In Conversation with Suzanna White
Written by Jane Hamilton SCMP, IABC NSW Director of Professional Development Programs
To kick off our 2022 theme of inspiration, IABC NSW invited esteemed communications leader, Executive Director of NSW Health Strategic Communications and Engagement, Suzanna White, to share her insights and reflections over the past two years of the pandemic.
About NSW Health
NSW Health is Australia’s largest public health system, including nurses, midwives, doctors, allied health professionals, policy makers, communicators and more. More than a million people were admitted to a public hospital in New South Wales in 2020-21.
Suzanna leads the central Ministry team to manage proactive public health campaigns and communicate information on NSW Health programs – from childhood immunisation, and health advice on flooding, bushfires and flu season. In addition, there are reactive issues to manage, answering media enquiries and working with stakeholders through trust and transparency, as well as internal communication and engagement activities.
Leadership, cake and kindness
What impressed attendees at the IABC NSW online event in early March was Suzanna’s leadership approach, care for others and her calm belief in “getting on with it” to guide her team through the recent COVID-19 pandemic’s many challenges.
Suzanna said her job involved “ruthless prioritisation”, while highlighting the importance of being inclusive, playing to people’s strengths, using cake as a team motivator and championing kindness at work.
Although she was thankful to have such a committed team throughout the pandemic, she was equally mindful of her own responsibilities to check in with them regularly, give them breaks and provide support. Regular communication within her team included daily huddle meetings and weekly check-ins with NSW Health communication teams state-wide.
Traits she looks for in communications professionals include resilience, curiosity and compassion in addition to strategic ability.
The challenges of the pandemic meant drawing on her own resilience as well, taking each day as it came, and getting out the yoga mat to unwind.
She emphasised the importance of having good working relationships and knowledge of the health system’s complexities prior to the pandemic, and then creating systems and processes to help deal with the speed of delivery and constantly evolving messages.
Optimising the channels
At the start of COVID-19 in 2020, Suzanna said the team drew on its experience with previous flu campaigns without expecting the pandemic would still be going two years later.
However, they have continued to look for new ways to communicate the pandemic’s messages to employees, the media and the community, including vulnerable people, such as the homeless and those with cognitive disability.
Regular channels included media releases, press conferences and ongoing updates. They also informed the public directly via the NSW Health website, Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok, and ensured the translation of COVID-19 public health messages – from hygiene to vaccination – into more than 50 languages for NSW communities.
Internal channels for employees and managers included weekly updates, videos, talking points for leaders to brief their teams, and tapping into health professionals through their communities of practice.
Measurement along the way included checking for changes in behaviour such as COVID-19 vaccination rates, engagement, media reach and sentiment, and gaining insights from feedback to help refine the content and guide the team’s ongoing efforts.
*Suzanna White has been at the helm of NSW Health’s Strategic Communications and Engagement branch since 2017 and has worked within NSW Government agencies since 2009. In previous roles, she has led communication teams in the UK as well, including at the City of Westminster, the Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority and the Home Office.