Employers have a ‘duty of care’ to employees

Serving others is no easy feat.

More than 35% of humanitarian aid workers employed in the field for an extended period of time have seen a “decline in their personal health,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And the toll only heightened during the Covid-19 pandemic, 2021 research in The Lancet found.

In her forthcoming book set to publish on February 21, 2024, Tell Me My Story: Challenging the Narrative of Service Before Self, leadership expert Dimple D. Dhabalia shares some of the challenges faced by people who work in the service of others.

She talked with HR Brew about how HR can support them.

What do you hope HR leaders will learn from your book?

Most of the work that I’ve done has always been in these mission-driven organizations, and so the first key takeaway is that being mission driven doesn’t equate to being superhuman. When we choose a career in service of others, it really shouldn’t be at a cost to our own health and well-being. The second thing is that organizations really change when the people within them change, so I really feel that organizations have a moral duty to provide a holistic, human-centered duty of care.

In this post-pandemic world that we’re living in, leaders and organizations really have to acknowledge and address the individual and collective trauma that takes place in the workplace. There are a number of occupational traumas and mental health challenges that are inherent to working in service of others, and they tend to go beyond just the typical discussion of burnout. But, all of these things can ultimately impact an organization’s bottom line if they aren’t acknowledged and healed, so it’s really about healing root issues in order to create a happier and healthier workplace culture.

How can leaders provide a duty of care?

There’s four key pillars of this duty of care, and so the first is normalizing and addressing occupational mental health challenges and traumas. Occupational mental challenges are things like compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, [and] moral injury. Moral injury is a big one that nobody really talks about, but [it’s] basically when we’re asked to do things that violate or go against our own personally held, deeply held morals and beliefs…Then, the second is evolving from metrics-driven cultures into human-centered…When the metrics are the only things driving the work, that becomes a problem because then we start to forget that we actually have humans working in these spaces…Start shifting our culture to focus on the humans that are working there…so that it’s not just the metrics that are the center of everything.

The third kind of pillar is supporting rest and recovery. It shouldn’t be something that’s just expected that people are going to do on their own. As humans, we should be doing it on our own, but it’s not that easy, especially when we’re in these high-stress, fast-paced environments, and especially where the work we’re doing is impacting the lives of other human beings…And then, the last piece is fostering shared purpose and commitment. So, this is where we really start to look at: How do we work as a unit? How do we create these spaces where people can come together and really feel like they’re a part of the decisions that are being made?

How can a leader be human-centered?

Human-centered is just that feeling that your staff feels seen, heard, and valued. So, number one is prioritize social connections. As human beings, we are hardwired for social connection, and the more that we can create opportunities for the team to come together to connect on a human level. One of the ways that I talk about doing this is through story circles. This is not something that has to take an hour. You could take three minutes at the beginning of a meeting to have your team divide up into groups of two or three, and then just give them a prompt to talk about. It can be anything, maybe something silly, or it can be something related to the work you’re doing, but it’s something that allows them to talk to each other and get to know each other.

A lot of times leaders believe that they have to have the answers to every question or that it’s their job to find the solution to every problem…Tap into empathy, and being open to other people’s ideas and thoughts. It doesn’t take away from your leadership. It actually, again, contributes to this idea of people [feeling] seen and heard and valued.