How should you approach an employee's that's experienced a traumatic experience such as an armed robbery or an attack within the workplace? Anna Stewart, Managing Partner at The Centre for Crisis Psychology offers us some meaningful solutions.

In 1985 Bradford City enjoyed the most successful season in their history. Just before half time in their final match that season a fire started when a spectator disposed of a cigarette, which fell through a damaged empty space beneath the seats of the main stand and onto a pile of rubbish that had accumulated beneath the stand.

Within five minutes the entire main stand was engulfed in flames. Whilst most escaped onto the playing field, others seated towards the rear of the stand were trapped in the narrow rear corridor at the back of the stand.

A total of 56 people died in the fire, with almost 250 of the most injured overwhelming local hospitals. A further 200 required St. John Ambulance first aid treatment at the ground and countless others of the least seriously burned treated themselves in their homes or those of other supporters.

The Herald of Free Enterprise was a roll-on roll-off car and passenger ferry that capsized after leaving the Belgian port of Bruges-Zeebrugge on March 6, 1987, killing 193 passengers and crew.

Due to negligence her bow doors had not been closed before leaving the harbour. When the ferry began her journey, water began to enter the car deck in large quantities. This destroyed her stability and within seconds the ship slowly capsized. The entire event took place in less than a minute.

What do the above disasters have to do with ‘Trauma in the Workplace’ you may ask?

Well, Michael Stewart and Peter Hodgkinson founders of The Centre for Crisis Psychology (CCP) respectively, led the proactive aftercare offered to survivors and bereaved in the above instances. They implemented a process of early intervention developed for use with the aftermath of such disasters that has proved invaluable in offering consultancy and support to organisations whose staff experience traumatic incidents on a more regular basis.

The reactions of staff or customers involved in workplace trauma are almost identical to those of survivors of major disasters, i.e. at least 50% of people are likely to experience varying degrees of:

• Fear and helplessness (a fear that the same thing could happen again; helpless to do anything to stop it happening) 
• Re-experience phenomena (flashbacks/replaying; nightmares; acting/feeling “as if...”; distress on real/symbolic re-exposure; physiological reactivity on exposure) 
• Avoidance and emotional numbing (avoidance of thoughts/feelings/activities/situations; an inability to recall; diminished interests; detachment/estrangement; restricted affection; a sense of foreshortened future) 
• Increased arousal (difficulty in staying asleep; irritability/outburst of anger; difficulty in concentrating; hyper-vigilance; exaggerated startle) 

Whether a staff member is suffering reactions to the stress of a personal or work situation or psychological trauma as a result of a workplace accident or critical incident, this cannot be ignored. Stress and trauma can damage staff and customers alike and hence a successful business. It’s essential to go beyond simple trauma counselling or psychological debriefing. Through the implementation of "help technologies" one can effectively meet the needs of each individual situation.

Workplace trauma can be brought on by many different types of incidents: redundancy; bereavement of a family member or colleague; bullying; harassment; stress and anxiety; sickness; abuse; divorce; mental health issues; fire; flooding; terrorist attacks; aggressive customers; assault; etc.

Within organisations it is important to recognise that there are potentially two traumas to any given event. The first is the event itself and the (potential) second is the way staff is treated afterwards. If an incident has not been taken seriously by management within an organisation and if the staff’s immediate needs have not been provided for in a non-judgemental way, then the affected people are very like to experience poor morale, decreased productivity and possible resignation. The workforce is any company’s most important asset and if a traumatic incident occurs a company has a duty of care to look after its employees and people in its care. It is no use in having systems ‘up’ when people are ‘down’.

Many organisations have quickly learned that the proactive care of staff is of primary importance in avoiding rising post incident sickness rates and longer-term difficulties associated with the event. It is important to have in place policy, procedures and trained personnel. This prompt, proactive action in life coaching saves money by promoting recovery and effectiveness.
Finally, it is important to remember that managing staff recovery
 
· Does not have to take up a lot of time
 
·  Does not have to impede upon the day to day running of a company
 
·  Does help staff recover faster
 
·  Does reduce sickness rates
 
·  Does show that your company cares about people
 
 
For any information on what The Centre for Crisis Psychology can offer your organisation you can contact:
 
Anna Stewart, Managing Partner, The Centre for Crisis Psychology
Tel: +0044 (0)1756 796383 Email: astewart@ccpdirect.co.uk www.ccpdirect.co.uk