The Invisible Faces of Trauma in the Workplace

Rethinking Workplace Trauma: It's Not Just About Big, Obvious Events

When we hear the word "trauma," most people think of major life events: car accidents, bereavement, abuse, war zones, and natural disasters. These are what society tends to label as "valid" traumas.

But the truth is, trauma can be much more subtle—and far more pervasive. It can live in the systems we grow up in. It can be baked into how we relate to authority, how we respond to pressure, and how we show up in our work environments. And for many employees, trauma doesn’t start with a catastrophic event. It starts with years of being unseen, unheard, and slowly chipped away at.

As HR leaders and wellbeing managers, we must begin to widen our lens. Because if we continue to only recognise trauma in its most extreme forms, we risk missing the very real, everyday distress that is silently impacting performance, trust, and wellbeing across our organisations.

What Trauma Can Actually Look Like at Work

Let’s take the example of someone who seems a little withdrawn in meetings. They rarely speak up unless asked. They double and triple check their work. They take criticism deeply personally, and they often over-apologise.

To the untrained eye, this might look like low confidence or introversion.

But what if underneath that behaviour is a long history of emotional neglect? What if that person grew up in a household where expressing opinions was punished, where love was conditional, and where getting things wrong led to shame or emotional withdrawal?

Imagine an employee who spent years being told they were “too sensitive” or “too much,” who learned that shrinking themselves was the safest way to survive emotionally. Now imagine them trying to thrive in a high-pressure team where feedback is blunt, deadlines are tight, and vulnerability is seen as weakness.

Or consider a manager who avoids difficult conversations, not because they lack leadership skills, but because they were raised in a home where conflict was explosive or emotionally dangerous. Their nervous system may still be bracing for an old response, even if their mind knows the context has changed.

Now put these individuals in a modern workplace—especially one where psychological safety isn't embedded—and it's easy to see why their nervous systems might interpret a missed Slack message or a manager's tone of voice as a threat. Not because they’re too sensitive. But because their body and brain have been trained to scan for danger in everyday interactions.

The Subtle Symptoms That Are Often Missed

Here are just a few of the subtle but powerful ways unprocessed trauma can show up in the workplace:

• People pleasing and overworking to avoid disappointing others

• Emotional withdrawal after receiving feedback

• Avoiding visibility, promotions, or speaking up in meetings

• Hyper-vigilance: constantly overthinking, scanning for signs something is wrong

• Conflict avoidance—even at the cost of their own needs or boundaries

• Chronic self-doubt or imposter syndrome

• Being the “reliable one” who never asks for help

These are not personality traits. They are survival adaptations.

Trauma Is a Nervous System Issue

One of the most important shifts we can make in organisations is understanding that trauma isn't just psychological—it's biological.

When someone has experienced emotional trauma (whether acute or cumulative), it dysregulates the autonomic nervous system. The body shifts into a state of fight, flight, freeze or fawn. And when that happens, it becomes much harder for someone to access the parts of their brain responsible for rational thinking, communication, and problem-solving.

That employee who clams up when asked a question in a meeting isn’t being difficult. Their nervous system may have shifted into a freeze response.

That team member who over-prepares for every presentation and is still riddled with self-doubt may be operating from a fawn response—over-accommodating to maintain psychological safety.

Or the employee who is highly accomplished but keeps playing small—because being visible feels unsafe. Perhaps they were a gifted child who experienced envy or resentment from others, including adults. Perhaps they’ve been told, explicitly or implicitly, not to outshine others. Now, any form of success triggers guilt or fear of being rejected.

This Is Why Psychological Safety Matters

Psychological safety isn’t just a nice-to-have. It’s a fundamental prerequisite for performance.

If people don’t feel emotionally safe, they will not perform at their best. Period.

And yet many organisations still operate with subtle power dynamics, poor communication, unclear expectations, and emotionally immature leadership—all of which reinforce a lack of safety. If someone grew up in an environment where love and approval were conditional, these dynamics can feel profoundly destabilising.

HR and wellbeing leaders need to understand: we are not just managing people. We are managing nervous systems.

Trauma Is Often Generational

This is something we don’t talk about nearly enough. Trauma is not always about what happened to someone. Often, it’s about what happened within the system they grew up in.

Many employees are carrying inherited patterns from their upbringing: messages like “Don’t get too big for your boots,” or “You need to work hard to prove you’re worthy.”

Years of control, emotional manipulation, being shamed for expressing feelings, or told to suppress vulnerability—it all leads to adults who appear functional on the outside, but are fighting internal battles every day.

And then we put those adults in high-stakes environments, give them tight deadlines, emotionally unavailable managers, and unspoken expectations—and wonder why people are burning out.

Consider the employee who chooses to spend their holiday preparing for Monday instead of resting. Or the senior leader who finds it impossible to switch off—even on a beach in Bali. These aren’t work ethic issues. These are symptoms of hypervigilance driven by survival conditioning.

Trauma Doesn’t Just Affect the Individual

When we fail to address trauma in the workplace, the impact ripples outward.

• Teams struggle with communication and collaboration.

• Managers misinterpret trauma responses as “poor performance.”

• Leaders promote those who appear most confident (even when that confidence is masking deeper issues) and overlook quiet employees who are deeply capable.

• The culture rewards overfunctioning, perfectionism, and burnout.

It becomes a system where only certain nervous systems can thrive—and everyone else is left wondering why they can’t seem to “keep up.”

What Can Organisations Do?

First, acknowledge that trauma is already in the room. You don’t have to wait for someone to disclose their past to know that people are carrying invisible stories. Trauma is far more common than most realise. It’s not always about extreme events—it’s about how safe we’ve felt to be fully ourselves.

Second, equip your managers with emotional intelligence training and mental health training for managers. Most managers are promoted based on performance, not people skills. But if they are managing people without understanding the basics of psychological safety, nervous system regulation, and trauma responses, they are likely doing harm—even unintentionally.

Third, offer access to trauma-informed wellbeing programmes. At The Mind Solution, we created Treating Trauma the Easy Way to address exactly this. We know that trauma doesn’t have to be relived to be released. We use gentle, non-invasive techniques that work with the brain and body to shift emotional patterns safely and effectively—without people needing to tell their whole story or even turn their camera on.

This is trauma support that doesn’t retraumatise. That meets people where they are. That works with the nervous system, not against it.

It’s Time to Widen the Lens

If we want to create truly inclusive, high-performing, healthy workplaces, we must start recognising the invisible faces of trauma.

Because trauma doesn’t always scream. Sometimes it whispers: in an email drafted five times. In a camera turned off. In a voice that shakes in a meeting. In the apology that didn’t need to be said.

And when we start to see those signs for what they really are—not weakness, but wisdom—we can begin to build cultures that heal, not harm.

Let’s stop asking “What’s wrong with them?” and start asking:

“What might they have been carrying for far too long?”

Learn more about our programme Treating Trauma the Easy Way and how it can transform the wellbeing of your workforce from the inside out.