COVID-19 Crisis Management Guide

Without mental wellness, neither physical health nor well-being will be optimized

For the past several weeks, I have been telling the members of my communities that the greatest damage from the coronavirus pandemic will be economical and psychological in nature, rather than directly from the virus itself. As we have further travelled along the pandemic timeline, I have seen nothing to cause me to shift my thinking at this point in time.
 

Employee mental health is a complex area involving both an inner game and an outer game. The inner game relates to the inner mental aspects of each individual employee, including such things as mindset, values, beliefs, perceptions, etc. The outer game relates to the actual structure and workings of the workplace and the overall organization itself. Employee mental health is the result of the interface between the inner and outer games.

In normal times, I encourage employers to address employee mental health using a model I called the PPM model – Promotion, Prevention and Management. But these are not normal times.

Rather than utilizing the PPM model, during the pandemic, I am encouraging employers to adopt a crisis management model – Preparation, Response and Recovery. The time for preparation has passed. We are now in response mode or the response phase of the model. In the response phase, employers can draw upon the field of disaster mental health, also called disaster behavioral health for guidance and suggested strategies and tactics. 

During the early phases of the response period, survival is the primary focus of people. Ensuring that their physiological, safety and security needs will be met is the main focus and goal of people in crisis. Fear can also be a huge issue during the response phase.

The pandemic of 2020 has seen a run on toilet paper. There has actually been no real shortage of toilet paper. As the pandemic unfolded, people feared being quarantined in their home which would result in their not being able to go out and purchase toilet paper. Panic buying and hoarding took place. As it turns out, the stay-at-home or shelter-in-place orders issued by most governments are actually much less restrictive than actual quarantine orders. People can actually leave their homes to go and purchase essential items.

Once people realize they will be able to obtain food, water and maintain their safety and security, uncertainty becomes the biggest psychological issue that needs to be addressed. As humans, we desire clarity and certainty. We don't do well with uncertainty. Needless to say, there is a whole lot of uncertainty right now, of course, with the uncertainty extending into the foreseeable future.

During the response phase, the focus should be on employee communication. Employers need to make sure employees are able to meet their basic needs and that they are feeling safe and secure. Workplace leaders need to lead more and manage less. Early during the response, employees are trying to figure out lots of different things, especially if they are working from home. Employees will be experiencing a range of emotions. Leaders should be kind, compassionate, empathetic, be a good listener and reassure employees that their emotions are normal given the circumstances. 

Regularly check in with direct reports to make sure they are doing okay and don't have any basic needs that the employer can help address. For employers with workers on the front line of the pandemic, compassion fatigue may be an issue that might surface as well. Compassion fatigue is characterized by emotional and physical exhaustion which leads to a diminished ability to empathize or feel compassion for others.

Eventually, response mode will fade and yield to recovery mode. Early in the recovery mode, stress and anxiety will be top employee mental health issues requiring attention by the employer. The actual emergency is over. New routines are likely to have developed and a level of stability has been achieved. Stress and anxiety will be high as employees struggle to fit into this period of transition, while still being largely uncertain as to what the new normal well actually look like. 

Grief and loss could be prominent in the recovery phase, as well, as family members grieve the loss of any family members or close friends lost to the virus. They may also grieve for the loss of the life that they had before the pandemic occurred. In organizations that have experienced significant layoffs, survivor guilt may become an issue for the remaining employees as well.

During the recovery phase, leaders would be wise to watch for signs of emotional instability, along with the other well-known signs of mental illness. Once the crisis response phase is over, most employees will do okay as the recovery period starts to unfold. Some employees may continue to struggle and may need extra support for a while. 

As the recovery period progresses along, the view of what the new normal will look like will become clearer and clearer. At this point, I will be encouraging and helping employers to shift back to utilizing the PMP model and to also start focusing on building employee resilience. As the new normal becomes clearer, being more resilient will help employees better adapt and adjust to the new normal, whatever it turns out to be.

With a pandemic, the potential exists for second and even third waves of the virus to occur in the near term. During the recovery phase, I will also be encouraging employee and organizational preparation, just-in-case future waves of the coronavirus do in fact materialize.

Here in North America, we are about 6+ weeks into the pandemic response. Now and for the foreseeable future, uncertainty will be the key driver of employee mental health. Questions like:  When will this end and what will the new normal look like are only natural for employees to be asking. Of course, no one has these answers yet and it is ok for leaders to say they don’t have any answers yet. But leaders need to share what they do know and have decided to do.

The best thing employers can do is to over-communicate what they do know, be empathetic, just listen to employees, help employees to learn to better control the things in their life that they can control and involve employees in organizational decision-making as much as possible, as leaders and employees working together can make better overall decisions.

After all, without mental health (mental wellness), neither physical health nor well-being will be optimized.

As a worksite well-being professional, William McPeck has training and experience in both in worksite wellness and the emerging field of worksite well-being. His professional training includes program development, program implementation, consulting, training and coaching in wellness, mental health and substance abuse. Bill specializes in helping employers and wellness program coordinators launch wellness programs and to enhance existing programs. Bill is also a Certified Worksite Wellness Program Consultant, Certified Wellness Culture Coach, Certified Work-Life Professional and Certified Holistic Stress Management Trainer.   Connect William McPeck