Perhaps the most significant development in the world of work in the last few years is our evolving understanding of trauma and how trauma works.
Workplace trauma is a term used to describe the psychological or emotional distress that employees experience in the workplace. It can be caused by a single traumatic event (simple trauma) or by prolonged stress and anxiety (complex trauma).
In other articles, I have made the case that ALL workplace conflict contributes to trauma, even if it sometimes also helps to raise issues that eventually have positive outcomes. (see Why Conflict Management Should be Considered a Workplace Psychosocial Risk Factor). The reason why conflict causes trauma in all cases is that all conflict begins with a “perceived injurious event.” This “injury” could be relatively innocuous, or it could have devastating impacts on the person who experiences the event. In either case, the injury may be a single traumatic event or form a part of a series of events that cause stress and anxiety.
As we have evolved in our thinking about trauma in the workplace, our understanding of the impact of conflict management on trauma has crystallized. We now conclude that a conflict management system must take a trauma-informed approach to be effective. Here is why:
First, let us consider the potential contributors to conflict-related trauma in the workplace setting.
If trauma is the result of perceived injurious events, then workplace trauma can arise in four areas: process, values, facts, and uncertainties.
A good conflict management system will seek to reduce the risk of workplace trauma by addressing these areas. Proactive, restorative, and reactive approaches to managing conflict must consider how trauma arises from the normal operations in our workplace and how our conflict management strategies might cause further trauma.
We understand that all forms of conflict management, whether they be investigation, mediation, restoration, assessment, coaching or training, run the risk of inducing or exacerbating trauma among participants.
We note that interventions of any nature may cause any one of the four sources of trauma shown and described above.
For this reason, an effective conflict management system must be carefully designed to:
- Reduce the risk of trauma in process by creating a safe and welcoming space for participants to contribute, even when their contributions may be painful for them.
- Reduce the risk of trauma in uncertainties by ensuring that all participants understand the nature of the process and providing as much transparency as possible.
- Reduce the risk of trauma in facts where it is necessary to determine facts (i.e., investigations) by making the process as fair, balanced and transparent as possible.
- Reduce the risk of trauma in values by having safe and structured discussions about value divergence and confluence.
To achieve a trauma-informed approach to conflict management, an effective system must adopt and operationalize the following six principles:
1) Safety. A good conflict management system must seek to ensure that everyone feels safe participating. This may include different strategies for engagement, such as:
- Using phone or Zoom discussions instead of in-person discussions where the person feels safer doing so.
- Ensuring confidentiality where that is appropriate.
- Ensuring informality of discussion where that is appropriate.
2) Trust and Transparency. Those empowered with operating the conflict management system must work hard to educate the client, the participants, and those they report to about the process being used. They provide regular updates and are always available to answer questions about the process. They ensure that private conversations are kept private (where appropriate) to build trust in the process.
3) Peer Support. Participants should have access to some form of support where this is needed. Some conflict management options (like workplace restoration) have built-in peer support. Other processes (like investigation) may have mandated support and representation options. We view all support as a positive contribution to the process.
4) Collaboration and Mutuality. Participants in the process should have some agency to determine how it will work for them. This is a central feature of our processes, like conflict management coaching and workplace restoration. It is more challenging when the process is designed to meet legislative and policy requirements, like harassment and violence investigations. Nevertheless, we recognize that collaboration and mutuality are essential to build trust.
5) Empowerment. Some conflict management options are designed to produce empowerment for workplace participants and leaders. Our workplace restoration model is such a process. We empower a team of internal actors to work with us to help achieve culture change in an area that requires rebuilding consensus. Our processes are designed with a keen eye on empowerment as an essential goal.
6) Inclusion. Inclusion is a multifaceted concept. This can be facilitated by applying an intersectionality lens to our work. More broadly, however, it is important to identify and include the stakeholder interests in the process. This sometimes amounts to a recommendation of scope expansion for the process that we are in.
How We Evaluate Systems for Trauma-Informed Effectiveness
At Workplace Fairness International, we have developed a 21-measure evaluative tool that encompasses a trauma-informed approach to conflict management. Our Testing Instrument for Fairness Systems (TIFFS) includes four quadrants of measures: Justice, Efficiency, Engagement, and Resource Sufficiency. These measures help assess the four primary sources of trauma in the workplace (process, values, facts and uncertainties) and incorporate a trauma-informed approach to conflict management systems analysis and design.
Trauma in Facts
Trauma in Process
Trauma in Values
Trauma In Uncertainty
While all four quadrants of our evaluative approach are designed to reduce trauma related to uncertainty, we have found that the greatest risk of this trauma arises out of conflict management systems that are not properly resourced. A good conflict management system requires human, financial and physical resources to ensure that issues are not delayed, ignored, or ineffectively dealt with. Finally, through the process of continual improvement, a system can reduce the risk of trauma in uncertainty by engaging workplace participants in conflict management system evaluation, design, implementation, and monitoring.