Tired of writing staff emails after every traumatic event? Here's what to do instead.

Buffalo. Uvalde. Dobbs. Forest fires. Monkeypox.

The number of traumatic events seems utterly relentless lately.

If you are a leader with an ounce of compassion, you probably felt the urge to write your staff after each one.

And if you are a leader with an ounce of humanity, you are probably burnt out, spent, and at a loss for words.

Since the pandemic and racial reckoning in 2020 that made everyone wake up and try to solve racism (sorry, it's a little hard to not have a jaded sense of humor as a DEI consultant), leaders have felt the call to put out a statement after almost every traumatic event. There are pros and cons to this approach. While there are reports that company pledges to fight racial justice have been sporadically realized, some research has shown that Black and Brown folk still think it's important for companies to speak out, even if they are skeptical of the motivation for doing so. Which is to say to leaders: everyone is listening but no one really believes you.

That's bleak inspiration for writing an all-staff email, even though inspiration seemed to be irrelevant to writing all-staff emails in the past. At the same time, some staff are demanding such emails. An employee at a client organization recently expressed that they felt they should hear from their CEO within 48 hours after every mass shooting.?I had to point out that with the number of mass shootings in this country, the CEO would be writing an email every day and it would become a full-time job.

Now, I'm not saying leaders should abandon writing to their staff in order to foster connection in our remote and hybrid world. Trauma is becoming the new norm, and if leaders want to get the best from employees and teams, they are going to have to help them figure out how to process and deal with some very difficult things because I don't see things easing up anytime soon. (Remember, we are about to enter a Presidential election where the Republican candidate will likely be a White supremacist.)

Even the employee who wanted a daily email (without realizing that's what they were asking for) had a point -- staff feel disconnected and abandoned, and they need support and nurturance, especially teams that are working remotely. But like most good things in life, nurturance is best when its consistent and genuine, not reactive and performative.

So instead of writing an email after every event, I encourage leaders to adopt the habit of writing their staff on a regular cadence.

This simply practice has multiple benefits.

1. It's reliable. And reliability breeds trust. For staff who are craving conversation and reassurance, they know when they will hear from you. And for staff who choose to deal with their discomfort by compartmentalizing work and life (particularly folks who might be part of the communities affected by the news), they can ignore the regular email instead of being triggered by their inbox at random times.
2. It's ceremonial. By timing the email to go out on a Monday morning or Friday afternoon, you can create a virtual ceremony of either opening up or closing out the workweek. These virtual triggers are more important now for employee health as remote work threatens to bleed into every corner of employee lives. Remember, an employee with no boundaries is just a puddle of nerves that you will have to deal with eventually, so, you know, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" and all.
3. It helps you process, as well. A weekly email gives you the mental space to make sense of upsetting news before having to be a font of inspiration for others. It's hard to know what to say in the immediate aftermath, but taking some time will allow you to either share words of inspiration that helped you process or find some of your own.

As for what to say in your email, here are some guidelines I use:

1. Name the event, but don't be a source of news. If you are writing about upsetting events, don't make things vague and weird by alluding to it without naming it. If you're writing after Roe v. Wade was overturned, say that. But at the same time, you don't need to describe upsetting events, like a mass shooting, and traumatize people who are looking to get away from the news by coming to work. Sometimes, if I feel people may not be on the same page, I'll link to an article about the event, so that people who are unaware can get up to date and people who are aware can just continue reading the email.
2. Focus on supporting staff who are most affected. That means expressing compassion and offering support. That support should be unequivocal, which means you don't try to turn traumatic events into a "both sides have a point" discussion. For example, in the case of Uvalde, parents and the Latine community were harmed irrevocably, and there is a deep sense of betrayal that the cops failed to protect them. People need to be able to have their feelings validated by hearing that. Some staff might be upset because they believe in unequivocal support for police, but the focus should be on the people most harmed by the event, not the tangential feelings of people who don't like difficult conversations about policing in this country.
3. Focus on feelings. It's possible there will be more than one affected group or more than one upsetting event in the week. In that case, focus on helping people process big feelings. Remind them of Employee Assistance Programs or other spaces to connect with colleagues. Discussing feelings may seem awkward for seasoned leaders, but it's what this new world order demands of leaders. In the words of famed neuroscientist António Damásio, "We are not thinking machines that feel, we are feeling machines that think."
4. End with action items. There can be a lot of energy behind feelings conversations, so you'll want to channel that energy into something productive without looking like you're simply telling everyone to get back to work. Ending with a few links to resources that support survivors of the recent traumatic event or nonprofits addressing the issue at hand can help. You can also link to your local Congresspeople and encourage people to register to vote in local elections. Or, depending on the week, you can also remind them of action items that allow them to be more engaged employees, such as signing up for company activities. This is a light touch at the end, and should be written with care, but can provide the needed closure to allow folks to feel taken care of and supported as they transition back to work-related activities. However, if you feel people might be particularly affected by an event, you can also end by stating that they should inform their manager if they need to take time to safeguard their own mental health in these difficult times.

You may still need to work with your DEI lead and communications team to figure out which traumatic events need to be highlighted and which can be neglected for the sake of efficiency and not turning your internal comms department into a news division. But a regular cadence can give employees what they need -- trust, reassurance, and nurturance -- without taxing leaders to the point of burnout.

This article was written by Minal Bopaiah, founder of Brevity & Wit and the author of Equity: How to Design Organizations Where Everyone Thrives. Minal leads a team of exceptional DEI consultants specializing in communications, change management, and leadership development.