When a potentially traumatic event occurs in the workplace, such as suicide or attempted suicide, assault, serious accident, threat, intrusion, shocking scene, or internal violence, the entire organization is affected. The shock is never isolated: it affects witnesses, destabilizes teams, weakens managers, alters perceptions of safety, disrupts the social climate, and places HR/QVCT at the center of a delicate responsibility. They are simultaneously responsible for protecting, coordinating, communicating, reassuring, and ensuring compliance with legal obligations.
In this type of situation, the first few hours are crucial. Psychologists specializing in post-trauma observe that early intervention has a direct impact on what follows: emotional stability, social climate, team cohesion, prevention of psychosocial risks, and resumption of activity. In other words, it is not only the event itself that affects employees: it is how the company responds.
What is a potentially traumatic event in the workplace?
A potentially traumatic event is an unexpected and brutal encounter with the reality of death in all its horror and unspeakability, either as a direct victim or a direct witness. Everyone shares this same psychological mechanism, which exceeds their immediate capacity to adapt.
The following reactions are very common: shock, confusion, difficulty thinking logically, derealization, anger, crying, guilt, hypervigilance, physical tension, withdrawal, or inability to concentrate. None of this is abnormal. These are human, automatic, often intense responses... but they become problematic when they last or are not addressed. A potentially traumatic event will inevitably cause stress in the person experiencing it, but it may also cause trauma.
"Everyone will be stressed, some will be traumatized."
The impact is never limited to individuals. Occupational trauma spreads throughout the entire group. It can weaken bonds, create misunderstandings, alter feelings of psychological security, change relationships at work, undermine managerial authority, and damage trust in the organization. The HR and social dimensions are therefore just as important as the psychological dimension.
Why act immediately?
Rapid intervention plays a decisive role. Psychologically, it helps to calm shock, contain rising emotions, stabilize the most vulnerable individuals, and prevent the onset of post-traumatic stress. In terms of HR/QWL, it reduces the spread of rumors, prevents anxiety-inducing interpretations, protects the employer's responsibility for safety, reassures managers, and preserves overall confidence.
This is a constant in all post-traumatic situations: the way in which the company responds in the first few hours determines what happens next. An appropriate, rapid, and humane response transforms a shock into a moment of collective support. A delayed or clumsy response can have the opposite effect.
The 5 essential steps after a potentially traumatic event
There is a proven protocol used by HR/QWL departments in crisis situations. This protocol focuses on psychological protection, organizational consistency, and the gradual rebuilding of the collective.
Step 1: Stabilize the situation
Immediately after a shock, employees need reassurance, guidance, and a safe environment. Witnesses should be removed from the scene of the incident and gathered in a quiet space, accompanied by one or two emotionally stable individuals. Occupational health services must be informed, as must management, to ensure traceability. It is essential not to ask any questions "in the heat of the moment," not to look for anyone to blame, and not to leave employees alone, even for a few minutes. The goal is not to understand what happened, but to restore a basic level of safety.
Step 2: Communicate clearly and calmly
Communication plays a therapeutic role. A clear, sober, and consistent message is reassuring. A vague or delayed message amplifies fear. It is important to stick to the strictly necessary facts, without any shocking details, to explain simply the immediate measures put in place, to announce the arrival of psychological support, and to ensure that each level of the hierarchy relays the same information. HR communication then becomes a structure that employees can rely on to understand and catch their breath.
Step 3: Provide a safe space for expression
After the first few hours, teams need a space to process what they have experienced. This space should never be improvised or facilitated internally. It is a clinical session, led by a specialist psychologist, where everyone can express what they have understood, how they have felt, and what concerns them for the future. The role of HR is to organize, secure, and introduce this time, but never to lead the discussions. The psychologist normalizes reactions, eases tensions, resolves guilt, clarifies perceptions, and restores cohesion.
When properly supervised, the group becomes a major protective factor.
Step 4: Set up ongoing monitoring over several weeks
Contrary to popular belief, trauma does not always manifest itself immediately. Some people cope thanks to adrenaline, then collapse after a few days. Others hide everything out of modesty or professional loyalty. Still others express the effects of shock indirectly: irritability, withdrawal, tension, difficulty concentrating, or avoidance.
Structured monitoring is therefore essential. This can take the form of a dedicated psychological hotline, individual interviews, regular meetings with managers, identification of early warning signs, and enhanced support for local managers, who are often themselves vulnerable. It is during this phase that most of the work in terms of psychosocial risk prevention and quality of life at work takes place.
Step 5: Learn lessons and strengthen prevention
Once the emergency has passed, the company must understand what happened. This involves revisiting the event from a systemic perspective: working conditions, organizational tension, weak signals, aggravating factors, managerial weaknesses, cultural elements. This analysis makes it possible to update the DUERP (single document on occupational risks), adjust psychosocial risk prevention measures, support affected managers, and strengthen existing regulatory frameworks.
A potentially traumatic event then becomes an opportunity for organizational learning. Paradoxically, this helps restore trust.
Mistakes that worsen trauma
Situations that are poorly managed almost always result in the same problems. The event is downplayed or trivialized, communication comes too late, the search for someone to blame takes precedence over protecting employees, managers are sent to the front line alone, teams are left with no framework for expressing themselves, and the company resumes business too quickly as if nothing had happened.
These mistakes are never intentional, but their effects are powerful: loss of confidence, rising tensions, increased absenteeism, the emergence of post-traumatic symptoms, and lasting damage to team spirit.
Why activate a professional crisis unit?
A crisis unit provides something that no internal staff member can offer: a neutral third party, not involved in the hierarchy, capable of stabilizing immediate emotions, structuring a secure collective space, supporting managers, providing individual support to those most affected, and offering long-term follow-up. This neutrality changes everything.
It encourages open communication, reduces guilt, prevents misunderstandings, and reduces the risk of secondary trauma. It also provides legal protection for the employer and gradually restores cohesion.
The Pros Consulte crisis unit responds within hours, either on-site or remotely, with occupational psychologists or clinicians specializing in critical situations. Tailored support may include a group debriefing, individual support, a dedicated hotline, an RPS report with operational recommendations, and follow-up between 1 and 6 months.
For an HR professional, it is a safety net, a clinical partner, and an emotional shield all at once.
The first 72 hours: the essential benchmark
For the record, the first 72 hours must follow a simple logic. The aim is to provide physical and psychological security for the group, communicate clearly, activate specialized support, offer a supervised space for expression, identify vulnerable individuals, and organize follow-up. This is a progressive sequence designed to reduce emotional impact, contain the spread of rumors, stabilize managers, and restore a sense of unity.
Conclusion: Protect, support, rebuild
A potentially traumatic event can fracture an organization. But it can also become a moment of cohesion, collective maturity, and reconstruction, provided it is handled with seriousness, humanity, and expertise. The role of HR is not to be a psychologist. Its role is to activate the right resources, structure the response, and ensure everyone's safety.
This is precisely why crisis response teams exist: to provide companies with clinical, social, and organizational support that is commensurate with the challenges they face.
24-hour emergency response: Pros Consulte crisis unit
In the event of a potentially traumatic incident, our psychologists can respond within 24 hours, either on-site or remotely, anywhere in France. Group debriefing, individual support, hotline, psychosocial risk report, operational recommendations, long-term follow-up.
