Sverre Sanden, a clinical psychologist with the Royal Norwegian Navy and a PhD candidate at the Centre for Crisis Psychology at the University of Bergen, gave a lecture at Reykjavík University on Friday, September 12th. The lecture was held in collaboration with the Icelandic Coast Guard, Reykjavík University, and the University of Bergen.

In his talk, he discussed the importance of providing care and support for staff following critical incidents in the workplace that may have serious psychological consequences. He presented the key principles and methods used by the Norwegian Armed Forces in psychological support and trauma care after such events, using as an example the response to the accident involving the Norwegian frigate HNoMS Helge Ingstad.

Sanden says that managers have many things to handle and to think about in the case of a critical incident, with personnel care being just one of those things:

I think managers can do themselves a favor by teaming up with professionals beforehand, so they have someone trusted who can give advice and recommendations regarding personnel care when something happens.

Sanden says that planning and exercises are useful if done in the right way:

But learning from your own and from others’ actual incidents is key; read reports, get people involved to come to talk and hold lectures. In my experience it is hard to exercise human reactions to a crisis because reality is always different.

Good personnel care is important for several reasons, according to Sanden:

First, we believe it helps in preventing later psychological suffering, which means the workforce of the organization will be more fit, healthy and capable. Second, good personnel care is a powerful internal communication in an organization. It shows that people are taken care of if something happens, which I believe contributes to cohesion and workforce retention. Third, personnel care is very important to organizational reputation. I believe failing in personnel care comes with a price to an organization.