a a colleague at work and um try and you know raise your own awareness of of the signals for for when things are moving from being busy to being stressful nice thanks paul anything to add on that uh jenna i suppose it's it's just remembering we've kind of all said it throughout the pandemic that we're all in this together and actually as we come out the pandemic we are still all in this together and everybody is figuring out what the new normal is and how they're going to manage the new normal so it's just not forgetting that that phrase i suppose we are all in this together and although it might have a different meaning now it's still equally important and just just to remember that as as we all coming up with this what are you charlotte um i think that and this this hasn't really been um something that we've not always had to do but i just think that communication is just i think this pandemic has shown that communication is basically the root of everything um and that if you don't communicate effectively you can't understand what people need you can't understand where people's own boundaries lie with what they're prepared to do and what they're not prepared to do um and so i think that you know there has to be an internal co you know we preach about it to our own client base but there has to be an internal com strategy alongside an external communication strategy and i think more than anything else what this what this pandemic has taught us is that we've started doing a lot more campaign work in general and looking at what those campaigns look like um across a swathe of time and how you continue to engage people and you know because our our business is engagement that absolutely should be applying internally to our own teams and how we engage people and we keep people motivated and you know for a personal perspective rightly or wrongly and whether or not i'm doing an effective job or not i can see whether lydia hudson might be able to give me an answer because i can see she's on this webinar um you know i tend to think of myself as an inspirer i guess and somebody whose job it is to keep people motivated and um enthused and excited by the journey ahead um rather than looking backwards and um and being concerned about what's happening or what's happened um as a business uh leader so to speak i believe that's my role um is to keep people um believing in what you know our pathway is and to believe in that vision lovely that's awesome charlotte uh and neil i think there's two things for me um during the pandemic when we've all been at work a lot of us have had children at home and it's been absolutely acceptable to reference the fact that your child's at home and they might come in and out of the room um and i would like us to keep that element of real life involved in in what we're doing i don't want us to go back to having to hide the fact that your son's just come home from school and there's about to be an enormous crash because we've all got real lives and then i think that also links with that authenticity point that i made before that um actually i mean absolutely all of charlotte who's had a baby and he's running a business during a pandemic for the events industry the lowest point ever and think about that the realness of how that um has impacted the people that work for us so there will be other women other men that have been in that situation as well that have started a family during the pandemic there will be people that um paul alluded to new starters that have never been in the office and think about the impact of people that have been offered over all this time and how that's going to impact their career progression rather than us just going back to all of the terrible things that we used to accept as part of our industry i think that's a really interesting point actually now that you've mentioned which is um which is the um conversation around furlough which is something we actually haven't mentioned on on this call which you know people who've been potentially people who've been on furlough for oh god at least a year yeah now and what that must feel like for those people um whether they are working a few days and on furlough for the other few days or whether they've just been on full full-on furlough for the whole time you know those people must have had a long-term fear for the fact that when furlough comes to an end they're just not going to have a job anymore and that anxiety must run really really deep and not knowing whether they can really have a conversation with their employer about that and not being able to see their employer face to face so um or i mean you know i know as a as an employer having to put people on furlough and having to make redundancies way be well in march of well making those choices at the beginning of april two weeks before i gave birth um and um you know it was a horrendous scenario and some of those people are still on furlough probably um you know for for various businesses and furlough comes to an end i think what is the end of september so how you engage them back in your industry um you know having been on furlough for god knows how long not really been you probably still are engaging in the industry in some way or another but just feel like you've not been a part of something for a very long time that must be a really difficult position to find yourself in i think it's it's about that that realness isn't it and actually being absolutely acknowledging how people might feel and if we don't know how people feel just ask them and i think there are a couple of questions in the chat as well if we've got time mark there is no we do have some minutes to address those um thanks for some great answers to that question guys um it's interesting the topic of expectations a buddhist would tell us that you know happiness is reality minus expectation oh well just lower your expectations and we'll all be happy but you know when you're running a business you can't afford to lower your expectations too much because you know you don't make any money and no one gets paid so it's a difficult one to balance guys so you know really well done there um we've got a great question from amelia um specifically about smaller businesses so you know if any anyone wants to jump in on this what advice would you give to a small organization with only a couple of employees to put in place structures to support the mental health of colleagues and employees i'd love to answer that mark if i can go for it now jump in i think from a mental health first aider perspective there are some really great resources for small organizations that perhaps don't have the budget to put somebody through um an accreditation there are lots of websites um and there's some really great event specific resources as well event well for example um and amelia if you want to know more than more than happy to have a chat with you offline as well i think one of the other things that things that's important it you know irrespective of the size of the organization actually but um certainly within a small organization is for people who work um for you to feel safe to be able to have the kind of conversations that they need to have so i think mental safety is is a big one whether you work in a two-man band or whatever to be able to turn around to the person who's paying your your your wage bill at the end of the month to say look i'm really not very happy or you know because at the end of the day if you understand somebody's um position mentally you're in a position as employer also to be able to do something about it and to be able to help but if there's no communication in that area and that person doesn't feel safe to have that conversation with you that's very difficult yeah that's brilliant thanks charlotte um the the other one from nicki wasn't actually a question but um it was uh some appreciation for a point that you made neil um nikki said as a single parent uh the clovid crisis is an acceptance of real life has aided me to work flexibly from home which was very difficult and not really acceptable before so you know a small positive that has come out for nikki um guys that's um that's sort of brought us to the end of the questions um so to wrap up i mean i i feel like you've touched on some some awesome points there and we touched on it at the start about sort of the expectations of managers and leaders which many of you are and i think that you know no one's expecting us to have all the answers when it comes to mental health we're human beings ourselves and all we can really do is create an environment and a culture where our employees and our teams feel supported and that isn't always going to work either um people do have their own troubles but the more we can do to create that environment um the better we'll be set up for success emotionally mentally and hopefully uh in terms of business as well um so well done everyone and thanks so much for joining us and uh i'll i'll hand back claire to wrap up i guess thank you very much um thanks ever so much mark and thank you nell jenner paul and charlotte um i was very impressed with all your um personal uh conversations about running and cycling and walking and there was not a single mention of netflix and red wine what's wrong with you um i think you're all pretending um so yes that was mine netflix the occasional run thank you all very very much it was really really um inspirational to hear from you all and i think there's some wonderful tips in there about um how we all uh step forward into this brave new world i think it's it's it's learning where we can um from the experiences of the last year and bringing them into the workforce uh so that we we take the good lob out the bad and and take new learnings with us um and and hopefully when we go into particularly into 2022 there will be a more sort of a realistic um level that we that we reach that means people are working but um with a more personal uh involvement that suits their that each individual and i think we can all agree that that's that's the best way forward for everybody so thank you very much everybody and i look forward to seeing you in real life fairly soon and um just a reminder to everybody who's on the call this will be available to um listen to again on our website on the hba website as of tomorrow afternoon thank you all very much and bye for now thanks guys