I heard a keynote recently by an Australian colleague about how we can take better care of our field staff and improve their wellbeing and retention in our orgs (Hi Brendon! …Munge is a subscriber here 😉).
His talk reminded me of a situation I encountered at a previous job.
I was new and was investigating an illness outbreak at a residential facility that had happened a few months before I started my job. I was trying to engage the program team, but they were hesitant.
I was pulled aside by a senior program leader who explained that four years before I started my new role, they experienced a student fatality. The organization, at the time, didn’t care for its own very well, and the staff felt like the situation was “cleaned up and swept under the rug.”
“Nobody even came to our site to help us, or ask how we were doing, or what could be done for us,” I was told. In the aftermath, it was still business as usual.
Years later and as a result, the staff were distant and skeptical of the organization’s senior leaders, regardless of their involvement in the incident or tenure in the org.
Looking at the literature, I shouldn’t have been surprised. All of this is explainable and, quite normal, actually:
The first victim is the person the incident happened to. The second victims are the people who responded and were involved in the aftermath, from the other group members, the leaders and their support staff, and the senior staff who support after a serious incident (yes…that’s probably you…)
The third victim is the organization itself.
The org suffers when trust erodes and when staff “quietly quit” or leave altogether. The damage and pain linger long after the incident is resolved, and it persists for years. It’s embedded into the organizational culture and in the DNA.
Munge is right. The risk landscape is changing, and more organizations and senior leaders are understanding that caring for your own is caring for and protecting the organization.
A couple of years ago, I was part of a research team that explored second victim syndrome in our field. Here is our paper, called The Silence is Deafening. It’s full of insights and practical tactics you can implement and advocate for.
Take a look at the incidents over the past five years (or longer). Ask the people still involved how often they think about it and whether they have any feedback for the organization on how they’d like to be supported next time.
Stu
P.S. If you think about an incident or situation from your work or earlier in your career, reach out. Talking with a trusted colleague or peer who has been through something similar is one of the most effective and meaningful strategies practitioners identified in our research.
Don’t hesitate to reach out to me. You can also ask me about strategies your org can implement or resources you can connect with.