According to Help Guide (www.helpguide.org), “Emotional and psychological trauma is the result of extraordinarily stressful events that shatter your sense of security, or make you feel helpless.” Over the past 16 months, the U.S. (and many areas worldwide) have been bombarded with: massive numbers of death from COVID-19, massive layoffs and furloughs, domestic unrest, increased homicides, incidents of road and airline rage, natural disasters, mass shootings, record amounts of deaths by alcohol use and drug overdose, etc. On top of all that, there is a reluctance from many to return to what was normal before the pandemic, and there is general anxiety over what comes next.

Why am I telling you this? Because as an employer, you need to understand that your employees’ needs could be different than they were 16 months ago. Think all those things I listed above could impact someone’s sense of security or make them feel helpless? I can personally tell you that answer is yes.