Last week Oakleaf held a webinar with Nick Bloy for a few of our Legal network contacts. The focus was around leading through uncertainty and supporting wellbeing and mental health during the pandemic.
Nick is a talented wellbeing specialist and founder of WELLBEING Republic Limited and he led the session with the overall message on how critical it is to be prioritising wellbeing and how we can support our employees.
Nick talked us through three key learning outcomes in relation to supporting the wellbeing and mental health of lawyers and business services staff and importantly one’s own mental health also.
We discussed key concerns currently facing employees and these ranged from both childcare and broader care responsibilities to mental health of employees to return to work plans.
In terms of how we can best be supporting our employees, the main suggestions conveyed were around autonomy (asking others what they need) listening (can we be giving individuals more agency over their work) relatedness (connection, belonging and inclusivity) meaning and support (thinking about factors such as life experience and reflecting both forwards and backwards). Another crucial point was the power of empathy and how one sees an individual’s human behaviour. All in all, the premise of human connection and how vital this is for employees’ wellbeing during the pandemic.
The final learning outcome was around supporting one’s own mental health – understanding our own emotions and the notion of thrive vs survive. Fundamentally, if one is not fully caring for themselves how can we then support others in the best way possible. This is so important as emotions have an absolutely critical role in our decision making. Suggestions of ways to best support ourselves were around journaling – writing your worries down, focus on what is in our control rather than what isn’t and choose optimism! Prioritising self-care will also impact our ability to be our best selves so deep quality sleep, exercise and proper nourishment are all of course huge factors in this.
It was a brilliant discussion and Nick’s final point was that “we are all doing the best we can with the resources we have available to us at this moment in time” and so be kind to yourself (and others!) – thank you again Nick for an inspiring and interactive discussion.
If you would be interested in joining similar sessions or would like any more information, please get in touch:
georgiaconstantine@oakleafpartnership.com