How to Ease Your Team Back to Work After a Crisis

Unlike most years, when people come back to work after the holidays feeling rested and relaxed, the bushfires are causing many people to be tired, tense, anxious, sad, frustrated or angry. 

They may have personally been affected or had friends or family affected by the fires or worried about future fires.

They may be tired after spending several days volunteering, or exhausted from spending days on end checking the fire apps or hitting the refresh button on their news feed, following every update. 

They may be angry at the lack of leadership displayed during this crisis or mad at people who are criticising our leaders. 

They may be furious at the inaction over climate change or angry at someone in their family who is furious at the inaction over climate change.

They may be sad about all of the wildlife that we’ve lost.

Some may be tired or even ill from the very act of trying to breathe our hazardous air. 

What is your role as a manager during this time? How can you show concern, care for your staff — and run your business? 

Here are three tips to follow to ease your team back into the working world:

1. Show you care
2. Help them focus on doing something positive
3. Shift their focus to work.

Show you care

First, show you care. As soon as you can, bring your team together as a group and open up the discussion. Who has been affected, and how? How are they feeling? What do they need to say? 

Not only does this let you see who opens up and note what they have to say. You can also observe who sits back and doesn’t say anything and watch their body language. 

This also gives the team a sense of community. They all find out how people feel, what they are going through, and how they can support each other. 

Tell them that you’ll be circling back during the day to talk to everyone individually.

When you speak to your team 1:1 take a page from Woolworths very successful mental health program called, I am Here. This program teaches managers how to deal with staff members who are struggling with mental health issues. It consists of three parts:

1. Show you care - You can do this by bringing them into the office for a conversation or if you sense they are not ready to talk (i.e. those who were silent in the team meeting) you can go for a walk.
2. Ask the question - This is the “Are You Okay?” question, but it can be more direct than that. You could ask:

• “How have you been impacted?” 
• “How are you feeling about…?”
• “What upsets you the most about…?”

Chances are you’ll know what to ask because you’ll know them. 

1. Call for help - If they are really struggling, connect them with someone who can help. There is a fine line between a caring manager and a counsellor, and you could do more harm than good by trying to be their counsellor. If they need to see a doctor for their breathing, send them. If they need to take time off to help their family, let them. If they need to speak with your EAP, call them. If they need other resources like Beyond Blue, Lifeline or the Black Dog Institute help to connect them.  

Once you’ve helped them as individuals, it can be extremely beneficial to get them working together as a group and focusing on doing something positive. 

Help Them Focus on Doing Something Positive

People feel less helpless when they are doing something to help. Consider supporting one of the relief efforts. The team could donate money or could collect needed items and drive to one of the many collection centres together. 

If a friend or family member of one the team members is affected, figure out how to help them. 

Help them work together and focus on the positive. 

You can also help them focus on what others are doing that is positive. Highlight good news stories. Undoubtedly there will be numerous negative stories flying around email. Appoint someone to look for and share good news stories. 

Shift Their Focus to Work

Giving people a sense of certainty and normality is one of the best things you can do to help people who are stressed by things outside of work, regardless of the type of stress. 

You can do this by helping them focus on work.

This can start during the team meeting mentioned above. Once everyone has talked about the fires, go around the group again and ask each person what they are excited about working on today or what they want to accomplish this year. 

You can ask that same question individually during your 1:1 meetings as well. 

Finally, be prepared to consistently (and gently) shift conversations back to work-related items over the coming days and possibly weeks. 

Continue to check in on your team as a group and individually. 

Following these tips are a great way to support your team during a time of stress — and you may build a more cohesive, collaborative and productive team as a result.