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More Than Cogs in the Machine: Bringing trauma-informed principles into the workplace

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More Than Cogs in the Machine: Bringing trauma-informed principles into the workplace

Curt and Katie chat about trauma-informed workplaces. We explore what a trauma informed workplace is, why it is important to implement, and how best to do so. We also explore some practical challenges to creating a trauma-informed workplace and ideas for how to handle these challenges. This is a continuing education podcourse.

Transcript

Click here to scroll to the podcast transcript.

In this podcast episode we talk about how to create a trauma-informed workplace

People affected by trauma are expected to perform in the workplace, but often have difficulty with environments that treat them as replaceable. This can lead to employee underperformance, burnout, and turnover in the workforce. Healthy interactions with the workplace can help both the individual and corporate performance. This workshop addresses principles and practices that allow for employers to create a trauma informed workplace.

What is a trauma-informed workplace?

Remembering that all workers are human
Collaboration and encouraging autonomy for employees
Acknowledging that trauma exists for everyone
Trauma is addressed in the workplace (e.g., mitigating secondary or vicarious trauma)
4 R’s of Trauma can give guidance to how to identify and respond to trauma
Supportive policies go beyond self-care
There is a systemic mechanism to support staff and improve
Based in trust and trustworthiness

What are the risks of not having a trauma-informed workplace?

“Sometimes, especially nonprofits, will get so tied to the mission and the vision and the purpose, and will almost equate being a good employee to being a self sacrificial employee, and they won’t recognize…just because you’re able to live on this salary or you’re able to sacrifice in this way doesn’t mean that an employee who’s not able or willing to do it isn’t motivated and dedicated to the mission.” – Katie Vernoy, LMFT

Lower employee productivity, lower quality work
Higher levels of burnout, absenteeism, presenteeism
Recreating past traumas when we’re not aware of the dynamics in play

How can therapists create and benefit from a trauma-informed workplace?

“If you’re expecting employees to be accountable for leading these [challenging] conversations, you need to be accountable for hearing the conversations. If you’re expecting employees to be accountable for taking care of themselves, you also have to set that tone of being accountable for creating the space for that to happen… And in doing so, you have to do it in a compassionate way.” – Curt Widhalm, LMFT

Create supportive policies and procedures
Evaluate how well trauma informed principles are being implemented
We discuss an evaluation tool for this purpose
CTIPP Toolkit (Campaign for Trauma Informed Practice and Policies)
Acknowledge shared humanity
Creating connection and collaboration between team members
This may be something that needs to be repaired or built within a workplace that has problems
Understanding how to build, sustain trust, and effectively take feedback and implement it
Transparency and accountability

What are some challenges in implementing a Trauma-Informed Workplace?

Very challenging conversations needing repeated repair
Avoiding conversations about trauma
Digging deeply into emotional life of employees (i.e., with the potential of HR violations)
Practical limitations to what employers can provide to their employees
Us versus them mentalities and not seeing opportunities to collaborate

Receive Continuing Education for this Episode of the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide

Hey modern therapists, we’re so excited to offer the opportunity for 1 unit of continuing education for this podcast episode – Therapy Reimagined is bringing you the Modern Therapist Learning Community!

Once you’ve listened to this episode, to get CE credit you just need to go to learn.moderntherapistcommunity.com/pages/podcourse, register for your free profile, purchase this course, pass the post-test, and complete the evaluation! Once that’s all completed – you’ll get a CE certificate in your profile or you can download it for your records. For our current list of CE approvals, check out moderntherapistcommunity.com.

You can find this full course (including handouts and resources) here: https://learn.moderntherapistcommunity.com/courses/more-than-cogs-in-the-machine-bringing-trauma-informed-principles-into-the-workplace

Continuing Education Approvals:

When we are airing this podcast episode, we have the following CE approval. Please check back as we add other approval bodies: Continuing Education Information including grievance and refund policies.

CAMFT CEPA: Therapy Reimagined is approved by the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists to sponsor continuing education for LMFTs, LPCCs, LCSWs, and LEPs (CAMFT CEPA provider #132270). Therapy Reimagined maintains responsibility for this program and its content. Courses meet the qualifications for the listed hours of continuing education credit for LMFTs, LCSWs, LPCCs, and/or LEPs as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences. We are working on additional provider approvals, but solely are able to provide CAMFT CEs at this time. Please check with your licensing body to ensure that they will accept this as an equivalent learning credit.

Resources for Modern Therapists mentioned in this Podcast Episode:

We’ve pulled together resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links. Please note that some of the links below may be affiliate links, so if you purchase after clicking below, we may get a little bit of cash in our pockets. We thank you in advance!

CTIPP Toolkit (Campaign for Trauma Informed Practice and Policies)

Vivek Murthy Surgeon General Report

Trauma Informed Workplace Fact Sheet

Moving from traumatized to trauma-informed to healing organization

References mentioned in this continuing education podcast:

Bridgland, V. M. E., & Takarangi, M. K. T. (2021). Danger! Negative memories ahead: the effect of warnings on reactions to and recall of negative memories. Memory, 29(3), 319–329. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2021.1892147

Greer, J. A. (2024). Implementing trauma-informed care practices in the workplace: a descriptive phenomenological study. Discover Psychology, 4(1), 1-12.

Hales, T. W., & Nochajski, T. H. (2020). A structural regression analysis of trauma‐informed climate factors, organizational commitment, and burnout among behavioral healthcare providers in a large public hospital. Journal of Community Psychology, 48(3), 777–792. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.22292

Hembree, D. (2021). The Journey Toward a Healing Organization: 10 Steps to Transform a Traumatizing Workplace. CCI Center for Care Innovations. https://www.careinnovations.org/resources/the-journey-toward-a-healing-organization-10-steps-to-transform-a-traumatizing-workplace/

James C. (2020). Towards trauma-informed legal practice: a review. Psychiatry, psychology, and law : an interdisciplinary journal of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Psychiatry, Psychology and Law, 27(2), 275–299. https://doi.org/10.1080/13218719.2020.1719377

Murthy, V. (2022). The U.S. Surgeon General’s Framework for Workplace Mental Health & Well-Being. https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/workplace-mental-health-well-being.pdf

SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) (2014a). SAMHSA’s concept of trauma and guidance for a trauma-informed approach (HHS Publication No. SMA 14-4884). Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; Retrieved January/27/17: https://store.samhsa.gov/system/files/sma14-4884.pdf [Google Scholar]

*The full reference list can be found in the course on our learning platform.

Relevant Episodes of MTSG Podcast:

Trauma Informed Work Place: An Interview with Kristin Martinez, LMFT

Conscious and Trauma-Informed Leadership: An interview with Kelly L. Campbell

The Burnout System

Addressing the Burnout System

Structuring Self-Care

REPLAY – Structuring Self-Care

Modern Therapist Reflections on Preventing a School Shooting

Are Therapists to Blame for Ineffective Workplace Wellness Programs?

