Communal Workplace Healing in Times of Unending Trauma

Written By Kaitlyn Ramirez Borysiewicz

We talk about trauma a lot at The Melanin Collective. Yet there is an important distinction we have to make about trauma itself. While events in our lives can be traumatic, trauma comes from the experience of suffering alone – it’s what happens inside of you, as a result of what happened to you, to quote Dr. Gabor Mate. Trauma is what happens when we feel we have no one to turn to, when we’re forced to walk through the sludge on our own. 

It's not a stretch to claim that many of us experience trauma in the workplace especially now, under the leaking umbrella of climate change, worsening economic inequities, and mass shootings and other forms of (preventable) violence. The pandemic made the inevitable trauma worse – the months of social distancing forced us to process and endure alone, which impacted the way we live and made sense of the world. And it’s not that we’re just more traumatized – we were also less resilient because the social connections and escapes we once relied upon were cut out for public safety.  

Through it all, we are still working. Still clocking into our living room laptops or driving into work, radios blaring the latest tragedies. (And, of course, frontline and essential workers have not caught a break since the beginning of the pandemic, a disaster in itself.) Still writing reports and holding meetings and taking notes, all while trying to function as the walls cave in. The experiences of trauma we feel in the workplace are exacerbated because the workplace, as an institution, is not designed to recognize our humanity. There is a well-known narrative that once you enter the office, you are required to leave your baggage at the door. There is Work You and there is Real You – and they are incompatible. But shedding the shit is not simple. We would even submit that it is inhumane. 

How can we, as racialized and marginalized people and people who experience violence directly, bifurcate ourselves when the communities we come from are hurting?

Critics continue to chant that there’s no room for these types of conversations or feelings in the workplace, but to do so ignores the context in which the current workforce lives. More than a third of the U.S. workforce are millennials and the next generation is just around the corner – yet a majority of Americans feel that saving for the future, paying for education, and buying a home (all pretty important markers of building wealth) are harder to achieve today than for their parents’ generations. Then – compound that with the burnout epidemic where, according to an Insider survey of over 1,000 American workers, 61% said they were at least somewhat burned out. Then – add the COVID pandemic, which has taken over a million lives, and the massive grief and loss people have and are experiencing. There's no question as to how many of us are now feeling the pangs of trauma, if we hadn't been traumatized already.

It’s easy to see how one could feel hopeless – the slowing promise of economic security, bookended by global, national, and regional atrocities, is a lot to bear. And if we’re tethered to a system that requires us to work to afford basic needs, then is it a stretch to say workplaces have some sort of responsibility to their workers? To at least say something, internally, that acknowledges collective pain?

I had a colleague apologize for emailing me a document late, just a few days after the Uvalde shooting, and from a place of deep empathy I told her that it truly was not important. None of it is important, not in the grand scheme of the trauma we feel. I hope that small interaction was a moment of communal healing, a recognition that I see them as more than a coworker. If only our workplaces could institutionalize that same kind of communal healing to alleviate, even if for a second, the feeling that we have to suffer in silence, on our own. 

While organizations will have different levels of capacity to provide communal healing from trauma depending on their available resources – which is a whole other topic! – we wanted to offer a few suggestions for you to consider: 

  • Assess if your current mental health benefits have any barriers to care. Can staff afford the copays? Are the benefits tied to specific networks that include Black, Indigenous and people of color counselors or queer, trans-friendly counselors? What modalities – in person versus virtual – does the plan include? Do staff have access to transportation? Not sure? Ask your staff.

  • Offer in-house counseling sessions with a trauma-informed counselor for staff.

  • Encourage staff to take time off of work and set up affinity spaces for employees to talk openly about what they are feeling. 

  • Pause the work. We know – work and goals and deadlines are the ~most important thing~ for some, but if your employees burn out and leave, that work will not get done. Move deadlines back, cancel or postpone events, and let employees breathe.

  • During the summer time, consider implementing ‘Summer Fridays’ or, as one of our clients calls it, ‘Mend Your Heart Mondays’ where the work week becomes a 4-day week and staff have more time to decompress and take care of themselves. What’s the point of health benefits and wellness plans if you don’t have time to use them?

    • Lessons Learned: If you switch to a 4-day week, make sure you also switch to a 4-day work load. As employees experience burnout and compassion fatigue, there’s nothing worse than trying to cram in 10-hour days to make up for the one day the office will be closed.

  • Encourage staff to take their accumulated time off. We’ve seen folks with 92 days of paid time off (PTO) that need a break but the work keeps them from stepping away.  

    • Lessons Learned: Do not contact employees when they are off the clock, but especially not when they’re on PTO. If you really, truly need them, then you need to reimburse them for their time.

    • Lessons Learned: Lead by example. Managers and supervisors also need time off. Take your leave and set an example by not being accessible and not leaving folks feeling the impact of your time off.

  • Hire more staff. We cannot ignore the realities of budget constraints (hello, general operating support for our nonprofits!) but piling on the work on staff who are already struggling to keep up is not the answer – and it only adds to the vicious cycle of employee turnover.  If you need immediate support, consider temp agencies. They exist for a reason and no, your work is not so important and so different that an additional pair of hands cannot help. There are things others can help you with and learning to ask for and receive help is an important skill.

    • Lesson Learned: Temps provide you an opportunity to test someone out while they do the work. If this person is stellar and turns out you actually do need a whole other person, you can give them the job. It’s a win-win for everyone. 

  • Implement Rene Redwood’s Unconditional Positive Regard. Unconditional Positive Regard means we value each other for the humanity that we bring and that we are not in judgment of each other. Remember, we are all humans trying to survive and how we react to trauma is unique to each person. Try to understand your fellow human being and ask them what they need, and then do your best to provide support. We cannot be everything for everyone but your organization is a microcosm of the larger world — you have power, control, and a duty of care to the folks that allow you to exist. 

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Kaitlyn Ramirez Borysiewicz
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