Organizational Trauma Leaves Lasting Effects on Employees
Trauma in the workplace can have a lasting impact on employees. It's important to recognize and address organizational trauma when it happens.
This blog is Part I of a three-part series on organizational trauma.
Last year, in my racial equity practice, I noticed more trauma than I typically see in organizations that contact me for consulting services. Curiosity sparked, so I did a bit of research on organizational trauma. Wondering if others were seeing the same patterns, I reached out to a few colleagues. Several phone calls confirmed that they saw similar trauma in their respective practices. Intrigued, I spent some time reflecting on my observations and want to share them with you here.
Organizations create trauma for their employees is by failing to keep their racial equity commitments and by ignoring staff’s racialized experiences.”
I did not know this, but trauma in the workplace has different origins.
Interestingly, most workplace trauma is framed around dangerous work. Imagine military roles, health provider professions, or first responders. Other types of trauma are attributed to events happening around us, like the repeated killing of Black people by law enforcement, mass shootings, or other senseless tragedies. Other forms are brought into the workplace from lived experience, like racialized or situational trauma. For example, a person working on nutrition policy who grew up experiencing hunger at home. Along these same lines, it’s my personal opinion that we are all experiencing collective trauma created by COVID-19 and the shift in the world between pre-March 2020 and now. My big takeaway from learning about the different types of trauma is that it is not only episodic but can also be ongoing. In this blog post, I would like to explore organizational trauma from a DEI practitioner perspective.
Let’s start with organizations.
Organizations cause trauma when they don’t keep their racial equity promises. When organizations don't keep their promises, particularly in the racial equity space, it can be painful for staff who are deeply committed to the organization's mission. I would go so far as to say that it creates a moral crisis for the person. In this situation, the job will usually lose. So, why do organizations fail to keep their racial equity promises?
Here are three thoughts on the reasons for the organizational lack of commitment.
The first is the organization made a public racial equity commitment in 2020, which has since fallen by the wayside. Far, far, by the wayside.
Staff inside organizations have different (but largely negative) experiences by identity (race, gender). Those experiences are known to leadership, and yet nothing is done to fix the culture or environment that is contributing to the differences in experiences.
When Black staff or people of color are hired in managerial or executive roles and have racist experiences due to the culture of the organization.
The impact of doing nothing to respond to any of these situations is severe. Not only does it make re-igniting future racial equity plans much more difficult, but it also creates a deep mistrust between staff and leadership.
When tensions arise inside organizations, sometimes leaders think, “All of this tension will work itself out. We are experiencing a temporary setback in staffing; we'll bounce back.”
Well, sometimes you can't bounce back. People will become disheartened. They leave and take with them the institutional memory of their time in your organization. That's the first place of trauma – unkept racial equity promises.
In the article “What to Do If Your Job Compromises Your Morals,” the authors note:
“We cannot heal in the same situation where the injury keeps occurring. We also cannot restore our conscience while continuing to violate our values. Sometimes we can still do good work even if our larger organization is far from perfect. Sometimes we can individually make amends or even help change our organization. For example, we can help create new regulations to address overwork or surveillance. But if it’s not possible to do your job without continuously violating your values, leaving the situation or organization is a necessary step.”
Now, let’s talk about organizational trauma connected to DEI consultants.
Inexperienced DEI consultants (or practitioners) are offering training outside their depth of experience or practice lane, which can inadvertently create trauma for an organization.
I want to be clear.
I don't mean that DEI training that challenges in the context of people feeling discomfort. There are aspects and truths connected to centering racial equity as a practice work that is inherently uncomfortable but necessary. I'm also not talking about resistance because that's real, too. What I'm referring to here are practitioners who are practicing outside of their depth of experience.
I think it's easy to point to failures in the DEI industry. I want to tread lightly here. But the truth is, there are consultants and other practitioners who are practicing outside of their depth. When I led racial equity work for a national non-profit, not only was there not a DEI industry, but there were only a handful of places where you could get racial equity or DEI training. They were well-known organizations with well-known leaders. Even if you were a practitioner coming in to work with an organization that had received training from one of those organizations, you knew roughly what people got and, generally, their experience.
Now that's not the case because there are so many different training options, perspectives, and practitioners.
I implore organizations to do their due diligence before hiring consulting partners. Know what you are getting. There are a lot of consultants practicing who may do great training but do not have the depth of knowledge and experience to lead an organization through a change process. These are different processes. I also think organizations put too little time and emphasis on exploring the adaptive questions that can clarify what skill set is needed when engaging a racial equity or DEI consultant.
When this happens in my practice, my team and I plan to spend time unpacking previous experiences with consultants. Truthfully, by the time someone hires me, I'm not going to be the first consultant they have worked with. That complexity layered on top of an already complex work world means that my team needs to do even more adaptive work upfront. We have to confront and resolve what has harmed people in the past. Please understand that even though the event might be long over, the story around the event lingers and can continue to demoralize long after the consultant (or practitioner) disengages from the organization.
I talk more about how to hire a DEI consultant in episode five of the Race in the Workplace podcast.
Executive leadership must address organizational trauma.
In the book “Trauma to Triumph: A Roadmap for Leading Through Disruption and Thriving on the Other Side” by coauthors Diana Hendel and Mark Goulston, MD, the authors state:
“Trauma wears on an organization and can cause lasting destruction. But it’s never too late to recognize trauma, name it, and break the chain of repercussions.”
Whether the cause of organizational trauma is a track record of unkept promises or not taking the time to hire the right consultant, leaving it unaddressed causes more harm. Ultimately, it delays an organization from moving forward in its racial equity journey.
Part II of this series will focus on how organizations can move through organizational trauma in DEI spaces toward repair and reaffirm their organizational values.
Additional Resources:
How Organizations Can Support the Mental Health Of Black Employees
Leading During Traumatic and Triggering Events
Navigating Through Crisis and Trauma with Dr. Diana Hendel and Dr. Mark Goulston || Episode 117
Seven “Signs And Symptoms” Of Organizational Trauma
What to Do If Your Job Compromises Your Morals
