At CCUK, our people matter. Last week was Mental Health Awareness Week in partnership with the Mental Health Foundation and we took the opportunity to talk about mental health with a difference, with real voices and real stories from our people.
Mental health is a real challenge for some which is why five of our own people bravely lead the way on a personal level by talking about their own mental health stories straight from the heart.
This year's #MentalHealthMinute was all about the importance of listening and the difference we can make to someone by just taking the time to stop, talk and listen. Audio is the most powerful way to connect to people and express how you are feeling so each day, our own people stepped up to talk about their own personal mental health stories on our podcast platform, Communicast. A platform that allowed them to safely express emotion and connect with everyone inside our company.
We know this takes time and so this week was our first step towards creating an inclusive and supportive workplace where it's ok to talk about mental health.
This week's theme centred around body image but we thought we would take this week as an opportunity to start the conversation about all aspects of mental health with each day focusing on grief and loss, depression, body confidence, men's mental health and work-life balance.
As well as daily Communicast podcasts, we had daily mental health mailers from our employee assistance platform, Me Space, focusing on the daily themes with advice and toolkits to help anyone who is feeling the same way.
Tea and Talk is an initiative from The Mental Health Foundation aimed at encouraging people to talk about mental health. To kick off the week, each of our stations received a Tea and Talk kit as a gesture to encourage everyone to take a moment during the week to chat over some tea and a biscuit.
As a commercial radio business, we understand how powerful audio can be to connect with listeners. It made complete sense for us to use our internal podcast platform, Communicast, to connect with our people on a subject matter that is currently building momentum. With radio stations all over the country, Communicast was the perfect way for us to talk about mental health and give our employees the platform to share their story.