For the past few years, we’ve been experiencing collective trauma. But trauma is not new in our organizations, and it’s not going away, either. Estimates are that six in 10 men and five in 10 women experience at least one trauma, and approximately 6% of the population will experience PTSD at some point in their lives. As we’ve seen the lines between work and home blur and a fundamental shift in our expectations of the places we work, organizations have struggled to provide the support and leadership that their employees and customers need. That’s why it’s so important that they take steps now to build the cultures that can see them through this crisis and the ones we’ll all inevitably face in the future. To do that, we need to build trauma-informed organizations. A trauma-informed organization is one that operates with an understanding of trauma and its negative effects on the organization’s employees and the communities it serves and works to mitigate those effects. It may not be possible to predict or avoid the next crisis our organizations will face. However, with forethought, planning, and commitment, we can be prepared to meet the next challenge — whatever it may be — and come through it stronger.
Christian Bertelsen (He/him)