Toxic Work Environments

Getting a J-O-B as a Therapist

Interview Strategies for Therapists

Who we are:

Curt Widhalm, LMFT

Curt Widhalm is in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is the cofounder of the Therapy Reimagined conference, an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University and CSUN, a former Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, former CFO of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making “dad jokes” and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby. Learn more at: http://www.curtwidhalm.com

Katie Vernoy, LMFT

Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant supporting leaders, visionaries, executives, and helping professionals to create sustainable careers. Katie, with Curt, has developed workshops and a conference, Therapy Reimagined, to support therapists navigating through the modern challenges of this profession. Katie is also a former President of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt’s youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more at: http://www.katievernoy.com

A Quick Note:

Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We’re working on it.

Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren’t trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don’t want to, but hey.

Stay in Touch with Curt, Katie, and the whole Therapy Reimagined #TherapyMovement:

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Buy Me A Coffee

Podcast Homepage

Therapy Reimagined Homepage

Consultation services with Curt Widhalm or Katie Vernoy:

The Fifty-Minute Hour

Connect with the Modern Therapist Community:

Our Facebook Group – The Modern Therapists Group

Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide Creative Credits:

Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/

Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano https://groomsymusic.com/

Transcript for this episode of the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide podcast (Autogenerated):

Transcripts do not include advertisements just a reference to the advertising break (as such timing does not account for advertisements).

… 0:00
(Opening Advertisement)

Announcer 0:00
You’re listening to the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide, where therapists live, breathe and practice as human beings. To support you as a whole person and a therapist, here are your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy.

Curt Widhalm 0:15
Hey, modern therapists. We’re so excited to offer the opportunity for one unit of continuing education for this podcast episode. Once you’ve listened to this episode, to get CE credit, you just need to go to moderntherapistcommunity.com, register for your free profile, purchase this course, pass the post test and complete the evaluation. Once that’s all completed, you’ll get a CE certificate in your profile, or you can download it for your records. For a current list of our CE approvals, check out moderntherapistcommunity.com.

Katie Vernoy 0:47
Once again, hop over to moderntherapistcommunity.com for one CE once you’ve listened, woohoo.

Curt Widhalm 0:55
Welcome back, modern therapists. This is the Modern Therapist’s Survival Guide. I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy, and this is the podcast for therapists about the things that we do in our practice, the things that we do in our world, the ways that we talk about mental health. And in this continuing education eligible episode, we’re also talking about expanding mental health care principles beyond just the work that we do, and talking about bringing trauma informed fill in the blank to having a trauma informed workplace. Now we’ve talked in roundabout ways about doing trauma informed care before, but this is helping to conceptualize trauma informed workplaces, whether this be your practice, your agency, your group practice, or any other place of business. Now that I’m saying this out loud, I’m realizing this is not just an episode for therapists. This is an episode for anybody who’s interested in having a trauma informed workplace. So…

Katie Vernoy 1:55
It is.

Curt Widhalm 1:57
…when we first kind of started to conceptualize this. We were looking at like, yeah, trauma should show up. And as we do with many of our episodes, I think that we kind of start with like, what are some of the misconceptions about having a trauma informed workplace, especially as we’re kind of translating this from more of the clinical end of things to having more lay people be aware of this, maybe people in managerial positions, but we’ve talked around this a lot. But Katie, what do you see as kind of happening in the world when it comes to trauma informed workplaces and setting us up for the basis for helping those exact workplaces to be better.

Katie Vernoy 2:43
The first piece that I want to get to, because I think a lot of folks don’t realize this, is that in some of the reading I was doing, there was evaluation of workplaces that believed that they were seeing their employees as human. They saw thought that they were taking good care of them, and the leaders perspectives were much more favorable than the employees perspectives. And as a society, and I’ll speak for the American society, the United States society, we kind of get to this place of an us versus them, there’s the the worker and there’s the manager. And I think that we can lose a sense of empathy or compassion or just understanding of people who sit in a different seat than we do. And so first off, I think people aren’t doing it as well as they think they are. I think secondly, people don’t recognize why it’s important. I think there’s generational differences on this. We could go into that if you want to. But oftentimes, my fear is that people think that a trauma informed workplace is a workplace of snowflakes that doesn’t really want to work, like, there’s a lot of negatives that I think people can put on this. You know, it’s kind of a human informed workplace, is really what we’re talking about. But to speak to the people who might be in power who are like, Why do I care about this? It’s not just about being nice to people and giving them a gentler workplace. It’s trying to get rid of/address some of the problems that can happen if you’re not trauma informed. One of the resources that I found that I really like, it’s called the Campaign for Trauma Informed Practice and Policies toolkit, so CTIPP toolkit, and so I’m going to be probably referencing them quite a bit. We’ll put that link in the show notes as well as in the course. Show Notes are mtsgpodcast.com, the course, if you want your CEs or over at moderntherapistcommunity.com. But the problems that this toolkit have identified are employee turnover if you if you have a not trauma, informed workplace, employee turnover, absenteeism, presenteeism, which is something I heard, but I didn’t quite understand. It’s being there longer hours with lower impact and productivity. So you’re there, but you’re not really there. Lower productivity, increased errors, impaired executive functioning, lower quality work, increased counterproductive workplace practices. I don’t know if you ever was were in a workplace where you spent a lot of time just venting about how bad work was, but I’m going to assume that’s part of the counterproductive workplace practices, deterioration of team culture. And there was another article I found on journey from traumatizing workplaces to a healing workplace that talked about having an environment that chips away at workers sense of security, self worth, health and well being. So if you don’t have a trauma informed workplace, your employees are going to burn out, they’re going to leave you and they’re going to be super expensive. So for those that aren’t just like, let’s not be jerks and like, have a nice workplace, there are actual financial ramifications if you don’t have a trauma informed workplace.

Curt Widhalm 6:14
And also, just like, not having a jerk of a workplace. Like that, you actually treat people well, and people want to be there.

Katie Vernoy 6:22
Yeah, they can. For therapists, they can have a better ability to provide trauma informed care. They’ll have a better sense of self efficacy. The work will be more efficacious. Like it’s really good to have a good trauma informed workplace.

