June marks National PTSD Awareness Month in the United States, with June 27 designated as PTSD Awareness Day. While often associated with military veterans, emergency responders, and populations living in war-torn countries, PTSD, or post-traumatic stress disorder, affects people in all professions, communities, and regions across the globe. For HR leaders and workplace wellbeing professionals, this month presents a critical opportunity to reflect on how trauma and PTSD may impact your employees and teams and what you can do to support them.
At Journey, we believe that supporting employees with PTSD requires more than just reactive care. To create healthier, more aware, and more resilient environments, organizations need to proactively integrate trauma-informed and culturally responsive mental health strategies into their operational fabric. Here’s how.
PTSD in the Global Workforce: What HR Leaders Need to Know
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a psychiatric condition that can develop after an individual experiences or witnesses a traumatic event. According to the WHO, over 70% of people worldwide experience a traumatic event at some point in their lives, and around 4% of men and 8% of women will experience PTSD as a result.
Trauma can encompass a whole range of experiences. For example, traumatic experiences that can lead to PTSD include sexual assault, workplace harassment, domestic violence, serious accidents, natural disasters, war, or prolonged exposure to stress and abuse. PTSD may also arise from region-specific stressors, such as political conflict, migration, public health crises, or economic instability.
While PTSD is not confined to specific professions, regions, or living circumstances, data shows that people exposed to violent conflict or war, and those who have experienced sexual violence, are significantly more likely to develop the condition.
Symptoms of PTSD can include:
- Intrusive memories or flashbacks
- Hypervigilance and an exaggerated startle response
- Difficulty concentrating
- Emotional numbness or detachment
- Fatigue and sleep disturbances
- Avoidance of certain places, topics, or people that serve as reminders of the trauma
At work, these symptoms can manifest as withdrawing from colleagues, having difficulty meeting deadlines, irritability, or inconsistent performance—all of which affect not only those individuals experiencing PTSD but also their team members. Furthermore, when employees navigating traumatic experiences seek support at work but don’t receive it, symptoms can worsen.
Oftentimes, however, organizations and leaders underestimate how significantly employee responses to trauma can impact the workplace. In reality, most leaders aren’t thinking about it at all. But the organizational cost of ignoring trauma is high. Left unaddressed, PTSD can contribute to absenteeism, presenteeism (i.e., when people show up to work despite illness, which prevents them from functioning their best), decreased morale, increased turnover, and potential compliance or legal risks—particularly when trauma stems from workplace conditions like bullying, discrimination, or harassment. So, how do you address it? By implementing a trauma-informed approach organization-wide.
Employing a Trauma-Informed Approach to Support Employees with PTSD
Being a “trauma-informed” workplace means recognizing the widespread impact of trauma as well as understanding potential paths for recovery and actively working to prevent and combat retraumatization.
In 2022, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Center for Trauma-Informed Care, in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control, created six guiding principles for a trauma-informed approach that can help all organizations:
- Safety
- Trustworthiness and transparency
- Peer support
- Collaboration and mutuality
- Empowerment, voice, and choice
- Cultural, historical, and gender awareness
At the core of all of these principles is physical and psychological safety. This includes ensuring employees feel safe to share their ideas and concerns, show up as fully themselves, ask questions, take risks, and admit mistakes, especially in high-pressure environments.
But it takes more than just talk to ensure such safety. Here are some ways organizations can put those principles into practice.
6 Scalable Practices to Create a Trauma-Informed Workplace
- Recruit and train leadership to model trauma-informed behaviors. As highlighted in Journey CEO Stephen Sokoler’s book, The Mental Health Advantage, leaders set the tone for mental health culture. Executives and managers alike should be trained to respond compassionately to mental health disclosures and use trauma-informed language in such conversations, accommodate the needs of teams working under difficult circumstances, model vulnerability and proactive mental health practices, and embed inclusive wellbeing practices into team operations. Organizations can facilitate this by offering workshops and e-learning opportunities on psychological safety, stigma reduction, and inclusive, empathetic leadership at all levels of the organization.
- Implement flexible work policies. Offer accommodations such as modified schedules, mental health days, or remote work for employees managing PTSD. Respect global time zones and consider asynchronous workflows when possible. This may be particularly important in the aftermath of natural disasters or regional crises.
- Institute confidential, safe reporting and grievance procedures. Create clear, trauma-sensitive channels for reporting harassment, discrimination, or unsafe conditions. Make sure to provide options for anonymous or third-party reporting to ensure employees can trust that their sensitive information will not be shared inappropriately or used against them.
- Create feedback loops and psychological safety metrics. Use engagement surveys to assess the levels of psychological safety and trauma awareness employees feel at work. Include questions that gauge trust, openness, and perceived support from management. Measure the responses and ensure you continuously trend upward—and address it quickly if or when you don’t.
- Enhance your EAP offerings to include trauma-informed language, resources, and care. Having a robust, proactive EAP can change the game for employees with mental health conditions such as PTSD, and even more so when you ensure the availability of trauma-specific care. Offer webinars on trauma awareness and videos to help people with PTSD navigate triggers and symptoms. Ensure the availability of 24/7 mental health support through digital tools so that employees can access it when they need it most.
Championing Cultures of Healing and Resilience
Addressing trauma and PTSD in the workplace is not a one-time initiative; it is an ongoing commitment to cultivating an environment where all employees feel safe, valued, and empowered—and an ongoing process to check in, adapt, and ensure the company culture remains supportive as personnel and practices change over time.
Now is the time to audit your current mental health strategies through a trauma-informed lens. Evaluate whether existing systems support or inhibit psychological safety. Examine how well your teams and leaders, at all levels, understand trauma and whether current support services are inclusive and accessible.
Implementing a trauma-informed approach now allows you to champion a future of work that prioritizes healing, support, and resilience for all employees, all the time.
Learn more about supporting your team’s mental health with Journey’s Proactive EAP here.