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Occupational Health Team 2025
Occupational Health Team 2025
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January 5, 2026
When something serious happens at work, the impact can be immediate and lasting. Even with strong planning and good leadership, no organisation is immune to crisis. A fatality on site, an industrial accident, or other unforeseen events can affect employees and the wider business in significant ways.
This guide is for supervisors and managers who need to support their team after a critical incident, using clear, practical steps.
A critical incident is any event that causes significant emotional and psychological distress. This can include traumatic experiences such as accidents, violence, natural disasters, or even workplace conflicts.
People respond differently to trauma. Past experiences and the support someone has around them can shape how they process what’s happened.
After a critical incident, your role is not to “fix” how someone feels. It’s to create stability, make support easy to access, and give people time to recover.
Make it clear you’re reachable and how people can contact you. Availability, especially early on, helps reduce uncertainty.
Show up as a steady presence. Keep your approach sensitive, clear, and objective. Your calm consistency matters when others feel unsettled.
Listen attentively without judgement. Acknowledge emotions rather than dismissing them or rushing the conversation.
Where appropriate, support temporary adjustments or workload modifications. It’s also normal for performance to dip initially.
Some reactions are common after trauma and often improve over time. Still, it helps to keep an eye out for ongoing signs of stress in the days and weeks that follow.
If you’re concerned at any point, support is available.
A key part of recovery is ongoing support from family, friends, and colleagues. As a manager, you can reinforce this by encouraging people to access professional help when needed, without pressure or judgement.
Here are the support routes to consider:
Confidential Counselling and Practical SupportIf your organisation already has an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP), remind employees how to access it and reassure them it is confidential. If you are reviewing EAP provision or want to understand what good looks like, you can explore iWell EAP as a reference point for the types of support an EAP can provide.
Mental Health Support and Trauma-informed OptionsFor some people, speaking to a GP or a qualified counsellor is the right next step. If you are looking at structured workplace mental health support, including trauma risk management approaches such as TRiM, you can view our overview of mental health support services to understand what options organisations typically put in place.
If you want a wider view of workplace health support beyond immediate mental health response, see our occupational health services.
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