How to Effectively Triage Trauma in a Workplace with Burnout

Read Time: 5 Minutes

A big thanks to the People and well-being leaders in this community for their amazing focus on supporting their organizations that have brought this work to life.

It’s a collective effort to realize wellbeing in the workplace, promote mental and emotional health for performance, and end the culture of chronic stress and burnout. #Wellbeing is the new performance 

Join us on Apr 19, 2023 at 12PM PT / 3PM ET for our next Workplace Wellbeing, Performance and Recovery Support for People Leaders on LinkedIn.

Key Highlights:

• Being aware of the Macroeconomic Stresses on Workplace Wellbeing
• How to Triage Trauma in the Workplace
• Vacation Reminder

The theme for this week’s community support is trauma.

Macroeconomic Stresses on Workplace Wellbeing

There’s been a lot of pressure on our financial systems that have caused rippling effects across how we work.

While we’ve had decades of financial ups and downs in the markets, what’s been unprecedented has been the pandemic spending for nearly three years to keep people with their basic needs.

Since then, we’ve started our recovery journey, figuring out the new normal from hybrid work, and shorter work weeks to meaningful work.

But an unseen consequence was inflation, from pandemic stimulus fallout, and supply chain issues to the war in Ukraine, both in the US and Canada, we’ve continued to increase our interest rates to curb inflation, while putting difficult counterpressure on borrowing money that has been the lifeblood of many companies, including banks.

As a result, many companies have gone to austerity measures to rebalance into this recession-like period and will continue to do so until the markets stabilize.  

This has meant: Massive layoffs and cutting benefits.

The bottom line, people's needs are the first on the chopping block at a time when our mental and emotional health has already been on a decline without adequate time for recovery.

We are in yet another boiling pot of stress that can severely hurt our well-being if not addressed.

Triaging Trauma in the Workplace

Trauma is normal - while it’s not what we would wish for, is a protective survival mechanism that helps us get out of situations of crisis.

There are two types of trauma, what I would call one with a “big T” and the other with a “small T”.

“Big T” trauma is when we undergo a rapid rise in an intense negative emotional state over a very short period, like what you might encounter in War or in something like a car accident.

Rarely seen in the workplace.

However, “small T” trauma is when we stack multiple occurrences of stressors without resolution, repeatedly, followed by a highly intense negative emotional state that creates a traumatic moment.

This is common in the modern workplace with examples like, work overload, microaggressions, unfairness, violating personal values, unreasonable timelines, rejection, toxic managers, and losses of promotions and opportunities.

And also stressors from outside the workplace like caregiving, deteriorating relationships, financial pressures, and loneliness.

With continued high levels of post-pandemic stress, we’ve created an environment ripe for trauma.  For many, it means it’s not a matter of if, but when, especially if you’re already experiencing burnout.

Now whether it’s “Big T” or “Small T”, the end result is the same - we can get triggered, leading to an unresourceful prolonged emotional state where we lose control.

Unresourceful Emotions could be: 

• High Anxiety, fear, and panic
• Anger and rage
• Depression

Which can be crippling for the one going through it, and devastating to the people around them leading to a ripple effect of stress and “small T” trauma.

As People leaders, this means we have to be trauma-informed and trauma-aware in supporting people who struggle with trauma and associated emotions.

While we can’t feel what people are feeling, we can notice how they behave.  Is there a highly nervous and anxious energy?  Do you notice aggressive behavior? Are they shutting down out of nowhere?

Ignoring and coping is not an option.

So make sure you can have these conversations with your teams and create a safe space to help them get support - it’s highly difficult to DIY out of trauma, given the intensity of emotions.

Make sure you have a short list of professionals that can effectively address trauma - what you’ll be looking for in an effective process:

1. Collapse the trigger so they can’t associate with their negative emotional state
2. Release the emotions from the nervous system; past events that used to have a charge will now be neutral in nature

I use Mental Emotional Release®️ in my practice which can clear trauma, panic attacks, and phobias in about 45 minutes.

As a workplace and People leader, it is an important responsibility to act as a fail-safe, especially when it comes to keeping our workplaces well.

Vacation Reminder

And for the People leaders who support their people wondering who then supports them?

Here is your vacation reminder.

We’re into the fourth month and Q2 of the year, and it might have already felt like forever since your end-of-year break.

Take a break. Recover.

Process any stored-up stress and fully decompress. :)

Join our Next Support Event on April 19, 2023 at 12PM PT / 3PM ET.

Whenever you're ready, there are 3 ways I can help you:

1. If you're still looking for personal recovery and support for your well-being, I'd recommend starting with this affordable course that's helped hundreds of people and their organizations, here.

2. If you’re struggling with a crisis of burnout and looking for an effective way to recover quickly, consider a life-transforming Burnout Retreat for your next vacation, here.

3. Build out Workplace Burnout Responsiveness and Recovery in your organization by booking a strategy call with me, here.