Cobram Electrical and Data is on a mission to help support its staff with their mental health — and team members are looking good while doing it.
Workers at the local family-owned business have started to wear some striking numbers as part of their ‘Funky Friday Shirts’ initiative, but there is a greater message beyond the lairy fashion.
The team members at CED are wearing TradeMutt shirts on site and in the office, a workwear brand started in 2015 by two Australian tradies, Ed Ross and Dan Allen, following the loss of a mate to suicide.
Ed helped Dan process the grief of losing his best mate, and through these conversations, they realised that although mental health was a serious topic, it was hard for people to talk about something seemingly so dark and scary.
That was the catalyst behind the pair creating funky workwear designed to start conversations about mental health and make the invisible impossible to ignore.
CED human resources and safety officer Christie Molinaro said sparking those conversations was also the impetus behind the company starting its Funky Friday initiative.
“I don’t know if you’ve had a look at TradeMutt’s website, but they’ve obviously got some pretty funky shirts that we have now ordered for probably three quarters of our staff, and they started this just on Fridays, so it’s more a conversation starter,” Mrs Molinaro said.
“They’re pretty lairy, but for some of our boys in the high-vis, and then they have these bright colours and everything, it was more for them getting everyone to talk.
“You know what it’s like with males, they don’t like to talk about their mental health or what’s going on in their life or anything like that, so that was sort of where the Funky Fridays came from.
“(It was to) get the conversation started and get everyone talking about what’s going on in their life and whether they can support (each other).”
The bright and out-there shirts are the second mental health initiative CED has undertaken to help support its staff, following on from a successful ‘R U OK?’ day last year.
"We probably started with the ‘R U OK?’ day last year,” Mrs Molinaro said.
“That was our first thing that we went okay, let’s make sure that we’re supporting our staff to make sure that they can come to us, feel comfortable to come to us and talk about anything that’s going on outside of their work life.
“(Our) director Nic actually then found TradeMutt and their tops, so that’s sort of started it going like, okay, I think we could do that as a business now as well.
“It ties in with our ‘R U OK?’ event, which we will do again this year and just make sure that we’re supporting our staff.”
Despite the initiative being in place for only a short period of time, Mrs Molinaro said there had definitely been a shift in the way mental health had been approached at CED.
“We definitely have (seen more openness surrounding mental health),” she said.
“I think it’s one of these things where you’ve got such a different age group of people, and you tend to have your qualified electrician with your apprentices, so you’ve got a fairly different age gap.
“We have said to the boys, you know, at lunch all sit down together and just have a conversation, just talk about what’s going on. Have you played footy on the weekend? How’s your team going?
“Just have those conversations with (each other), and we have definitely seen it improve.”
The TradeMutt group has also created TIACS, a free and professional text and call counselling service for Australia’s tradies, truckies, farmers and blue-collar workers.
Since taking its first call in 2020, TIACS has helped over 19,000 individuals. The service is supported by the sale of funky shirts, with 50 per cent of proceeds going to TIACS.
TIACS can be contacted for free mental health support by calling or texting 0488 846 988.