How to Heal a Workplace

Introduction

As human beings, we spend the majority of our waking adult life at work. Depending on the country that you reside in, your working hours may vary, but even in the most balanced societies, we spend more than one-third of our life at work.

Given that we spend so much time in this environment and our occupation is often a key component to our sense of identity and self-worth, it is essential to our overall functioning in life to be able to operate in a supportive environment. This means a workplace that provides psychological safety and security and affords us a positive sense of our value and contribution. It means a workplace that gives us an opportunity to meet our greatest emotional need: the need for connection.

The global way of working is rapidly changing, and workplaces have devolved and decentralised, fuelled by the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the pandemic we were seeing this trend in decentralisation, particularly in knowledge industries where a computer and internet access were all employees needed to deliver outcomes. For multinational corporations with employees located in different countries around the world, it posed unique challenges that often required dedicated human resources (HR) teams to ensure worker safety and protect employers from potential legal claims spanning multiple cultures and jurisdictions.

It is rare to find a true multinational corporation that has been able to navigate the competing nuances of culture and expectations to create ...