West Central Ohio Safety Council learns to address trauma with proactive leadership

LIMA, Ohio (WLIO) – When employees are dealing with issues at home or trauma from their past, it can sometimes make its way into the workplace.

The West Central Ohio Safety Council heard from Mike Thompson of the Portage County Safety Council about how personal issues can manifest on the job site.

Through real-life stories, Thompson broke down the different responses to trauma — fight, flight or freeze — and explained how employees can bring that trauma to work. That can lead to loss of productivity, the loss of a good employee or even the loss of a life.

But through techniques like trauma-informed leadership, Thompson said managers can help both their employees and their companies.

“As employers, we often look at people and we may think they're troublemakers, or they're quiet or they're hypersensitive and all these different things. And I'm just here to turn the light on to some employers today so they can see, hey, there might be more than meets the eye to these situations. And so instead of waiting for an issue to arise up, how can we prevent things from happening? How can we be proactive, send them to our EAP (Employee Assistance Program), get them the help they need before there's a mass casualty accident on the extreme end, or just losing a good employee, either one,” Thompson said.

Thompson added that it starts by noticing warning signs, such as a change in an employee’s behavior.

“There's warning signs all around us, and what I'm afraid of is we wait too late until we lose an employee or someone struggles with suicidal thoughts are one of these issues that we deal with as a society now, and if we could be a little bit more preventative and get help early on in the stages, we could avoid all those issues,” Thompson said.

He said the best solution for businesses in the current job market is to start taking care of the employees they already have, including with mental health support.