What Role Do Organisations Play in Self-Care?
Far too often, the burden of managing workplace stress is placed solely at the feet of the individual. Some managers misattribute struggles with workplace stress to an employee’s personal resilience, rather than recognising the organisation’s responsibility for creating a psychologically safe and healthy work environment.
Managers may encourage staff to seek employee assistance program (EAP) counselling or to take recreational or unpaid leave as a personal self-care strategy. While these suggestions may provide short term relief when an employee is experiencing work related stress, they should only form part of an overall plan for employee wellbeing that places a strong emphasis on organisational responsibility.
Three Essential Areas for Self-Care in Trauma Work
Over the past three decades as a clinical supervisor and a clinician providing inhouse employee support, I have consistently emphasised the importance of three key strategies for self-care among mental health and other professionals:
- Personal strategies
- Group/Team strategies
- Organisational/structural strategies
In previous blogs, I highlighted the significance of personal and team strategies to build resilience when working in a high-stress work environment. Organisational strategies are equally necessary to foster a supportive and sustainable workplace. What is clear is that individuals cannot be resilient at work without good organisational practices to support their work.
A Shared Responsibility
For over thirty years, psychologists have emphasized that the well-being of staff, particularly those working with trauma, must be a shared responsibility. Organisations need to take a greater role in offering proactive strategies. As far back as 1995, psychologist, Don Catherall said:
“It is important for organisations to foster an environment in which work-related stress is accepted as real and legitimate, where the problem is owned as an organisational one and not just an individual one; where the focus is to seek solutions rather than attribute blame; and where support and tolerance are clearly expressed to the suffering worker.” *
And this doesn’t stop with mental health practitioners. Other professionals such as lawyers, first responders, police and Defence who provide specialist services for traumatised people are at an even greater risk of vicarious trauma. They are often less aware of the impact of trauma on clients and workers and feel less equipped to hear trauma stories. Professions that are familiar with competition over collaboration, and professionals that pride themselves on their perfectionism may also find it harder to open up when they experience work related stress. They may be reluctant to ask for support and help. They often do not have access to support structures such as:
- clinical supervision
- group/support debriefing
- reflective practice supervision
- workplace policies to support worker wellbeing
A Legal Duty of Care
Organisations need to ensure proactive strategies are in place to support staff mental health and wellbeing. Some organisations have excellent practices, including clear policies and procedures for supporting staff.
- Proactive Strategies. Good policies and procedures ensure workers are protected as best as possible from workplace stressors that may impact their mental health and productivity. Policies should offer clear guidelines around working overtime and accrual of time in lieu, monitoring excessive workload, ensuring adequate staffing and resourcing, and monitoring workflow.
- Responsive Strategies: Organisations need to be responsive when employees report work related stress. This means listening to employees, understanding their specific work pain points and needs, ensuring appropriate work allocation and negotiating a wellbeing plan that supports the employee’s requirements as well as business needs.
Fortunately, for those organisations that do not already have good policies in place, recent changes in workplace health and safety legislation takes the rein to ensure organisational accountability.
The introduction of the Australian Psychosocial Hazards legislation (2023) and the Right to Disconnect legislation (2024) are pushing more organisations to develop proactive policies that safeguard worker well-being.
- Psychosocial Hazards. Psychosocial hazards | Safe Work Australia
- Right to Disconnect. https://www.fairwork.gov.au/about-us/workplace-laws/legislation-changes/closing-loopholes/right-to-disconnect
The Impact of Worker Stress on Organisations
There are a number of impacts to the organisation when worker stress is not addressed:
Reduced Client Services: When workplace stress goes unaddressed, the consequences ripple out, affecting not only to individual workers but the organisation as a whole. Individual symptoms like reduced empathy, emotional dysregulation, avoidance or poor boundary management with clients can directly compromise the quality of client service.
Eroded Team Morale: Exposure to workplace stress and trauma can erode team morale, leaving staff feeling depleted, disengaged. Staff can lose trust in the organisation and hope and commitment to their work.
Changes in Organisational Culture: Organisations can be impacted by the trauma experiences of their clients in general, leading to changes in the organisational culture. In a parallel process, organisations may mirror the specific anxieties, stress and sense of threat experienced by its clients. For example, working with asylum seeker clients living in unstable and unpredictable circumstances can result in organisations becoming more disorganised and fragmented whereas working with clients who are trained to obey strict rules in a command -control hierarachy can lead organisations to become more structured, rigid and officious.
Retention and Recruitment Issues: Over time, organisations with high burnout rates suffer from high staff turnover, strained peer relationships, and can develop a negative professional reputation. This in turn can impact future recruitment.
The Risks of Non-Action
One notable case demonstrating the failure of organisational responsibility is that of Australian solicitor Zagi Kozarov, who took legal action after she developed trauma symptoms from prosecuting serious sex offences. This case set a precedent for recognising trauma and vicarious trauma as a legitimate work health and safety issue. Now, with specific legal obligations, organisations must be more intentional in preventing psychological harm.
See: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-25/zagi-kozarov-psychiatric-injury-at-work-law-report/101081728
Cultivating a Healthy Workplace
It’s not all doom and gloom. Organisations that actively support their workers’ well-being and report low burnout rates have lower staff turnover, increased engagement, and a more positive reputation in their field. Successful organisations share several common features:
- Commitment to worker well-being: Employees feel supported, not just in their roles but as individuals.
- Worker commitment to the work: Employees are engaged in the work and productive.
- Encouragement of peer relationships: Healthy, collaborative environments foster resilience.
- Accessible supervision and support/debriefing: Providing space for reflection, growth, and emotional support is crucial.
- Opportunities for professional development: Growth, learning, and skill enhancement reduce stagnation and foster motivation.
- Flexible workplace policies: These allow workers to manage both their personal and professional lives effectively.
- Clarity in role expectations: Workers thrive when they understand the nature and boundaries of their role and what is expected of them.
- Person-centred leadership: Leaders who listen, adapt, and support their teams foster trust and commitment. Support leaders’ professional development through leadership training and leadership coaching.
- Create Self Agency: Employees who work from their internal motivation, are self-directed and hold a level of autonomy over their projects and work, instead of being directed by a manager, are able to work to their strengths and competencies and are more invested in their work.
- Creative and varied work: Exposure to opportunities to innovate and bring new ideas, and work on a variety of projects mitigates burnout.
- Proactive workload management: Preventing excessive work hours and ensuring manageable caseloads are critical to sustaining energy and focus. Holding a diverse caseload with a trauma client mix (by gender, age, type of work e.g. individual, group, training) is a protective factor for vicarious trauma.
- Appropriate boundaries: Maintaining clear boundaries between work and personal life, as well as between employees and clients, helps prevent burnout.
- Trauma-informed organisational culture: Building a supportive, trauma-sensitive work culture prevents reactive burnout and cultivates resilience.
- Active Human Resources Management: Proactive strategies that help to prevent burnout and trauma exposure include effective leadership recruitment, job redesign, training and management development.
- A positive and supportive work culture.
Moving Forward
By taking ownership of stress and trauma-related challenges at an organisational level, leaders can create an environment where employees not only survive but thrive. A supportive workplace isn’t just good for staff—it’s good for clients and, ultimately, the organisation. How well is your organisation tracking? Check out the Self-Assessment Tool for High-Demand Work Environments in the next blog.
If you are a leader that would like support in cultivating a healthier team environment, feel free to reach out for leadership supervision or coaching.
* Quoted in Sexton (1999) Vicarious Traumatisation of Counsellors and Effects on their Workplaces, British Journal of Guidance and Counselling
About Melinda Austen
Melinda Austen is a clinical supervisor and workplace and leadership coach with over three decades of clinical experience working with refugees, asylum seekers, Defence veterans, Police and couples. She now helps the helpers. Melinda supports colleagues, including social workers, clinicians and other professionals such as lawyers and allied health who work with vulnerable clients. In her supervision and workplace coaching practice at person2person Consulting, she is driven by a desire to help people foster healthy, productive teams and thrive in their work. www.person2personconsulting.com