Building safer workplaces requires effort from all sides. One factor, in particular, is usually forgotten when it comes to completing safety and security protocol: trauma support.
Violent incidents are delicate to address and healthcare professionals play a key role in responding appropriately. The main takeaway here is resilience; the pandemic is a great example of that. Reinforcing resilience & strength amongst your workforce before and after traumatic incidents is a crucial step towards building a healthy workplace environment.
But, what can be done?
Hospitals can support their staff and build resilience by forming crisis teams, groups that deal specifically with post-traumatic stress. Leaders should look after trauma survivors’ treatment immediately, this can be done by the usage of checklists that help crisis counselors to check in periodically every 60 or 90 days. If the healthcare workplace doesn’t have responder teams of their own, they can refer to local or state offices of emergency management.
An investment in employee safety is an investment in the company. Employees can feel more comfortable if they’re offered recovery time and counseling and all efforts will help build employee retention.
Other things to consider:
- Empathy is everything.
- Create assistance programs to support your workforce.
- Peer support groups are a great idea as well.
- Crisis response teams can be made inside the organizations or with the support of community resources.
- Don’t forget crime scene clean-up resources.
- Physical health is important but don’t dismiss mental health services.
Trauma support is a communally driven effort. When building the Kwema Smart Badge™, we spent hours upon end conversing not only with security managers but the employees themselves to ensure everyone’s needs were being met. We developed a device and a protocol that’s seamless to adopt and shows employees that their management is taking an active role in their safety and support.
Learn more about the Kwema’s Smart Badge™ and safety protocols here: