# Supporting teams through emotional labour

- **Episode:** [129](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/129.md) (2024-09-19)
- **Type:** interview
- **Tags:** emotional-labour, support, teams
- **Time:** 34:52–38:29 (start 2092s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/129?t=2092](https://truthliesandwork.com/129?t=2092)

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[34:52] Leanne Elliott: I really like that. I think that's something that businesses can struggle with, can't they? That evolution of their culture
[34:59] Harry Cramer: Yeah, yeah. It's really interesting you say that. I bet there is some sort of— I bet if you were ever to do research on it, I bet there's some sort of grieving for SME owners who once were a one-person business, because the feel is different and you could miss that sometimes. Um, I'd be interested to do research on that. There's— maybe that's a job for you one day, Leanne
[35:26] Leanne Elliott: On this theme, you know, you said that, you know, the nature of the work that, that your team does, the, um, the challenges that they support the people with, some of the views that some people have There's a lot of emotional labor there. How do you support people with their well-being, particularly as an occupational health business? How do you make sure the health of your own team is, is managed and taken care of?
[35:47] Harry Cramer: Well, I mean, we try to be supportive of each other is, is probably the primary thing. You've quite rightly identified that sometimes working with people all day long who are struggling, um, takes its toll. And it does, you know, it, it really does. And it's, it's not unusual to have a difficult consultation and to come away from it and feel a little bit emotional, or just have a difficult call, whether it's a, you know, someone that's had quite, quite triggering trauma in their own life that they've then discussed with one of our team, um, and it's resonated with them. So I think, I think we try to be supportive. To go back to sort of the subject, to make sure you've got the right people in the right place at any given time, that's so important because What that actually looks like in practice is making sure that every member of staff has that layer of support that they need. Um, you know, it's quite fashionable these days, isn't it, to talk about flat management structures where it's sort of everybody's, everybody's equal and there's not really a hierarchy and stuff like that. But one of the inherent downsides, in my view, of that is that when it, when it comes to kind of obtaining support from someone, there's not necessarily an available or obvious go-to person, particularly if it's a person in authority that can give you sort of appropriate advice or support or, or any kind of intervention at all. So having the right management team in the right place, I think, is really important to that. And that's something that— to go back to working with your partner— that's something that my wife has been able to do so well because it's, it's really sort of one of her fortes, that, and ensuring, A, that the right people are in the right place at any given time, but also ensuring that a culture of being supportive and fair and kind to each other is really harnessed as well. So yeah, I think these days I'm less hands-on with it because there's more people. So really all I can do, because there's only so many hours in the day, really all I can do is make sure that everybody's got access to that support that they need whenever they need it, which is both Practical support as well. You know, we've got everything that we practice, we preach as well. Everything that we preach, we practice. We have our own employee assistance type options. You know, we offer health services and in particular mental health services to all of our own team as well. But yeah, I think it's more— I think probably the more beneficial and the more significant thing that we're able to do internally is make sure that the the management team are where they need to be, um, when they need to be there, and also have the skill set in which to kind of support the, the team members that they need to