Curt Widhalm 6:39
So whenever I talk about trauma, whenever I talk about these kinds of topics, one of the things that comes up, and I want to spend just a moment on this at the top of the episode, but well, we’re talking more about principles of trauma. Principles about trauma. We’re not really going to get into a ton of specifics during this episode, but one of the things that usually comes up at the top of these conversations is about the idea of content warnings. So we are talking about trauma in this episode, kind of at a higher level sort of thing. But one question that I get asked a lot is, what do we do about content warnings? And there’s a lot of mixed research out there. We’ll cite this in our show notes, but a lot of the research tends to suggest that content warnings tend to be less productive than they are actually intended to be. They’re actually less helpful. And it’s usually because the way that content warnings are delivered are, Hey, here’s kind of the content that’s coming up. Warning. And for many people it doesn’t it actually can increase the amount of anticipatory anxiety about what is going to be happening, and shows less actual engagement with any of the deemed safer content that did not require a warning. So good content warnings tend to be something that has a reminder of some kind of coping skills. So you don’t have to listen to the whole episode all at once. You can take breaks. You do do this on your time. Make sure that you’re taking care of yourself. But in being able to talk about content warnings, being able to talk about this kind of stuff, we want to make sure that we give those practical kind of explanations alongside, hey, here’s what’s coming up. This is kind of the best of both worlds, not just a you’re going to be traumatized, because people do sometimes try to over engage with content, to kind of show themselves that, hey, I can handle this. That can be re-traumatizing in and of itself. Depending on who’s in the workplace, they can kind of try to be the edgier ones who may end up being people who are triggering for other people in the workplace. So always just leave some sort of practical advice there too.

Katie Vernoy 9:13
I think that’s a great idea. So, before we get too far into this, we’ve kind of talked around it. Let’s, let’s describe what a trauma informed workplace is.

Curt Widhalm 9:27
So a trauma informed workplace is a workplace that acknowledges that trauma exists. Now this, a lot of the research that we came across, this is not just me being a smart ass on this, but a lot of the research that we came across is not just like, oh yes, that’s a thing, but it’s more being able to follow through on the actions and the behaviors around just beyond acknowledging it. We’ve joked for years on this podcast of like, Hey, as long as we acknowledge it. Now go deal with that on your own time kind of thing. Those are, those are places that acknowledge like lowercase a, like, yes, trauma is a thing, but truly trauma informed workplaces acknowledge with a capital A that these things happen. These things happen in in, they show up in the workplace, and that it can impact productivity. Now, before the episode started, Katie and I were talking about, like, what’s the angle that we’re going for here? Like we are well meaning clinicians who work with people with trauma in our own kinds of practices, we are providers for working with trauma in the workplace. We are not talking about people solving people’s trauma in the workplace. We’re being able to kind of take that both/and, like our clients still have jobs. They still have job responsibilities. This is to be able to help superiors, help managers, help other peers be able to acknowledge like trauma is going to show up in the workplace. There’s still work that needs to get done. Deadlines are still going to need to be met. And being able to become truly trauma informed involves some of the principles that are discussed in this really great article called “Implementing trauma-informed care practices in the workplace: a descriptive phenomenological study,” and this is by Greer 2023 in Discover Psychology. We should also start that the definition of trauma that we’re working from here comes from SAMHSA’s definition, which is an event that somebody does not have the coping skills to be able to handle. Now this event can be a single incident event. It can be a long term event. But what we’re talking about is people who don’t have the coping skills to be able to handle this. And what Greer talks about in this article is that there are some principles that trauma informed workplaces end up having, and this is consistent across a lot of research. And the first is the idea that there is safety. Workers feel that they are physically and emotionally safety at work. This can take the form of, is the equipment that they’re using at work, is it physically safe? You know, is is OSHA going to be coming because somebody has, you know, become dismembered, or something like that; that we feel physically safe in the workplace, that we’re at. Emotional safety is also a lot of times coming up with the interactions that end up happening between either coworkers or workers and the public who may be receiving those services, and a lot of workplace environments don’t acknowledge the potential for violence that can happen in this whether It be verbal or emotional. We’re both based in California, and California for most employment places here in 2024 have to go through like workplace violence prevention plans now. This is one of these wonderful steps towards acknowledging like: this happens. Here’s our plans for what’s going to happen. So being able to deal with workplace safety is the first step of this. The second step, and this is one where I think we’re going to spend some time talking about, like, if we’re starting a program from new this is the way you should do it. But if you don’t have this, this is really the first step towards moving towards becoming a trauma informed workplace, and this comes down to the trustworthiness between the superiors and the employees. That if you as a manager or supervisor are not seen as trustworthy, then you’re not going to get people being able to fully participate in being able to share: Hey, I need some help here.

Katie Vernoy 14:07
Yeah, I think let’s get through these, these principles, these steps. I think we need to come back to the trust element, because it’s such an important piece.

Curt Widhalm 14:16
And kind of previewing ahead then the what you do once you have employees’ trust is you give them choice and collaboration into how they end up being able to do their work. That employees who feel like they are a cog in the machine, they are only there, they are replaceable. They are only there to implement work that they are not seen as individuals. Don’t seem to feel that they have choice and collaboration and especially if we go back to kind of that like all right, there’s going to be people with trauma in the workplace, and they’re still expected to have some sort of output. One of the ways that this actually shows up is supervisors being able to sit down with their employees and being “I know you’re going through a lot of stuff and I know that this is starting to show up in your work, how do you able to propose that we’re able balance both of these needs. So, it’s not just dictating what your employees have to do, it’s getting their involvement into this. And that leads to the last step which is empowering employees to be able to follow through on these steps and be able to make some of their own individual choices towards it.

Katie Vernoy 15:09
I love that, I think there’s a lot of, you know, this kind of basics. We’ve got a lot of, we’re probably going to go through some of this kind of iteratively because there’s just so many good resources out there for folks who are wanting to consider implementing at least parts of these concepts around a trauma informed workplace. So, we have two places we can go here. One of them is the 4 Rs of trauma and being trauma informed. And the next one is the assessing for trauma informed workplace. So where do you want to, which one do you want to do?

Curt Widhalm 16:09
Let’s do the 4 Rs.

Katie Vernoy 16:10
Okay. The first step that you described, the you described the trauma informed workplace is that there are these, that you have to acknowledge that trauma exists. And I found this in a couple of places. It’s the 4 Rs of being trauma informed, I guess. And I think they help to really kind of nutshell it for people. Realize that there are impacts of trauma and that there are also pathways to recovery. So, it’s trauma exists and it impacts you. Okay, that, that’s basic, right? I think as therapists, many of us listening as therapists, this is something we can do. If you are not a therapist, but a manager of folks who are just humans in the world, maybe doing some reading on: What are some impacts of trauma? What are pathways to recovery? You know, just, this is a thing. And then you can, you want to be able to recognize the signs of trauma. And this can be difficult because sometimes a sign of trauma can look like laziness, it can look like not caring. It can be the person that doesn’t show up to work, it can be somebody that shuts down. There’s, you know, like a dissociated, shut down person can look like they aren’t paying attention or that they don’t care. So, understanding the signs of trauma so that you can recognize them. And then, what the majority of this, the rest of the episode is gonna be is: Respond with supportive policies and procedures. So, we’ll let you know what those supportive policies and procedures are as we go along. And then also: Resist retraumatization. I think there’s a lot of times when we’re trying to be, I’m not going to say trauma informed, because I don’t know if people are purposely trying to do that in a lot of cases. But when we’re trying to be human and support the person in front of us and help them to manage life, we may, you know, within their work setting, we may accidentally help them to recreate a traumatizing dynamic. You know, they have, you know, past trauma as a kid where their parents did something, and they’re responding to us as we’re, as a leader, as though we’re acting like their parent, and we take on the role of that punative, you know, micromanaging parent, that then retraumatizes them, right? But even like not getting so far into the quote unquote psychobabble, like people can be retraumatized or vicariously traumatized by a lot that happens in the workplace. And not being aware of what’s going on and how it might traumatize folks can be very harmful. Because if everybody is supposed to suck it up, and deal with it and, you know, be professional, and all of those things, there maybe things that are missed and it’s not an accessible, mentally healthy organization. So, just to quickly go through the 4 Rs: Realize the impacts of trauma and pathways to recovery, Recognize the signs of trauma, Respond with supportive policies and procedures, and Resist retraumatization.

