Trauma-informed Approaches for Employee & Employer Well-being

Trauma’s invisible influence in psychologically unsafe workplaces undermines both employee well-being and organizational success, yet little is being done to address it. The reality is staggering—70 percent of the population have experienced a traumatic event, almost 20 percent hold significant trauma—yet most organizations are unaware of how this affects their business and the employee experience.

As we continue to emerge and transform from the pandemic, building trauma awareness and psychosocially secure practices is more important than ever, especially with new generations entering the workforce, carrying the stress of childhood pandemic experiences, economic instability, active shooter drills, the negative impacts of social media, and more. It feels like a daunting task, and one that many organizations feel is not their responsibility or problem. Yet, the root cause of most workplace challenges from employee burnout to lost productivity to retention issues can be traced back to psychologically and psychosocially unsafe workplaces and the constantly activated trauma responses they trigger. And it is costing organizations billions of dollars annually.