Requires companies to create trauma-informed workplaces to handle distressed workers
By Henrick Karoliszyn
BridgeTower Media Newswires
NEW ORLEANS, LA — Trauma can negatively impact work environments, but a new generation may change how companies address the mental health issue.
Generation Z, born in the mid-1990s, came of age during the Great Recession, pervasive mass shootings and around-the-clock TV news networks broadcasting calamities. These and other unique-to-the-era stressors have spurred businesses to think about how they adapt to the times.
“It’s the first generation in the United States that grew up where mass violence was part of their norm,” says Dr. Donna Hamilton, CEO of Manifest Excellence, which offers health and wellness expertise for companies to enforce trauma-informed workplaces. “Generation Z is in tune with mental health care and they want workplaces that support that.”
A 2018 report from the American Psychological Association called “Stress in America” confirmed a need to meet this demand. In the study, Generation Z ranked lowest for mental health of any age group. Based on 3,500 interviews with respondents who ranged from 18 to 21 years old, and another 300 interviews with teens between 15 and 17, the prognosis was grim.
Only 45% of Generation Z reported “excellent” or “very good” mental health when compared with 56% of millennials, 51% of Generation X, 70% of baby boomers and 74% of adults older than age 73. An estimated 91% of Generation Z polled said stress was to blame for emotional and physical symptoms of trauma.
Those in the business community say the issue requires companies to create trauma-informed workplaces to handle an influx of distressed workers. This can be established by creating physical and emotional safe spaces for employees, conducting transparent businesses based on trust among workers, enabling peer support, developing shared partnerships at all business levels, recognizing and building strength of individuals and actively moving beyond cultural biases and stereotypes to coexist in the workplace.
“It’s a paradigm that helps us interact with people with an understanding of how pervasive trauma is,” Hamilton said, noting that 50% of American workers experience at least one traumatic event before becoming an adult.
Other business leaders say companies can better thrive by taking an overarching approach to handling traumatized employees.
Tim Sackett, who’s worked in human resources and recruiting for more than two decades, says businesses must aim to hear and take care of all workers’ pressing emotional concerns.
“Every single one of our employees will face trauma in their life, some more than others,” says Sackett, president of HRU Technical Resources in Lansing, Michigan. “It’s up to leaders and human resources in organizations to deal with each of these individual and group traumas as they happen because each is so unique to those individuals and the specific situation.”
Experts say that addressing mental health well-being in the workplace can lead to increased productivity and morale, but both can shift in the opposite direction if not taken seriously.
Dr. Nicole Washington, a board-certified psychiatrist, speaker and business consultant, says that without proper policies in place workers may become passive, negative, lack trust and take things personally at work. It could drive medical conditions including depression, heart disease and respiratory conditions.
A company’s reputation could also rely on how it takes on such concerns.
“If you have an unhealthy organization in which a person with trauma cannot thrive, you will have a high turnover,” she said. “They’re going to have an increased use of unscheduled leave. It may lead you to have a poor reputation for your organization.”
