If you want to improve outcomes at your organization, then focusing on improving workplace culture through trauma-informed approaches is a great strategy.

Whether your goal is employee wellness, leadership development, or improving your bottom line, fostering a healthy, supportive workplace culture is the means to your end. Organizations across industries are increasingly recognizing the value of adopting trauma-informed approaches (TIAs) to create workplaces that not only thrive, but also empower employees to bring their best selves to work.

What are Trauma-Informed Approaches?

At its core, a trauma-informed approach acknowledges the widespread impact of trauma and actively works to create a safe environment for healing and growth. Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with you?” it encourages leaders to consider, “What happened to you?” This shift in perspective allows for deeper understanding, empathy, and healthier team dynamics.

This major perspective shift from a critical deficit-based mindset to a strengths-based approach enables employers to live trauma-informed values, which support them as they understand, recognize, and respond to the impact of trauma on employees.

The principles of TIAs, outlined by SAMHSA, include:

• Safety: Creating environments where people feel physically and emotionally safe.
• Trustworthiness and Transparency: Establishing open communication to foster trust.
• Peer Support: Encouraging collaboration and mutual aid.
• Collaboration and Mutuality: Sharing power and decision-making.
• Empowerment, Voice, and Choice: Promoting autonomy and personal agency.
• Cultural, Historical, and Gender Awareness: Recognizing and responding to the unique needs of individuals and groups.

For us, SAMHSA’s 6 Guiding principles are a section of a 2-hour training module; however, these concepts aren’t learned quickly. They can take years to fully explore and understand, as they are complex, interrelated, and often require deep personal work by each individual on a team.

Why Trauma-Informed Workplaces Matter

Being trauma-informed has immense benefits: for your organizations bottom line and our workforce as whole. Employers that prioritize implementing TIAs see increased retention and engagement, higher productivity, better performance, and reduced absenteeism–all of which are the result of improved employee wellbeing and reduced burnout.

Implementing TIAs in the workplace brings profound benefits, not just for employees but for the organization as a whole. A trauma-informed environment nurtures:

• Higher retention: Employees stay longer in a safe, supportive environment.
• Increased engagement: Motivated teams are more involved in their work.
• Boosted productivity: Supported employees work more efficiently.
• Reduced absenteeism: Less burnout means fewer sick days.
• Stronger relationships: Trust and open communication enhance team dynamics.
• Better performance: Healthy work environments lead to better results.
• Improved morale: A culture of care keeps spirits high.
• Enhanced collaboration: Teams work better when they feel connected and valued.
• Reduced conflict: TIAs minimize misunderstandings and workplace tensions.
• Fewer mistakes: Focused and supported employees are less likely to make errors.
• Innovation and creativity: Safe spaces allow employees to take risks and think outside the box.
• Better mental health: A trauma-informed culture supports overall well-being.
• Positive reputation: Companies known for their care attract top talent.

How to Start Implementing Trauma-Informed Approaches

If you’re ready to begin incorporating trauma-informed practices into your organization, know that you can start small. While we offer multi-year implementation programs to jump start culture change, that is not the only way to do it.

If you’re working with constraints such as limited time or funds, there are small ways that you can bring this work to your agency:

• Educate yourself and model the behaviors you want to see in others. This is especially impactful if you are a leader.
• Use trauma-informed tools and share them with your team.
• Introduce trauma-informed content to your colleagues, such as articles, videos, books, or podcasts. Bonus points if you can start a “book club” to discuss ideas and how to implement them!
• Find the “low hanging fruit.” When people come to this work, they often want to start with the “problem” teams–the ones they see as needing the most help. Instead, who do you know at work who will buy into this work easily? Befriend them so you are not alone in this work.

If you are able to launch a department or agency wide program, then these are the next most important steps:

1. Training and Education: Ensure that all team members, from leadership to staff, are educated about trauma, its effects, and the role of TIAs in improving workplace culture.
2. Build a “Core Team”: For this work to be sustainable, your agency needs a Core Team of trained staff who will guide and assess change efforts.
3. Develop a Team Charter and Project Charter: Strategic planning is essential, and developing charters amongst a team of 10-30 leaders is no small task. This stage can take a year or longer!
4. Review and Adjust: TIAs are all about growth and development. Our plans will change and adjust in light of new information, tools, and people.

Final Thoughts: There is No “One Right Way”

Trauma-informed approaches provide a framework for change that is supportive and empowering for all employees–but it is not a clear roadmap with checklists that companies can copy/paste and repeat. Trauma-informed change is unique to every system, every agency, every team, and every individual, because it is not something that we do–it is how we do it.

Trauma-informed approaches are not just a set of practices—they’re a way of being. By embedding empathy, respect, and understanding into your workplace, you create an environment where both employees and the organization can grow and succeed.

At Chefalo Consulting, we are committed to helping organizations transform their workplace culture by guiding leaders through the implementation of these essential principles. To learn more and see empathy in action, be sure to checkout our podcast, Mindful Management: Creating a Trauma-Informed Work Environment.