5 Reasons Why Your Workplace Is Trauma-Blind and Staying That Way (and How To Do Good Regardless)

TL, DR: Big frameworks, policies and trainings would be great. Until then take the lead and create change yourself, one small positive action at a time.

My HR career provided me with access to some incredibly bright, ambitious and well-meaning leaders, in the People function and beyond. Whether just starting out or already in a role that affected tens of thousands, many of these leaders were high achievers, keen learners, and vocal supporters of equity and mental health who sacrificed personal time to support causes and organisations they believed in. They worked with dozens others and sooner or later each one had to find their own way of dealing with the people whose grief, depression, rage, panic attacks or chronic stress was disrupting their work. Without exception, those situations always eventually emerged.

Some of the leaders I came to know were themselves a product of their own difficult stories of unmet need and loss that had left them with a distinctive emotional reactivity and outlook on people and the future. On very rare occasions fragments of the unspeakable were acknowledged, while a sense of heaviness inundated the room.

Still - in 20+ years there was never any mention of the word ‘trauma’ when it came to people at work.

As the world begins to recognise the reality and magnitude of trauma, organisational frameworks and tools have been developed to help turn workplaces into more inclusive spaces for survivors.

That is a laudable effort. Survivors are often triggered and even (re-)traumatised at work. There’s always room for a more considerate work environment where everyone is, at least sometimes, treated as the sensitive bundles of needs we are rather than just one of the means of production. And in places where trauma is visible and frequent (first responders, the military, hospitals, social work etc.) putting trauma awareness and management at the heart of the organisational setup is a must. For everyone else though, one look at what becoming trauma-informed entails and the desire to walk this path is likely to die a quick, clean death.

A quixotic pursuit

Here are 5 reasons why I think most companies will not become trauma-informed anytime soon:

1. Othering and ignorance of need: the painful irony of trauma is that, despite being a common human experience, it is still misconstrued as an exceptional event that affects a distant minority of people. The fact that few identify as survivors in work settings and the absence of the word ‘trauma’ from the business dictionary are also at play.

2. The difficulty of building a business case: saying that trauma leads to absenteeism, poor productivity or higher turnover is accurate but not enough. Good luck trying to put a credible, compelling number on a complex and delicate problem that most people don’t recognise or understand, or trying to measure impact to go past a pilot phase.

3. Lack of resources: implementing and maintaining a trauma-informed ecosystem of policies, training, and support requires an amount of time, specialised skills and money that most organisations do not have, or are pressed to invest elsewhere.

4. Implementation challenges: trauma is a big topic that lends itself poorly to the typical L&D playbook (which not all companies even have). In-depth, face-to-face learning is out of fashion (and prohibitively expensive, see point 3 above). To reach critical mass you’d need to rely heavily on microlearning, ideally delivered while doing business. In the process of forcing your square peg through the round hole you’re forced to work with, you risk having to shave off so much of the good stuff until there isn’t much left.

5. Privacy and safety concerns: there’s understandable reluctance to begin a conversation in the workplace on a complicated topic such as trauma. Unpredictability and emotional cost aside, there’s the risk of unknowingly saying or doing something that does more harm than good or lands you in hot waters. Addressing trauma can also lead to exposure of events or allegations that may require follow-up and third-party intervention. It is unsurprising then that compartmentalising can seem safer than engaging.

When you hit a wall, build a ladder

Trauma-informed organisation makes for a catchy phrase, but its practicality is limited. Which leaves survivors as invisible and vulnerable as they were, only a bit more depressed to know no big search party’s on the way (or maybe that was just me).

Unless…

You stop waiting, and start acting.

If you’re a leader in a company that does nothing to support survivors, you recognise the need but think your hands are tied - believe me, they’re not. You don’t need to aim for systemic or cultural change to make a difference. You don’t need permission or the CEO’s involvement (though that would help, for sure) to stand with the survivors. Start small, but start. Be the first to reference trauma as a reality that may affect people’s performance and wellbeing at work. Raise money for a survivors’ charity on the next Mental Health Day. Support the people who may be dealing with a survivor through their work to learn about trauma and what to do (and what to avoid). Above all enable a sense of safety and watch out for (re)traumatising behaviours in teams and other leaders e.g. poor hiring practices and performance management, deficient comms, micro-management, internal competition etc.

If you’re a survivor, I know how frustrating this is. I wish the world around us saw us more and understood us better. I’ve noticed how easy it is for many victims of relational abuse to assume the people around them are willingly ignorant, disengaged and even abusive. In my experience more often than not people’s attention is simply elsewhere, and they need a little prompt from us to open their eyes more widely. The truth is, we have the power. The power to educate ourselves and take the action we’ve gotten tired to wait for from others. The courage to listen to our exquisite internal bullshit and evil detector and take a risk on the people we click with for no obvious reason. The strength to communicate and uphold our boundaries, so our core stays safe and private.

This is how we change things - together, one small action at a time, every day.

Thanks for tuning in,

Adina