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When you think about post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, you probably connect it to soldiers who were in combat or victims of horrific crimes. But the symptoms can actually plague anyone who’s gone through a stressful situation. And as employees start returning to the workplace, some may show signs of PTSD.
“PTSD is tied to an event of trauma,” says Keita Franklin, Ph.D., chief clinical officer at the workforce solution provider Loyal Source. “It’s a fear of trauma and the potential for re-experiencing trauma. Our service members deal with it when they’re downrange and deployed; their survival is at risk. When it comes to returning to work, some people may fear that their health is at risk and their own sense of survival is threatened.”
Employees may also have had traumatic experiences during the pandemic, says Franklin, who specializes in PTSD and has worked in behavioral health for the U.S. Department of Defense and the Department of Veteran Affairs. “Many of them may have been caretakers for people that had COVID-19, and many may have lost parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and neighbors,” she says. “They’ll be returning to the office having been through something, and they’ll have to adjust to a new normal.”
The isolation of the pandemic hasn’t helped, adds Franklin. “We’re social beings and being around people is good, necessary, and helpful,” she says. “Going back will be a bumpy adjustment.”
A lot of people have remained in a state of anxiety during the pandemic, says Andrew Shatté, Ph.D., chief knowledge officer and cofounder of meQuilibrium, an employee resilience solution. “People are not returning to the worksite as they were,” he says. “They are apprehensive, weary, and emotionally worn down. The anxiety that began with the pandemic won’t magically disappear once workers are vaccinated and back in the office.”
Spotting Employees at Risk
Companies that are mandating a return to the office must teach leaders how to recognize the risks and how to help their employees. “This isn’t a training you do once a year for 30 minutes and think all will be well,” says Franklin. “You have to infuse it into the fabric of the organization, talking about it in small groups and role modeling wellness.”
If an employee at work is suffering from PTSD, you may notice them being irritable or having angry outbursts, says Jerry O’Keefe, the national director of the employee assistance program at healthcare service provider Kaiser Permanente. “They may be easily startled or have trouble concentrating, or they may lose interest in projects they used to like,” he says. “They may call in sick more often, or not show up to work without telling anyone.”
People who experienced grief may also suffer from PTSD, adds O’Keefe. “They may feel overwhelming guilt or survivor’s guilt, feel sad and suffer from depression,” he says. “The pandemic has also left people feeling disenfranchised, which is the perception that if I’m not grieving about COVID-19 sickness or death, it’s not a valid reason to be grieving.”
While PTSD is a medical condition, Franklin says you can have a few of the symptoms and not meet the full diagnosis. “You could be chronically living with a few symptoms over time,” she says, likening it to a stoplight. “It’s basically people in the yellow; they’re not in the green, and they’re not in the red. They’re just getting by. Coming to work can be a protective factor because it can give them a sense of purpose, mission, and feeling of belongingness. This can go a long way.”
Helping Employees Cope
Employers, HR professionals, and managers can address mental health in the workplace by instilling resilience in people and organizations as it is an effective first line of defense, says Shatté.
“It is projected that 20% of workers will suffer from PTSD due to the trauma of the pandemic,” he says. “The question is no longer why or whether we need to be resilient, but how to build resilience in the workplace. Organizations that provide their people with wellbeing support and the skills of resilience will find themselves on the right side of history.”
Have a strong communication strategy about the safety measures the organization is taking. “It could be having a mass policy on vaccines, new cleaning protocols, bottled water instead of a water cooler, or re-spacing of desks,” says Franklin. “Tell employees, ‘This is what we’re doing. What else do you need?’”
O’Keefe says a place for healing requires psychological and physical safety. Staff members should feel valued, respected, and comfortable to speak up about their needs, as well as have control over their work and environment.
“Remind employees about policies that are intended to keep them physically safe and healthy,” he says. “One study found that employees who were able to consistently practice physical distancing at work had a significantly lower risk of anxiety or depression.”
COVID-19 has given a new perspective on the old advice of putting your own mask on first before you help others. Franklin encourages managers to let people know it’s okay if you’re not okay. “This is all a new normal for us and we’re in it together,” she says. “We can help each other get through it.”
For example, leaders should share their own self-care activities like, such as shutting down for an hour or two during the day and taking paid time off.
“Get smart on the signs and symptoms, but then live it and breathe it in a way that makes people comfortable coming forward and asking for help,” she says. “Managers should be setting the stage and telling people, ‘We don’t expect you to be 100% when we come back. We recognize that many of you experienced great loss during COVID-19 and coming back to work isn’t going to be easy for any of us.’ This helps them know they’re not the only one who may be struggling.”
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The global pandemic has prompted many to rethink their professional lives, what makes them happy and how they spend their time. In what’s being dubbed the Great Resignation, millions of people are now quitting or changing their jobs—or at least thinking about it.
COVID-19 aside, a perfect storm of reasons explains the increasingly wandering labor force: the ease with which workers and prospective employers can find one another over the internet, the increase in remote working that removes geographical tethers, the disappearance of defined-benefit pensions that rewarded longevity, and the emergence of the gig economy. Even before the Great Resignation, the median number of years that workers spent with one employer was a mere 4.2, according to U.S. government statistics.