… 19:45
(Advertisement Break)

Curt Widhalm 20:01
Where I’ve seen some feedback in some of the online forums around people who’ve done trauma informed workplace workshops before, a lot of places that do adopt these are places that do provide social services or education services. So schools, a lot of healthcare agencies, particularly mental health agencies that recognize the first couple of steps of what you just talked about, like, Hey , we realize there is trauma and that it affects people, and there’s some science that we should be aware of, and then it kind of stops from there. As far as, so, the, I want to emphasize the supportive policies and procedures, because this is the good action step. Like this is what takes it to just being like we acknowledge trauma, to we actually follow through on it. And this gets into some of the trust. Like, if I am an employee and I don’t trust that my employer is going to follow through with supportive policies, if all I’m being told is, Hey, make sure that you go do self care. Like, there’s there’s not that like we take things seriously here. We allow you to have some of the flexibility to handle work in ways that make the most sense to you, while still meeting our deadlines.

Katie Vernoy 20:51
And also we’re in this together.

Curt Widhalm 20:55
Exactly.

Katie Vernoy 20:55
I think that’s the piece that gets missed so much, is that people are looking to their employee to self care their way out of it. They’re looking to their employee to fix it or fix themselves, when in truth, it’s oftentimes very systemic, and it is impacting every single person in the in the team, in the organization.

Curt Widhalm 21:18
And there’s a lot that I talk about in my practice with people, with families, that just when it comes to a lot of trauma informed stuff. And I think that this contributes to what you were talking about at the top of the episode. Which is, are we doing this as well as we think that we are? Takes us actually evaluating where are we? Not just where we think we are, like…

Katie Vernoy 21:42
Yes, yes.

Curt Widhalm 21:43
And there’s a number of different assessments that are available for trauma informed workplaces. Some of them are specific to like education environments or healthcare environments. As one example, that I like, that fits most environments, and to me, the research backs up my favorite things here, which are the fewest number of questions to be able to get to the most robust response.

Katie Vernoy 22:11
I like it.

Curt Widhalm 22:12
The one that I really like is developed by Hales et all. And this is the Trauma Informed Client Scale 10, or the TICS 10. So, this asks 10 questions that speaks to the different principles that we had seen in the Greer article. There’s questions like, when I come to work here, I feel emotionally safe. It’s a safety question. If I’m upset at work, I know that other staff and supervisors will understand, another safety question.

Katie Vernoy 22:43
But also a connection and support question, too.

Curt Widhalm 22:46
Yeah. I’m not sure who I can trust among my coworkers, supervisors and administrators. So, that’s a reversed score question around trust. I can trust my supervisor to be fair in dealing with all staff. Another trust question. I feel like I have a great deal of control over my job satisfaction. Choice question. I don’t have many choices when it comes to doing my job. Another choice question. The leadership only listens to their favorite employees.

Katie Vernoy 23:18
That’s that’s a favoritism…

Curt Widhalm 23:20
Collaboration.

Katie Vernoy 23:21
…and collaboration, but it’s favoritism. No, no, no. The favoritism.

Curt Widhalm 23:26
The administration here does not share decision making with the rest of the staff.

Katie Vernoy 23:31
Yep, there’s collaboration and choice.

Curt Widhalm 23:33
This organization doesn’t seem to care whether staff gets what they need to do their jobs well.

Katie Vernoy 23:39
Ooh, that’s no empowerment there.

Curt Widhalm 23:42
Staff is not supported when they try to find new and better ways to do things.

Katie Vernoy 23:48
No empowerment.

Curt Widhalm 23:50
So, being able to look at these things and honestly, if people are able to take these questionnaires anonymously, to be able to provide feedback to the leadership of an organization. That’s the best way to elicit this feedback. And that’s another part of being able to find out exactly where you’re at as an organization, is being able to elicit feedback. Which requires you to have the trust there in the first place. And being able to start out an organization this way is wonderful, but if you’re not sure that you’re going to get honest feedback in the beginning, this does take some evaluation of yourself as a trauma informed Manager. Which we do have another episode on that that we’ll link to in our show notes. But being able to fully acknowledge like we are taking this seriously, we are following through. We are aware that the environment that we have provided is not doing this. We want to assess where we need to make the biggest changes, and to have your input and involvement in order to make that happen, hits all of the wonderful areas that Greer had outlined in that article.

Katie Vernoy 25:08
I really like that assessment. And I think if you are not quite there with the trust, I think anonymous surveys can be actually pretty potent if you’re able to truly keep them anonymous. And I think even being able to put together data that is cumulative, kind of the collective data, can help people to understand where their experience sits along with the rest of the organization. Because sometimes, if you do this and you notice that there’s like, one or two employees that are truly happy, or one or two employees that are truly disgruntled and feel completely like they’re in the wrong spot. Sometimes it can be a fit thing. Sometimes it can be differential treatment. And so I think the data you can get can be really, really helpful in starting to move towards a true trauma informed workplace. But everything I read, and I don’t know what your the stuff you read said, Curt, but everything I read was like, this is not a like check box, and it’s done. This is a very dynamic, a very not one size fit all, not one one time project, and you’re done. This is ongoing, and you want to continue to infuse these principles of trauma informed workplace, and iterate and and reevaluate, reassess, you know, pivot all of those things throughout.

