To coincide with World Mental Health Day, the Centre for Strategic Communication Excellence (CSCE) is launching its global survey of the communication profession titled “So how do you really feel?”
CSCE has asked the communication profession: How are you really feeling? The Global check-in, on the mental well-being of communication professionals, comes as professionals face increasing pressure due to COVID disrupting communication teams across the globe.
The research aims to provide insight into how communication professionals are feeling about their mental wellbeing – to identify the barriers to improving it and gain insights that managers can use to help ease the pressure.
The research comprises both an online survey and a series of one on one interviews with communication professionals around the world.
The outcomes will form a mental wellbeing report with case studies that will be shared across the global communication network and supporting associations.
The partnership between CSCE and Antenna is a collaborative industry effort, with sponsorship from the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Foundation and the support of the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA) as well as IABC chapters and regions around the world.
Sia Papageorgiou. FRSA, SCMP, managing director at the CSCE, said: “Mental wellbeing, exhaustion, stress and burnout are very real issues in the communication profession right now.
“Communication professionals worldwide have been behind the making or breaking of company reputations and have rapidly taken action to ensure employees and their organisation’s stakeholders are safe and well informed in this period of the ongoing crisis.
“At the CSCE we put people first, we believe in sharing knowledge and giving back to the global communities we live and work in.
“The mental health and wellbeing of those within our profession is extremely important to us and we want to play our part in advocating, supporting, and enabling organisations, associations and individuals through work-life challenges.”
Danielle Bond, SCMP, Chair of IABC’s International Executive Board, said: “This is a critical piece of research for the IABC Foundation to support.
“Communication professionals must have the capacity and resilience to lead through change. We need to have open conversations about mental health and how we can support each other to thrive in our professional and personal lives.”
Leigh McClusky, PRIA National President, said: “The mental health and wellbeing of our members are incredibly important.
“We’re proud to be supporting this initiative that will help us understand the pressures our members are facing, and importantly, inform the work that we do to support them.”
Papageorgiou added: “Checking in on how our communication colleagues across the profession are feeling about their mental wellbeing is extremely important. Because we’re stronger together.”
