Coerced into vulnerability session

[Watdidusay]

My team were brought into a mandatory vulnerability day with HR because of performance issues.

We were sat down and asked to share our most frightening experience. People were sharing stories of traumatic deaths of partners, being beaten nearly to death by violent family, one watched their mother jump out a window.

Everyone was bawling their eyes out.

We were then asked to share each team members best and worst trait, individually. Once again tears flooding. Comments like "maybe you're like this because of your childhood" etc were flying out.

There was no prep for this and no psychological support. Everyone said they felt coerced and are very upset.

Is this normal? We all think there's something wrong here.

Statistically speaking you would expect at least one person to have significant trauma

Yes- just look at the stats for rape and sexual assault, never mind all the other awful things that can happen. It's practically guaranteed that any random group will contain several people with serious trauma.

Not the point being madre. It's weird and appalling now; it would have been completely unthinkable in the 1950s.

These days it's normal to talk about trauma to a therapist or a close friend - but not in a forced sitatuon at work; in the 1950 most people wouldn't have spoken about it to anybody at all, ever. Bringing your whole self (or any part of your personal life) to work was a totally alien concept.

HR not known as Human Remains for nothing.

From my experience they aren't the nicest people. I have come across maybe 2 HR people I would trust in 32 years of working.

It's not the value that's the issue IMO it's the execution. My workplace has had lots of vulnerability/empathy sessions but workplace or related activities only!
For example, sessions on imposter syndrome and how women tend to have more of it, led by a female director, people shared examples of when they underestimated themselves. All voluntary attendance.
We've also had sessions on things like accessing work MH support but the agenda has been very clear and the colleague who shared their experience was a willing volunteer.

The OP's experience - not only is it completely unacceptable to force sharing of such personal information. It has nothing to do with performance management. Team building, bonding etc is the cherry on top for teams that are already working OK, or for further personal development. Not to fix a dysfunctional team.

What fresh hell is this????????
I'm sorry you had to experience that, OP. I have more than my fair share of trauma and there is absolutely no way on earth that I would share any of it with my colleagues. That's for me and my therapist, no one at work has any right to know that sort of detail about anyone else.

PS @Watdidusay you and your colleagues are right, there is something very wrong with all of that. If you have a union I would flag it with them immediately. If you don't, I would join one even quicker - sounds like you might need their support.

I am speechless😮

Sounds more like a cult than an employer. I would flatly refuse to open my mouth but then I'm quite old now and I don't give a fuck.

Raise it with the union if you have one. The only problem is, you need others on side and they'll probably be reluctant. This sort of unofficial and amateur psychological experiment is designed to instil submission and fear.

Thank you to everyone who responded. No we aren't unionised, we're in a private SME and not in client facing roles so this isn't the sort of situation we usually deal with.
We didn't get any agenda or schedule for the day so had no idea we'd be doing this. There was no option not to do it as one person objected and got
The more I think about it, the more messed up I think it is. You're right, people could have ended up very traumatized. I do have to continue working there until I find a new role.

Is this some sort of trauma bonding? My god this would have been the absolute worse thing I can think of. What a complete nightmare.

Fuck me nooooooooo.

I have lots of things I could have shared. But I don't. I go to work and have a professional self and I can do my job. I would feel very vulnerable having to share but also then having to go into work daily knowing people know about these personal things.

It's a shame people didn't feel they could just say something like "when I woke up with a spider on my pillow".

Really shocking. I’d leave a company that did this.

I would love for this to happen to me...but only because the severance pay out would be ginormous.

WTAF?! 🤯😡 I would seriously be raising this as high as you can with whoever you can. Seriously inappropriate and downright dangerous potentially.

I would be getting signed off until could start new role, you do not owe them anything after what they have done.

Encouraging people to disclose personal, private potentially distressing experiences without having a)the option to opt out b ) previous warning and c) someone qualified to deal with the aftermath is a massive dereliction of duty of care by your employer. People could have made all kinds of disclosures, some of which need to be reported by law.

This is a court case waiting to happen.

I had something similar,.but no where near as extreme. We were encouraged to share our back stories. I chose to keep my cards a bit closer to my chest, others shared much more freely. It all just felt a bit awks

Only statutory sick pay so I'll just stay and look for something else

Everyone involved up to CEO unfortunately

That’s fucked up beyond belief!
what were they thinking????

What the fuck!!!!! I would absolutely have refused to share anything. Then contacted my union.

I am clearly going to be the one with the unpopular opinion here, but if no one in the group had any significant psychological issues then I'm not sure this is a huge issue. If someone had an unusually large emotional response then that's one thing, but it's not abnormal to cry at work.

Totally disagree. It IS abnormal to cry at work.

something is wrong if you need to cry at work. Especially if you’ve been “encouraged” to divulge extremely personal info.

@Watdidusay Is your HR person qualified in this area? They are an absolute psychopath making you all do that. What was the benefit they were hoping to achieve?

Thing is @MutantBug at these things for everyone who says their worst experience was when they lost their 6 yr old for 30 seconds in M+S, or how they are scared of spiders, there is someone who will share their 10 yr experience of child sex abuse.

People who have experienced severe trauma, especially as children, are vulnerable to being people pleasers and so being retraumatized at an event like this.

They've worked in HR for 12 years. I don't know what the area is.