Curt Widhalm 26:34
And that goes into turning this into action, not just leaving it as like, Okay, we acknowledge that trauma is a thing. And being trauma informed is recognizing that each individual is going to have their own things that they bring into the workplace. And I do want to highlight at this point that we’re talking about this as everybody has the potential to have trauma, and that this is not just talking about there has been something traumatic that has happened in the workplace, that we’re not just doing this as a reactionary principle. But doing this in a healthy way as an organization is acknowledging, like we don’t know, what necessarily happens outside of the business place, what people are necessarily bringing in. It’s not our role to fix it. That’s where, you know, there’s a continuum of care out to the mental health professionals to actually help people work through that, but acknowledging that it exists and can impact the workplace, whether it’s something that happened, an incident in the workplace, or something that is environmental. I mean, look at the employers who responded really well to the Covid 19 pandemic, and all of the shifts that ended up happening. That a lot of the employees who were satisfied were empowered to, hey, get your work done as you also are trying to teach your first grader, you know zoom learning, because their school is shut down as well. I don’t care what hours you get things done, can you just make sure that you get them done? That’s an empowerment and a control kind of handover that is trauma informed, that deals with something outside of what’s necessarily just happening during work hours.

Katie Vernoy 28:22
There’s also the past traumas that people bring in with them. You know, kind of the emotional baggage that we all have. And you and I were joking that maybe the the ACES, the Adverse Childhood Experiences Survey is overused at this point, because it seems like a shorthand, right? And those are truly just childhood experiences. Those are important. And I’m sure we can do a whole episode on the ACES score. But I think there’s that, that element of even previous work trauma and the ways in which we’ve been taught how to work. I mean, I work with a lot of folks who’ve who’ve had wrongful termination, hostile workplaces, harassment and assault, like the people who come in to my practice at times, who are suing former, you know, workplaces are not sure that they can trust a workplace again, right? And they’ve had so much work trauma that if you’re their boss and you have no sense of how they’re navigating through this work trauma that they need to work on outside, you’re potentially going to re traumatize, or you’re going to potentially not understand what knowledge they’re lacking. Especially people who are new coming into the workplace, first jobs, and they’re they’re abused in some way, and their workplace. They may not know what a healthy workplace looks like. And so I think it’s really important, as someone who is managing another person, being able to see them as a human, understand where their gaps are, and through just being a decent human and having clear transparent communication around expectations, around what work actually looks like, all of those things, and not making assumptions about what someone knows about what it means to be an employee, or what someone knows to be, you know, in a workplace, I think can be very helpful. So, we have so many different tool kits and different things to talk about. I want to just hit on the primary principles of trauma informed workplace that came from some of my research was, you know, Surgeon General Report, Trauma Informed Workplace Fact Sheet. Again, we’re going to put all of these things in the show notes over at mtsgpodcast.com. But pretty similar, this is, I’m saying we’re iterative, but just want to kind of make sure we’re hitting all the points: protect your employees from harm, have connection and community, create work life harmony, let people know they matter at work, and provide opportunities for growth. And that that’s something that I saw across different places, but it’s it’s something that if, if that is just in the foundation of how you’ve built your workplace, whether it’s your supervisory relationships or how the workplace is designed for the folks who work there, I think it’s important to keep those things at the forefront and to continue to assess, are those things happening. And so at this point, there’s we have a a lot to say about how to start creating it. This comes from the Campaign for Trauma Informed Practices and Policies toolkit. But obviously, Curt keep jumping in, because this is something that I I think people can go and read themselves. It’s lots of really good information with additional links to other articles and other resources. So, I would definitely, if you’re thinking about it, go to this Campaign for Trauma Informed Practice and Policies toolkit. But I think making sure that we’re continuing to tie this back to the practical reality of what it means to do this work.

Curt Widhalm 32:00
Maybe going through this and giving some acknowledgements of how this might show up in some different kinds of workplaces. So, leading with empathy, if you’re listeners of this podcast, chances are you’re a mental health provider. I know that we do have some other people who join us from other walks of life as well. So, thank you for listening. But leading with empathy is a lot of times just acknowledging the nature of the work that’s being done. A lot of mental health providers are at least aware of secondary trauma or vicarious trauma kinds of things. But what might not be an acknowledgement in every kind of workplace is that this we’re not so special that this is only true to us, that this is also something that shows up in education settings. It’s something that shows up in some law settings, especially those that are working with evidence or client stories that can end up being very traumatic. First responders. This is not an exhaustive list, if I haven’t mentioned your particular line of work, I acknowledge that it’s not not exhaustive. But in in these kinds of environments, it’s being able to check in with the people who are working in, being able to provide kind of some extra coping skills. One of the examples that I’ve employed with my team is we work with a lot of suicidal clients in our practice, and especially when there’s a lot of ongoing assessment in working with clients, I’m making sure that I check in with my team as it’s going on. Hey, how are you doing through this? What are we doing? What are you doing tonight to be able to kind of leave this behind? Do I need to go to my extra terrible dad jokes just to provide like a distraction for you here? Because sometimes what works for me is just like embracing really stupid things, but it helps me to kind of leave one part of my day behind and move on to the next. That helps to foster like, hey, there’s a humanity that goes along with this. Here’s some some coping skills. Let’s get to thinking about how we’re going to cope together. You’re not just left on your own to go and do air quotes self care, so that way you can show up the next day.

Katie Vernoy 34:24
I think, to add to that, there’s this, we talk about this in structuring self care, potentially even a few of the, you know, kind of the burnout machine, those types of episodes. But being able to to model even self empathy and compassion, acknowledging your shared humanity. One of the things that was in this toolkit, because it’s for non therapists, is talking about leaders who aren’t stoic and rigid and and hiding their own humanity. And I think of a really good example of when you moved beyond that for yourself and with your team, in the the school shooter episode, where you had to talk through, like, how did you get the support you needed as the leader in your team? I mean, it was also as a clinician, but I think there’s this element of recognizing I am a person, I’m imperfect, I’m approachable, I I’m having my own reactions to what’s happening in the world. I’m having my own reactions to what’s happening on our team, in the workplace, and so leading with empathy is actually being a whole person as a leader. And we do have other episodes about that. So, I think that’s I think we’ve covered that well. The next thing in this toolkit is: support holistic well being and mental health. Now we have a whole episode on employee wellness programs and whether or not they work. But when we, when we’ve gone through this, some of the things that are very helpful are providing people the space to be able to do what they need for their own well being and mental health, and being able to acknowledge that well being and mental health are important. I think about some articles around people in the financial services, like stockbrokers, that kind of stuff, and how horrific their work environments are, and how many hours they’re working, and how they’re supposed to be these robots that can just keep going and going and 100 hour work weeks and all those things. And I think the more environments that have that as an expectation, and that can happen in in hospital settings, it can happen in some even mental health settings where caseloads are enormous, people are working extra hours. You know, they’re doing all of their documentation off hours. So they’re working 50, 60, 70, hour weeks. Like, if you’re not setting guard rails around your workplace to to recognize well being and mental health, it doesn’t matter if you have, like, a yoga class on a Wednesday morning. Like, so, so, yeah, so support holistic well being and mental health, but don’t do it as a check box of employee wellness programs.

Curt Widhalm 37:12
We’re not going to go through every single one of the things in this toolkit, but we’re kind of picking our favorites here.

Katie Vernoy 37:18
Yeah.

