Today's Tip
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Employees often start a new day of work with a lot on their mind, especially when a traumatic event has occurred in the world outside of the workplace. When these events happen, it can be hard to put the anxiety and stress that accompany them to the side and work productively. If possible, it can be extremely helpful to have a meeting with your employees acknowledging the incident and reminding them of the support they can find in your company's EAP. Failure to offer psychological support and a sense that management is aware of such stressors can slump productivity in the workplace and make recovery from traumatic events at work a difficult process.
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Dear ,
February is upon us! With Valentine's Day just around the corner, love is in the air. But however romantic and blissful the atmosphere, there is no stopping the stress that may result from different challenges, both new and old. People often take for granted the lasting effects of past stress. Also another source of stress that many fail to consider is the stress imparted by the world around us. High-stress work environments, traumatizing media coverage, and the failing economy are just a few of the environmental stressors that accumulate and slowly intensify the experience of everyday stress.
It is crucial to understand the properties of stress in order to better manage it and maintain a healthy and productive workforce. It is especially important to recognize the capacity for stress to accumulate. This may explain the feelings of heightened anxiety and acute stress reactions employees exhibit in the workplace which are a result of exposure outside of work. Furthermore, a build-up of stress in employees will hamper your business' ability to recover from critical incidents (for example, robbery, shooting, fire, etc.) that may directly impact your workplace and workers.
We sincerely hope that you find this issue of Trauma Talk to be a useful tool in managing your business and employees on another important level.
Best regards,
Vanessa & Wilma
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Adding It All Up
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 Understanding Cumulative Stress Because cumulative stress has an important impact on workers and, as a result, business efficiency, it is a vital-but often overlooked- concept to be aware of in managing a business. The effects of cumulative stress can be especially damaging to a business in the face of an on-site traumatic event. Here is an excerpt from an article we wrote on the subject in 2006 titled "Trauma Response in the 21st Century":
Alarmingly, a recent statistic from the Disaster Preparedness 2006 Report states that 39% of U.S. companies still do not have a plan in place that will guide them through the effects of [traumatic] events--they are without any formalized or structured plan at all. If we factor in that within three years most businesses can assume that they will experience some form of critical incident if they have not already done so, this statistic becomes exponentially disturbing.
...It is essential to recognize that the cumulative effects from past and current natural disasters and terrorist acts might exacerbate employees' symptoms [of stress]. In other words, the company might be dealing with multiple trauma impacts that surface and are triggered by the one critical incident that happens to them. This poses a heightened challenge to companies and what they might be dealing with in the 21st century compared to workplace traumas of yesteryear.
A Plan by itself does not carry much weight unless it is carried out and implemented by professionals trained in traumatic incident work. Considering the multiplicity of trauma that can occur in individuals, nothing short of a consistent, individualized plan for each corporation should be developed. Also a back-up support system of trained professionals familiar with crisis protocols and various symptoms of trauma is crucial in gaining the fastest recovery response time possible...
For the full article and more insight on planning for the impact of cumulative stress and trauma at work, please visit our website by clicking here.
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Thank you for taking the time to read this month's Trauma Talk. We hope you have found the information useful. If there are any topics you would like to see featured in a future
article of Trauma Talk, please let us know and we
will do our best to address them. We appreciate your comments, stories,
and thoughts as they will help us further refine and enrich the newsletter in
such a way to benefit you.
Also, we are pleased to announce that our forum is finally underway! Look for it in next month's issue.
Until our next talk, stay healthy and take care.
Warmly,
The Trauma Team
Trauma Outreach Associates, Inc.
Phone: 415.772.9999
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In the next issue...
Where do you stand?
415.772.9999
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