01/08/2025
In 2001, I was in New York when the World Trade Centre buildings came down.
That terror attack led to me developing post-traumatic stress, and I experienced first-hand how difficult it can be to sustain employment when your nervous system is constantly on high alert.
It took me over 20 years to fully recover - and right from the start, I knew I wanted to support others to identify trauma early, manage the symptoms, and reclaim their quality of life.
I studied counselling, trauma-informed interventions, and psychology to build the knowledge and tools I needed. Working across industries, I realised just how central the workplace is to our identity and wellbeing.
I later completed the pathway to become an endorsed organisational psychologist, with a focus on psychosocial health and safety at work.
Around the same time, Work Health and Safety legislation in Australia was shifting - placing renewed emphasis on psychosocial risks (rightly so!)
In the Northern Territory, there are 17 hazards identified in the Managing Psychosocial Hazards at Work Code of Practice.
Each has a profound impact on worker wellbeing, and this is amplified where two or more hazards are present.
The good news is, there are simple, effective ways workplaces can reduce these risks. That’s where I can make a difference.
As an organisational psychologist who specialises in this area, I’ve heard countless stories of employees who love their work - but suffered psychological injury because their workplace was still learning how to manage psychosocial hazards and mitigate risk.
This comes at a cost:
Backfilling positions.
Worker’s Compensation.
Lost trust.
Some staff never return, because they no longer feel that work is a psychologically safe place for them.
Add recruitment, onboarding, and lost productivity, and it becomes clear: the smartest investment any organisation can make is in their existing workforce.
We all experience overwhelming, incomprehensible or horrific events or situations which have the potential to be perceived as traumatic.
Over time, these can add up.
They might include losing a parent in a shopping centre as a child, bullying, family violence, natural disasters, public mistakes, betrayal, navigating the world with a neurodivergent brain, loss or chronic illness.
Everyone we encounter carries these scars.
Which is why it’s so important to create trauma-informed workplaces.
My work is about more than compliance.
It’s about protecting the nervous system of your organisation: your people.
- Margi