Curt Widhalm 37:19
I’m a big fan of creating connection points, and particularly with peers in the environment. And not just kind of the artificial like, All right, let’s go around the room and everybody name what three donuts you would take if you were stuck on a desert island. But meaningful, pure connection kinds of things being able to have, like dedicated time during the work week to engage with peers. Whether it be working on projects, but even just having time where it’s all right, let’s be able to sit down, be able to have some dedicated work time to just fostering the peer relationships. Because especially when we’re spending most of our waking hours with the people around us, having some of that connection ends up being able to foster: Hey, you’re watered in the workplace. Hey, you have people who care for you here…

Katie Vernoy 38:20
You matter.

Curt Widhalm 38:21
…and and for a lot of business owners, it’s acknowledging that the subculture of the workers is going to exist, whether you put effort towards it or not, and the more that you can guide like here is meaningful connection that happens at work, the better that you are able to kind of have an influence on it, rather than it being kind of this, us versus them, of like managers versus employees, kinds of situations.

Katie Vernoy 38:52
Yeah, and I agree. I don’t think we have time to go through all of the practices and policies on this toolkit. So definitely go to the show notes to figure out where it is, so you can look at all of them. But I want to just comment on another one that we had just skipped past is, you know, Anchoring your culture and shared values leading leading to connection, meaning and purpose. I think, you know, I’ve referenced Simon Sinek: Start with Why. I’ve talked about mission, vision and values a lot, and I think if you don’t get to a place where your team has a connection to that, that they that there aren’t shared values, I think that there’s often it’s too easy to be misaligned. And it’s too easy for workplaces to get to more of a cog in the machine type mentality versus we’re coming together to do this thing that’s for this purpose. And so to me, that’s more of a kind of high level philosophical one, but I think it’s important just to acknowledge that. If I’m looking at my my most favorite ones. Um, I think that looking at providing more choice, flexibility and autonomy, that’s a practical one, and this is one that I think employers oftentimes push back on, whether it’s from realistic limitations, like I don’t have the ability to provide more paid time off, or I don’t have the ability to pay someone more; our grants have this much money to them. Our insurance pays that much money to us, or whatever it is. But the more you’re able to put that into a place and potentially even building collaboration on this is what we have. How do we get more of what we want from it? And actually asking your employees to weigh in on it can be helpful if it’s really something where you can’t kind of put together this ideal, you know, package of workplace autonomy. But I think it’s something where sometimes the practical things just have to be taken into account. And the reason I say that is, you know, in direct opposition to what I just said, sometimes, especially nonprofits, will get so tied to the mission and the vision and the purpose, and will almost equate being a good employee to being a self sacrificial employee, and they won’t recognize like, hey, just because you’re able to live on this salary or you’re able to sacrifice in this way doesn’t mean that an employee who’s not able or willing to do it isn’t motivated and dedicated to the mission. And so I think that there can be these opposition points if we don’t recognize, hey, let’s align on mission, but let’s also take care of people practically and give them autonomy, flexibility and choice.

… 41:40
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Curt Widhalm 41:40
We’ve talked a couple of times in this episode about, if you’re starting an organization, it’s great to start with this information, but in dealing with kind of the transition from organizations that might be traumatizing just from the beginning. You know, one of our very first, like, really popular episodes was about toxic workplace environments and toxic agencies that we observe in our field. So if you are a leader or working with somebody who is a leader, to transition out of this, it does come back to the point of like you have to actually observe what’s happening and to be able to address what’s happening. It takes time to change the culture of an organization. If you’re in a position to influence this, you should.

Katie Vernoy 42:38
Yeah.

Curt Widhalm 42:38
If you’re not in a position to influence, go back and listen to that episode and…

Katie Vernoy 42:44
Potentially advocate for change or potentially, like, find a new job.

Curt Widhalm 42:51
But I think that a lot of times, if your first step is moving back to that Greer article about establishing trust for the first time.

Katie Vernoy 43:02
Yeah.

Curt Widhalm 43:02
That does come with this idea of creating space for reflection. That the way to earn trust, for most managers, is being able to hear really hard feedback about how things are going, and to be able to take and incorporate that feedback as part of a response.

Katie Vernoy 43:22
Well, and I think if we, if we want to touch a little bit more on trust and transparency, which is another principle that I think most, if not all, workplaces should have, and certainly a trauma informed workplace should have it; is trust is is really an interesting concept. Because you’re talking about, can I trust you to tell you hard things. Can I tell you I don’t like what you’re doing? There’s also, can I trust that you’ll take it in the in the way in which I am intending it, which is helpfully, right, like, if whatever, and then do I trust you’re going to do something about it? And so often trust is broken over small things. I say I’m going to do something, then I don’t do it. I say I’m going to respond to this thing, and then I don’t. You know, I listen to you. I take the feedback, I take it in. It’s wonderful. I’m I’m Yes, yes, this is what’s going to happen. We’re going to make all these changes, and then six months later, nothing is different. You’ve missed the boat, right? And so building trust is, is really, if I say I’m going to do something, I do it. I follow through. If you do what I say that I’m going to be okay with, I actually respond and I’m okay with it. There’s also transparency, which is like, you know, you can grit your teeth and be like, Great, thank you for the feedback, you know, and not be very excited about it. And so I think some of that transparency can go to being empathic and saying, Hey, I’m an empathic, compassionate leader. I hear this feedback. I’m going to be honest. I’m having a hard time taking it in. I want to make sure I’m understanding you. And then I have to, I got to sit on it. I got to, I got to reflect on this individually, so I can come back and have a helpful conversation with you, right?

Curt Widhalm 45:04
And what you’re describing is modeling…

Katie Vernoy 45:07
Yeah.

Curt Widhalm 45:08
…a sense of accountability, and that does start with leadership. That if you’re expecting employees to be accountable for leading these conversations, you need to be accountable for hearing the conversations. If you’re expecting employees to be accountable for taking care of themselves, you also have to set that tone of being accountable for creating the space for that to happen.

Katie Vernoy 45:34
Yeah.

