Champagne and razor blades’ is a phrase you hear a lot in the recruitment industry. Every day is an exciting blur of phone calls, emails, interviews and meetings. A phone call can either leave you feeling on-top of the world or send you into a panic, raising the question of how you will now fit a day’s work into one hour. My fellow consultants will agree that this fast-paced, high-pressure environment is what makes us thrive, and the joy we get from seeing our candidates and clients happy makes it all worth it, however, this doesn’t come without its challenges.

From day one Lotus has been dedicated to balancing the high-stress reality of agency recruitment with wellness. We have access to bi-weekly in-house yoga classes, lunchtime meditation sessions, external wellness workshops, mentoring and most importantly, an extremely supportive Director. I am fortunate enough to be able to have open and honest conversations about mental health with my employer, and whilst mental health is becoming less of a societal taboo in Australia, it is estimated that only one in four young Australians will seek support for their mental health.

October is Mental Health Awareness Month, and as a team, we are thrilled to be donating $500 for every placement made to Batyr. Batyr is a preventative mental health organisation dedicated to addressing the social stigma around mental ill-health in young people, and empowering them to reach out for support. Batyr sends young people out into the community to share their own experiences with mental health. As a collective it is so important that we normalise mental illness and create a safe space for young people to speak up about their own mental health.

Batyr’s educational approach has inspired the Lotus team to share a series of videos and blog posts about our own experiences with mental health. Every week in October we will share our personal experiences on topics including; burnout, imposter syndrome, loneliness, how to find a support network and mental health in the workplace.

As strong, successful females, we hope that in sharing our stories, we can help change the perception that suffering from stress, anxiety or depression doesn’t make you weak, it makes you human.