For many professionals, exposure to traumatic content is not incidental - it's part of the job. Whether it's frontline mental health workers supporting individuals in crisis, safer gambling teams reviewing distressing player reports or insurance claims staff assessing personal losses, certain roles carry a high risk of vicarious trauma.

As interest in employee wellbeing deepens, so must our understanding of less visible psychological hazards like vicarious trauma. This form of harm can erode not only individual wellbeing but also the wider effectiveness of organisations. In trauma-exposed roles, employees are emotionally depleted, which significantly reduces their ability to think clearly, act compassionately, respond to challenges, and collaborate with others. This has serious implications for the quality of care being delivered. Supporting staff exposed to trauma isn't just about doing the right thing – it's essential for sustaining high-quality, ethical, and effective work.

Having recently read a comprehensive report on vicarious trauma by Amy Nicholas (Winston Churchill Trust, 2023), we have been reflecting on the vicarious trauma in organisations and how it ties into the work we do. To share our thoughts, this blog explores what vicarious trauma is, how it impacts individuals and organisations, the factors that drive it, and crucially, what workplaces can do to prevent and mitigate harm.

Understanding Vicarious Trauma

Vicarious trauma refers to the cumulative impact of indirect exposure to others' trauma, typically through listening to or processing distressing narratives or materials. Unlike burnout or compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma is rooted in empathic engagement with trauma – where the helper deeply and empathetically connects with the other's traumatic stories – often leading to changes in the helper's worldview, cognitive schemas, and emotional regulation. It also poses a serious mental health risk, with research showing high rates of clinically significant distress, including symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, among workers in trauma-exposed roles.

It's most common in roles where employees are repeatedly exposed to traumatic information without the chance to process or decompress. This includes health and social care workers, emergency responders, call centre staff handling sensitive cases, and increasingly, teams in gambling, tech, or media sectors handling user-generated distressing content.

Why It Matters: The Organisational Impact

Vicarious trauma can have far-reaching consequences not only for individuals, but for the organisations they work within. Too often, its impact is viewed solely through a personal lens, overlooking how symptoms can manifest professionally and affect team dynamics, service delivery, and organisational performance. When left unrecognised or unsupported, vicarious trauma contributes to reduced job satisfaction and commitment, higher levels of absenteeism and presenteeism, and increased staff turnover. These effects, in turn, compromise productivity, elevate error rates, and erode innovation. Team cultures may deteriorate, with heightened risks of disengagement, conflict, or bullying, especially in emotionally demanding environments. For organisations, this creates reputational risk (particularly in sectors where ethical, responsive service is essential) as well as potential increases in compensation claims and legal liability. From a business perspective, all these factors result in both moral and financial costs. Ultimately, failing to address vicarious trauma undermines both employee wellbeing and long-term organisational sustainability.

Factors That Contribute to Vicarious Trauma

Vicarious trauma develops through a range of psychological and physiological processes that unfold over time, and often under the radar. Besides individual differences, research has identified five distinct pathways through which exposure to traumatic content can lead to harm:

1. Immediate response - immediate emotional overwhelm from a single distressing exposure
2. Compounded response - the slow, cumulative impact of repeated contact with traumatic material
3. Short-term load - when workers are exposed to emotionally intense material repeatedly without enough time to decompress
4. Long-term load - chronic stress from unrelieved, long-term exposure to trauma-related stress
5. Moral distress - when work conflicts with an employee's deeply held values, amplifying emotional distress

These pathways show that vicarious trauma is not just about isolated incidents; it's about patterns of exposure, recovery, and support. Without the right structures in place, even highly capable and committed professionals can be gradually worn down by the emotional demands of their roles.

Recommendations for What Organisations Can Do

An effective response to vicarious trauma should mirror an occupational safety model, moving beyond individual resilience and focusing on systemic and preventative level interventions. We recommend drawing upon the IGLOo framework (Nielsen & Yarker, 2017) to guide your approach at the Individual, Group, Line manager, and Organisational levels. Here are some evidence-informed recommendations to consider:

Individual level

• Strengthening boundaries and recovery habits:
  Encourage digital boundary setting tools (such as status messages, reminders for breaks), and recover habits (such as walk and talks, no-laptop lunches and restorative breaks).

• Embedding ongoing training:
  Regular training around mental health, trauma-informed awareness, and advanced skill development should be conducted regularly to equip staff with practical tools to manage stress and understand trauma not just once, but consistently over time.

Group level

• Enhancing peer support, belonging and connection:
  Psychologically safe team cultures that promote emotional openness are key. Enhance use of peer support to deal with emotionally demanding work through structured debrief and peer reflective spaces, buddy systems, and shared social activities.

Line manager level

• Reducing the impact of emotional demands:
  Where trauma can't be avoided, rotating staff out of high-intensity roles, balancing caseloads with less demanding tasks, and setting time-based exposure limits can help manage cumulative stress. Regular recovery breaks should be embedded into daily schedules, not treated as optional.
• Embedding a trauma-informed approach:
  Through regular team discussions and reflections around the impact of trauma, consistent language around mental health topics, and employee consultation and feedback on what is and isn't working well.
• Promoting help-seeking:
  Managers must reinforce and normalise the need for seeking external support through organisational offerings in trauma-heavy roles, as well as promote practical tools for managing one's own wellbeing through regular supervision.

Organisational level

• Building protective people processes:
  Staff should be prepared for trauma-related demands from day one. Realistic job previews, gradual exposure to difficult tasks, and early development of emotional regulation skills all support healthier adjustment. New joiners also benefit from structured support and space to reflect.
• Redesigning roles and services:
  Reducing unnecessary exposure starts with clearer service boundaries. Define what content is collected, how much detail is needed, and who needs to see it. Using case summaries instead of full files, or filtering graphic material, can reduce emotional impact without compromising quality.
• Leveraging technology:
  Digital tools can soften exposure by limiting access, flagging high-risk content, and offering alternative formats like muted audio, blurred images, or greyscale viewing to reduce sensory impact.
• Strengthening wellbeing infrastructure:
  EAPs and wellbeing services should be trauma-informed, with access to specialist support when needed. Regular stress risk audits to monitor wellbeing and psychological health outcomes must be conducted.
• Reimagining workspaces:
  Physical spaces matter too – calm, uncluttered and sensory-friendly environments and access to recovery rooms support staff in decompressing after distressing work.

Our Work in Practice: Supporting Safer Gambling Teams at Flutter UKI

At Affinity Health at Work, we've supported Flutter UKI tackling vicarious trauma head-on. Our recent 'Safer Minds' project with their Safer Gambling team exemplifies how a proactive, evidence-based approach can make a tangible difference.

Flutter's Safer Gambling agents were experiencing increased exposure to distressing customer stories involving addiction and suicide risk, leading to emotional strain and reduced wellbeing. Working collaboratively with Flutter UKI, we:

• Conducted focus groups and interviews to understand risk factors and support needs
• Delivered comprehensive trauma-informed wellbeing training to all agents and managers
• Produced a wellbeing insights report with evidence-informed recommendations that target systemic change

The impact of Safer Minds was both immediate and sustainable. Staff reported feeling more supported, wellbeing and job satisfaction improved, and the business benefited from clearer guidance on managing psychosocial risks. You can read the detailed case study for this project here.

If you're interested in understanding how your organisation can manage vicarious trauma risks more effectively, get in touch with us at hello@affinityhealthatwork.com.

Author: Divija Bansal

Citation: Bansal, D. (2025) Invisible injuries: The Organisational Risk of Vicarious Trauma. Affinity Health at Work.