Curt Widhalm 45:35
And in doing so, you have to do it in a compassionate way, and…

Katie Vernoy 45:41
For yourself and for others, though. Because I think some people will, you know, and maybe I’m just speaking for myself, but like, I’ll go to a super compassionate for my employees, and then go home and beat myself up. And so that goes back to the shared humanity and being like, we’re all people. We’re trying to do the best that we can. And how do we do this better? I think that that becomes much more important than just letting your employees know I feel your pain. So, before we, before we go on to kind of a little bit more into the challenges of what’s going to happen with some of these conversations because of human differences, I want to say one more word about transparency. In order to build an environment of trust, compassionate accountability, all of these things, there are going to be times when you have to share things about how your business is running, how the organization is running. Obviously you want to be aware of boundaries, but I think it’s important to give as much information as is relevant and helpful to your employees as possible. There are so many times when I’ve seen people who are very close to the vest, very you know, we’re going to only give, you know, need to know those types of things, and there are environments that require that. So I don’t want to say that this is a one size fit all. But if you have limitations, rather than trying to create some other reason why somebody should follow along with the mission, even without the pay or whatever it is, talk about those limitations. Talk about capacity, be very transparent in what is happening. Coming and saying, like, Hey, we’re going to have a conversation and we’re going to take in feedback, and we’re going to try to do better. Not a bad conversation, but saying, Hey, we’re recognizing that we’ve done these things. There are these wrongs that we’ve seen and have had reported back to us, and we’re going to, in a transparent way, try to transition into a trauma informed workplace. I think is much stronger than trying to talk around it or try to minimize past wrongs because you’re worried about liability. I think transparency is critical for trust, and I think especially when we talk about folks who come from different backgrounds, people who speak in different ways. And I think those conversations can be so challenging, because if, if people are in different generations, or use different words to describe the same things, and there’s not an assumption of good intention, then there’s there’s a heart. It’s hard to start somewhere. You do need to address impact over intent. Like, you know, somebody’s impact of what they say, is relevant, but intent is also relevant. And if you’re trying to work together as a team, being able to get to better impact and get to repair, I think it becomes this place of collaboration. This isn’t easy, and I don’t know, you know, like, as I’m sitting here saying it, I understand that this is a real hot button topic, because people need to be accountable for how they say things. And I think if there’s not room for learning and feedback and an assumption that the intent is good, but there’s a lot of knowledge that needs to be gained in whatever the conversation is. I think that there’s, there’s not a place to start. It’s too much of you’re different than me. You’re saying it the wrong way. Your language is violent and harmful to me. If that’s where we start the assumption, then there’s no open communication. But if I say, Hey, you said that wrong. Ouch, that hurt. I want to start with the assumption that your intent is good, do as much education of as I have the spoons for to determine, like, Hey, this is how I would like you to talk to me. And then come back to it. I think that that’s something that I think is a challenging but potentially meaningful effort. And maybe it’s, maybe it’s maybe, maybe that’s, maybe it’s a challenging thing that’s difficult to do, but it is really important to be able to do that and celebrate diversity and make sure that you’re integrating perspectives from all the folks in the room. This is really hard. I don’t see this as being something that’s like, hey, let’s just do this. And, you know, if everybody just kind of gives everybody else a break, we’ll be fine. I think that there’s a lot of harms that intent and impact are aligned. And, you know, but if you start from a place of we’re a team, and go from there, some of those things that are repairable can be repaired.

Curt Widhalm 50:24
The part that I’m pausing on is I’m imagining somebody who uses the word snowflake a lot in their language, hearing what you just said.

Katie Vernoy 50:36
Well, I’m also hearing the person that has been had a lot of microaggressions and has had to do a lot of repair, or a lot of education and and deal with really clumsy repair. I mean, this is permission for the person that uses snowflake to be like, yeah, just listen to my intent. And somebody that’s going to the from the other side saying, like, you’re making me do all of this emotional labor to correct microaggressions. Like this is too hard to actually say in a simple little sound bite.

Curt Widhalm 51:07
So I recognize the intent of this episode is not necessarily just down the path of diversity, equity, and inclusion. That that is important, and that is something that comes up in these conversations, but it’s adjacent to the conversation that we’re having here. So, we’ll link to some other episodes in our show notes about getting to some of this stuff that Katie’s referring to here. But the point that I want to emphasize here is that this is not one time conversations that resolve it. And that’s part of the difficulty of not only this, but all of what we’re talking about. Is that these are repeated conversations that, as part of being trauma informed is not just like, Okay, that was an impact over intent conversation, and it’s been resolved, but that in order to continue to foster this, we need to continue to have either staff conversations or trainings or reminders about this in regular communication with everybody.

Katie Vernoy 52:14
And the way that this article talked about it is: what is learned here leaves here. So we actually take the learnings and we bring it back into the regular workspace. But as a nod to confidentiality: what is said here stays here. And so it’s it’s creating, theoretically, a confidential ish safe space to have some of these really, really challenging conversations, to go towards repair, go towards more effective communication, those types of things. And so I think, to me to kind of tie this with a bow, it’s okay not to have all the answers. It’s okay to stumble. I think that if you’re truly in a place where everyone’s working towards this, that you will stumble together and hopefully in the right direction. But, but, yeah, this is just super challenging. And I think it’s something where I want to talk a little bit practically, before we run out of time, what some of the challenges might be in moving from a traumatized to a trauma informed, to a healing organization. Because you and I have both been in, you know, kind of the burnout machines, the trauma traumatizing workplaces. What are some of the things that you think we should kind of touch base on before we wrap up?

Curt Widhalm 53:27
Sometimes I see trainings like this lead to organizational environments where it then becomes like overly cautious about talking about trauma, and kind of being afraid to trigger somebody, afraid to push somebody who has trauma to and so it creates almost kind of the opposite effect out of what we want. Which is that we’re still looking for productive workplaces. We’re still looking for people to be able to engage, get their work productivity done. But if managers responses is to step back and be like, okay, that that employee has trauma. I should not add more trauma to them. That’s not the goal. We want to empower everybody to be able to step into the teamwork together to be able to do this. So, there does have to be this ongoing conversation with it. But it’s recognizing the limits where this ends up moving from okay as a lay person, as a manager, here’s where my duty stops, and where we need to provide pathways to be able to deal with mental health issues that are affecting work. Whether that be then going to HR, whether that be to other wellness, kinds of recommendations. At that point, it’s being able to have kind of policies that take this beyond all right, I recognize that this is impacting you. What extra additional supports can we help facilitate or introduce you to?

Katie Vernoy 55:04
I think that’s so important. Because too often I think if we go towards this, I am so afraid that this employee, employee x, is going to have a need for a lot of accommodations, or they’re going to be very impacted by all of the things that have happened around them. Not only is the employee not given autonomy or being empowered to try to actually access their work. But for folks who are not as impacted, they may not feel that there’s equity and fairness around being able to accomplish their work. I mean, if there’s not open conversations around capacity for all folks and fairly equitable work environments, there’s going to be the folks who bottle it up. They’re, you know, the stiff upper lip folks are going to be working their behinds off and hovering for folks who are getting more accommodation or care. I think the other thing, and I’ve seen this as kind of an extension of what you’re talking about here, is when, as a supervisor, I start asking you detailed questions about past trauma and mental health concerns. Like, not cool.

Curt Widhalm 56:21
Right.

