COVID, Trauma, and the Workplace

How can workplaces function when employees are recovering from recent COVID trauma?

As a strategic planner, when I ask stakeholders about challenges facing their communities, I often hear: recovering from COVID. In particular, people are concerned about the impact COVID had on the mental health of children and youth. But COVID caused widespread trauma for most of us. In 2021 the Director-General of the World Health Organization said, “Each and every individual on the surface of the world actually has been affected…. And that means mass trauma, which is beyond proportion, even bigger than what the world experienced after the Second World War. And when there is mass trauma, it affects communities for many years to come.”

Judith Herman, the author of "Trauma and Recovery," tells a story about trauma from a veteran of the Navy. His ship went down, and when rescuers arrived, the officers were rescued first. Although the sailor recognized this as normal military procedure, he was still horrified to realize that his life was expendable. Herman writes, “The rescuers’ disregard for this man’s life was more traumatic to him than were the enemy attack, the physical pain of submersion in the cold water, the terror of death, and the loss of the other men who shared his ordeal.”

During COVID, many of us, or our coworkers, were abruptly laid off. People felt suddenly deserted by their employers. They had no idea when the pandemic would end, whether they would ever get their once-valued jobs back, or how they would support themselves once government funding ran out. For many of us the workplace community is a precious, supportive environment; with layoffs, the loss of work emails and contacts, and the general isolation caused by COVID, many people lost these communities, as well.

The impact of layoffs on individuals was beautifully illustrated in a March 2024 recorded conversation between Mike Murawski and Joe Imholte entitled “Life After Layoff.” Both Mike and Joe talk about the loss of community they felt after losing their jobs. Joe said, “You lose a community. I was a part of a community for 25 years, for 5 or more days a week, and then suddenly they’re gone.” And Mike added, “There are people that you actually see more frequently during the week than your family, and all of a sudden you’re just, gone, and almost like you can’t even… you don’t feel like you can communicate with them, they are now on the other side of some invisible line.”

Many non-profits are dedicated in some way to healing. Social service agencies are generally dedicated to addressing harm to, and thus healing, individuals and families. Arts and culture organizations often have programs for visitors and communities that explicitly address healing.

We rarely address employee healing with the same energy and intentionality as we address the needs of our clients. It seems evident that in order for staff to represent an organization in helping others with healing, they must feel the same care and attention from their employer.

But here we run into a conflict of roles. Workplaces need to maintain a level of professional distance in order to function. The School of Social Work at the University of Iowa has a web page on which they talk about professional behavior, which includes appropriate attire, punctuality, respectful and deferential interactions, professional language, maintaining boundaries, and “avoiding the expression of raw emotions.” Thus, while a two-hour program can function as a therapeutic space, a staff meeting cannot.

But a workplace is a community, and arguably, right now it’s a community full of people (from entry-level staff to leadership) that is recovering from trauma. There is a strong correlation between authenticity and mental health; Jaime Woolf wrote in the Harvard Business Review, "Feeling more authentic at work is associated with greater well-being and a sense of belonging. In contrast, covering up your authenticity can feel stifling and lead you to search for safer work environments....If you’re constantly calculating and on high alert, the cognitive load can feel exhausting."

How can a workplace give employees what they need right now—a space of connection and healing—while still functioning as professional places?

I am a proponent of using program design tools, usually used externally, to think about and improve employee experience. Here are a few ideas for how we might address trauma and foster a community in which people can heal:

1. Build understanding of this topic: of the challenges employees may be facing, and the human, community work that needs to be done. For example, a group of staff members that includes leadership and human resources representatives might form a study group to read and discuss Judith Herman’s book "Trauma and Recovery" and how these ideas resonate in the 21st century workplace.
2. Offer discrete spaces and times to share and connect in a personal way. For example, hold an annual retreat, or even monthly or quarterly meetings, where people are allowed and encouraged to bring their whole selves, not just their professional selves. These are moments when supervisors can hone their listening and empathy skills as well as moments where problems are identified and compassion is shared, with problem-solving saved for a separate time. Clarify that this is different from other meeting times—while everyone needs to leave some of their own personal life at the door for a workplace to function well, these are opportunities to focus on the full person, rather than the individual as an employee.
3. Create new policies that allow and encourage individuals to identify and manage their own needs. This requires trust and generosity. For example, encourage employees to take note of when they are having a difficult time and take a mental health day instead of coming into work, or, if this is not possible, reschedule any difficult meetings and work from home or in a space where they can practice self-care.
4. Ensure that people who need it are getting help from trained professionals, so that managers are not put in the position of dealing with mental health struggles they are unqualified to deal with. For example, offer staff (all staff, not just full-time staff) access to quality therapy services (including the option of in-person, ongoing therapy) as a benefit of employment.
5. Put safety and connection first, because these are essential to healing. Encourage communities within the workplace—such as reading groups, lunch groups, and other social opportunities—where connection-making can happen. And prioritize expressing concern and understanding. If someone is visibly having a hard time, say something about what you’re noticing, and ask if they need to take some time to themselves or skip or reschedule a meeting—help them process and deal with the emotional turbulence they are dealing with, which ultimately helps maintain boundaries around work meetings as spaces for focusing on work.
6. One aspect of trauma is the lack of autonomy felt in the moment of crisis. Help employees recover their own autonomy by allowing them as much control over their area of work and their work style as possible. For example, identify up front what ideas need to be vetted, and where employees can run with an idea. Their ideas may not be the same as the ideas of their managers; find the spaces where this is ok and the spaces where it is not. For the spaces in which consensus is needed, help create processes upfront so that individuals do not feel like they have done work and expressed ideas and then are undercut.

Learn more about this approach to improving organizational culture, and opportunities to change your workplace, on the Museum Questions website.