It’s been suggested that continuously changing jobs fulfills a basic human need and that the single-company career model of past decades was more an exception, psychologically speaking, than a rule. Or perhaps people are simply more restless and less loyal than they used to be?
All of which makes me an anomaly.
I joined Juniper Networks in 1997 as employee number 32 (there are now more than 10,000 of us). At that time, Bill Clinton was starting his second term as President. One gallon of gas cost $1.19. Bruce Willis still had hair and mine was still a dark brown rather than the current salt and pepper.
Except for one other tech firm where I worked for a year between obtaining my undergraduate and graduate degrees, I’ve spent my entire career at Juniper. I started as the most junior engineer in the firm and I suspect that what compelled management to give me a shot was the need to find somebody that would do the mundane work that the more senior technical talent didn’t want to. After a series of promotions and 17 years at the company, I was named CEO in 2014.
As the workforce has grown more flighty, homegrown CEOs are increasingly rare. Even with a few notable examples—such as Doug McMillon of Walmart, who started as a summer associate making $6.50 an hour; Richard Fain of Royal Caribbean Cruises, who’s been at the company for 33 years; and Citigroup’s Michael Corbat who spent 37 years at the bank before retiring in February—the list is tiny.
As the years have piled up, I’ve done a great deal of thinking about my journey. In the beginning, I didn’t plan to remain with one organization for so long, nor was I aiming for the corner office. Yet, it all happened. Why? How? And what observations and advice would I offer others about what it takes to survive and thrive in a single company for so long, even in tumultuous times?
Choose the right company
This is obvious, but it needs to be said: If you’re going to stay married to one company, make sure it’s a company you love. It must offer a range and diversity of experiences, opportunities for ever-more interesting responsibilities and, last but not least, have a mission, culture, and corporate values you believe in with your heart.
Without these foundational elements, the risk of getting bored or suffering burnout is high. With them, the company can start to feel like a home.
You don’t need a five-year plan
Over the years, many have coached me to develop a professional plan with short- and long-term objectives and strategies to achieve them. I’ve never had one and you might not need one either.
I never set my sights on the CEO chair. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t ambitious, but my aspirations didn’t lie with winning this or that promotion as part of an imagined career arc. Rather, what drove me was simply getting the opportunity to work on ever-more-important and intellectually stimulating projects and to have a seat at the table where consequential decisions were being made.
I figured if I did a great job in each new role, the rest would take care of itself. And it did! So, toss the five-year plan and just get to work.
Perseverance
In his book, The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Silicon Valley entrepreneur Ben Horowitz wrote, “whenever I meet a successful CEO, I ask them how they did it. Mediocre CEOs point to their brilliant strategic moves or their intuitive business sense or a variety of other self-congratulatory explanations. The great CEOs tend to be remarkably consistent in their answers. They all say, ‘I didn’t quit.’”
I’ve worked with some incredible people throughout my career who were equally, if not more, ambitious than me, but who lacked the patience and grit to stick out the tough times. I have a stubborn personality that causes me to dig in my heels when the going gets tough (some would say to a fault) and to prove the skeptics wrong. I’m not suggesting this makes me great. I’m saying unshakeable perseverance can be a powerful ingredient to seeing your career grow and achieving your full potential in any organization.
Disrupt or be disrupted
A huge potential pitfall of the single-company career model is that you can fall into a comfort zone and get stale. To achieve long-term success with one employer, you must not ever allow yourself to get comfortable.
I started at Juniper as an individual contributor, then took on increasing engineering responsibilities. From there, I pivoted to product management, rose through several general manager positions and, finally, became CEO. I readily admit that I’ve never felt 100% ready for that next career step. But I never let that stop me from taking on that next challenge, learning new skills and testing my ability to succeed at new and ever-increasing levels of responsibility.
I’m a scholar of Andy Grove and a big believer that only the paranoid survive. In an extremely fast-paced and competitive industry like tech, you need to wake up every day thinking “disrupt or be disrupted.” You have to get used to the discomfort of constant butterflies in your stomach and always be open to change.
Comfort means inevitable death to a high-tech company. It can also be the greatest inhibitor to your career.
Avoid myopia
Long-time company veterans have institutional knowledge—they understand the organization deeply, how work actually gets done, where the skeletons are hidden, etc. The possible hazard, of course, is the myopia that can come from being part of the system for so long.
Leaders in this position must be aware of the risk of myopia and deliberately and actively fight it. It’s important to surround yourself with teams that have a healthy balance of veterans and newer people with fresh, outside perspectives. It also helps to build a strong and diverse network of professionals outside your company.
Yes, the single-company career is becoming almost unheard of, but I’ve found it can be richly rewarding—if you’re aware of what it takes to succeed. Call me a proud member of the Great Non-Resignation.
Rami Rahim is CEO of Juniper Networks. The company develops and markets networking products, including routers, switches, network management software, network security products, and software-defined networking technology.
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