Katie Vernoy 56:22
Like, there’s privacy, you know, there’s different laws, probably all over the place. But like, people have the right to not share with you that they’re feeling traumatized. Now, you want to create an environment where, if someone has a conversation with a customer or client and feels vicariously traumatized, or they had something horrible happen on the weekend, and they just aren’t feeling it for work this today, like you want to have an environment where people can ask for what they need, but if you’re seeing someone struggle, you don’t first go to like, what’s wrong with you. It can be what happened to you. And I think that’s the way, you know, one, one of the articles I read talked about switching from traumatizing to trauma informed is, is you ask the question, What happened to you? But sometimes it’s none of your business. And so being able to have a boundary conversation that has no HR violations in it around, hey, I noticed that you’re having a hard day today. What can I do to support you? Is there anything that you’d like to talk about? You know, can we accommodate you today to get what you need to be done? Do you want to take a day off, you know, assuming that there’s sick time or whatever there is. Like, being able to work with somebody within the boundaries that they want to hold, so that you’re not making it about like, hey, it looks like you’re really, you know, you’re really trauma triggered today, and I don’t think you should work, so I’m going to send you home. And then all of a sudden, somebody’s got, like, no sick time, and so they’re taking an unpaid day off because they had a weird expression on their face, and they’re feeling re traumatized by a overly parental boss that is now taking charge of how they, how they manage their own mental health concerns. So, it could get really, really hard. Good intentions can become micromanagement.

Curt Widhalm 58:12
And so this is finding the balance of providing feedback as observations, rather than jumping straight to what the solutions are. And it’s, it’s being able to foster that culture of empowerment by saying, Here’s what I’m observing. This is how it seems to be affecting us. This is, you know, report, report, report, report, about observations. And what can we do about this?

Katie Vernoy 58:40
And, and saying and you can ask some clarifying questions, but I think it’s important to make sure that the employee has the power to share what they want to share and not share what they don’t want to share. So, I think another challenge that I started talking about earlier in the episode are the practical limitations for some organizations, some, I’m even thinking small group practices, where the practicalities are such that there’s just not a lot of room for, like, unlimited paid time off, or a lot of vacation time or pay that helps to make you less worried about making ends meet, right? I think there are real limitations, especially for, you know, new group practices with somebody that’s just started that is slowly building a caseload. You know, like there’s, there’s so much of this stuff, where I can completely see the humanity of you, but right now, you’re costing me money and you’re impacting my mental health. For example, I had a friend colleague who was supervising one person, so a one person group practice, right?

Curt Widhalm 59:19
Okay.

Katie Vernoy 59:36
So, so one one pre licensed associate. And this pre licensed associate, and I’ll make some of the details not accurate, so because I don’t remember all of them, so I’m going to make some of this up. But this pre licensed associate had a lot of life stuff going on. Had another job, right? And was seeing, you know, five clients, and the supervisor was very caring and nurturing. And the pre license associate, you know, had a heart for the community they were serving, and so was doing a lot of sliding scale, and so this, so there was a lot of love, and it was very much a trauma informed, human based organization, where basically the supervisor was paying the supervisee to work for for them, and was losing money hand over fist. Like the the low fee that the supervisee was charging was not covering there the supervisee’s expenses. The supervisor was so understanding and but had built all of the infrastructure to have an employee, because, you know, in California, they have to be employees, and it just wasn’t tenable. And so there are times I think that employees, folks who are working within smaller organizations or tiny group practices, want or expect something that may not be actually capable to happen. And so if you’re in the employer side of that, I think it’s really, first off determining if you can actually afford to have someone employee. We have a whole episode on that. But I think that there’s this other element which is going back to that transparency. This is what that looks like. This is, you know, and maybe you don’t go completely behind the scenes of, here’s how much money the practice is bringing in. But it can, you can go to the point of, based on what the practice is bringing in, I can only pay you this amount, and if that’s not going to work for you because of your own needs, I get that, there is no hard feelings, but that’s a that’s a limit I’m going to have to set because I can’t do something that aligns with these practicalities or these other things that I don’t have the capacity for.

Curt Widhalm 1:02:15
As we’re talking about this. And you mentioned earlier in the episode about, like, generational differences.

Katie Vernoy 1:02:21
Yeah.

Curt Widhalm 1:02:21
It’s being able to this, this also sparks being able to deliver the information in a way that’s appropriate to where somebody is at in the organization; what they what they need to know, without overburdening them, without presenting it at too high of a level. And being able to again, elicit the feedback to be able to encourage people to advocate for more of hey, if an employee is like, Hey, I’m, you know, feeling like you’re talking down to me in this, I can handle kind of a higher level conversation about this, and it’s appropriate to their job title, then, by all means, do it.

Katie Vernoy 1:02:57
Yeah.

Curt Widhalm 1:02:58
But also, this is, you know, working with all kinds of environments that, you know, if you’re not just talking about, you know, professional agencies of people with master’s degrees and above, but just broader workplace kinds of environments, that some employment places might have, like teenagers as employees, and they’re going to have that much differently than people who’ve sat through hours and hours of continuing education about trauma informed principles.

Katie Vernoy 1:03:28
And so I think if you, if you don’t have the capacity to create your perfect work environment, yet, having some transparency can be good, but I think also focusing on what’s working and what you do well and provide more of that. Whether it’s more emotional support, more humanity within the workplace. If it’s if it’s providing time, if you don’t have money right, or or explaining what your capacity is, and making sure you’re hiring people who are aligned to what you have to offer, and not hiring people who don’t, right. And we have a whole, I think, a whole series on hiring and getting employed and all that stuff. So we’ll link to a lot of this stuff in the show notes, because we’ve talked about this in a lot of different ways. But to me, the biggest challenge if it becomes an us versus them, whatever that looks like. I’m hiring these supervisees, and they’re so entitled, and they don’t understand, or I have this boss, and they have a nice car, and they’re not even willing to pay me very well. And, and it’s not seen as here is a, here is a goal that we have together, of of how we’re going to work, a shared mission. And here are the here’s what the capacities are. Or, you know, whether it’s, let’s work together to determine what we’re going to do about that. Or, hey, potential employee, here’s what I have to offer. Maybe take it or leave it, but like, in a nice way, take it or leave it, and being able to move that forward is so much stronger than over promising, under delivering or showing up in a way that’s harmful to the people who you’re trying to hire.

Curt Widhalm 1:05:10
You can find our show notes over at mtsgpodcast.com. Follow us on our social media. Join our Facebook group, The Modern Therapist Group, to continue on with this conversation and listen at the beginning and the end of the episode for how you can get CEs if you desire. And until next time, I’m Curt Widhalm with Katie Vernoy.

… 1:05:32
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Katie Vernoy 1:05:33
Just a quick reminder, if you’d like one unit of continue education for listening to this episode, go to moderntherapistcommunity.com, purchase this course, and pass the post test. A CE certificate will appear in your profile once you’ve successfully completed the steps.

Curt Widhalm 1:05:48
Once again, that’s moderntherapistcommunity.com.

Announcer 1:05:52
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