Over the past year, almost every aspect of life has been heavily disrupted by the fallout from the Covid-19 Pandemic, with the social-emotional landscapes of students and workers transforming overnight from familiar, in-person, to remote or blended models. The extreme nature of this transition in environment has, unsurprisingly, triggered profound psychological changes. Understanding what these changes are is crucial for employers. New insights from a major study have uncovered that the deepest change is a dramatic shift toward greater personal psychological control.

The pandemic has dramatically changed the road on which we steer

The pandemic has dramatically changed the road on which we steer. STEER has been measuring shifts in the steering biases of adolescents as part of the largest major data tracking project of young people in the UK. STEER’s analysis has provided data- based insights into hidden cognitive impacts of the pandemic, and has been used by both the Department of Education and Public Health England.

Steering biases refer to where and how the brain is focusing unconscious attention. When there is a shift in the patterns of steering bias across a whole population, it can indicate the environment around the population has dramatically changed; people are having to work differently and harder to navigate the new social-emotional challenges.

Working with 27,000 students in over 200 academic institutions, STEER compared historical benchmark data on student’s steering from 2013 onwards with real-time data collected during and after the lockdown. Whilst people have reacted to the pandemic in a variety of different ways, one significant trend was a dramatic increase in levels of Internalised Control.

Internalised Control is a psychological response to an anxious, uncertain environment, where an individual lacks control of events outside of themselves, and so they seek to control their own inner world. High levels of Internalised Control occur in individuals who have fixed biases of low Self-Disclosing and low Seeking Change. They are more likely to hold their thoughts and feelings inside rather than expressing them, whilst at the same time seeking to contain what feels like unsafe or overwhelming feelings.

In their comparative analysis of student’s steering patterns from before, during and after lockdown STEER found that nationally, the prevalence of Internalised Control has risen dramatically by 40%; pre-lockdown rates of Internalised Control stood at 15.8%, whereas the post-lockdown average is 22.3%, representing a notable deviation from historical norms. Amongst 17 and 18 year old women. 8/10 are now low self-disclosing, compared to 6/10 before the pandemic.

Workplace implications of higher Internalised Control

Whilst it is true that there are important differences between adolescent students and working adults, the disruption to normal practice experienced by schools is analogous to that seen in the workplace. Regular routines have been broken down and swapped for loose, flexible working practices; face-to-face socialisation has been severely limited and swapped for remote, online exchanges; and existing support systems for both students and employees have seen their efficacy diminish. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to believe that the rise in levels of Internalised Control seen in educational settings will be comparable in workplace environments.

1. Increased specific mental health risks

   A fixed pattern of Internalised Control increases the risk of a number of social-emotional workplace consequences, including hidden perfectionism, undisclosed anxiety in times of change or pressure and a higher risk of burnout. Often these will manifest in conscientiousness or inappropriate attention to detail, or resistance to change.

2. More resourceful but less invested employees

   Employees who display Internalised Control are likely to be more autonomous, self- supporting and resourceful. However, it is also likely that they will be less invested in group culture, feel less willing or able to reach out for help and more reluctant and less capable of building strong relationships. Firms will need to work harder to engage workers and rebuild emotional commitment.

3. Ongoing uncertainty will affect men and women differently

   Furthermore, STEER’s analysis has demonstrated that there is a significant gendered difference in the extent to which the pandemic has affected individual’s steering. More than 30% of 17-18 year old females now use Internalised Control as a psychological strategy, an increase of 54% since the onset of the lockdown. Whilst there has also been an increase from 10% to 20% in male levels of Internalised Control, this is now stabilising. If gender parity and inclusion are goals of an organisation, employers will want to consider how men and women may return to the workplace with different perceptions of ongoing risk, especially as the economic ripples of the pandemic work their way out.

What every business can do to mitigate the risks

There are four specific messages that employers can give workers to mitigate the negative risks of Internalised Control.

• Employers should acknowledge the feelings and concerns of their workers to prevent these worries becoming internalised. Firms that facilitate re-entry to the workplace through an explicit process will be accelerate faster in the long run

• Validate and normalise the feelings of your workers, by making efforts to connect people in peer support pods. This will reduce people’s sense of isolation, facilitating openness and the ability to seek support.

• Managers should make themselves more available to their employees in the coming 6 months. Routined and regular virtual touch ins with a manager are important.

• Finally, another protective action that can be taken to combat rising levels of Internalised Control is to train employees to steer effectively. If an individual can skilfully steer their biases, their patterns of steering will be more responsive and flexible, rather than fixed and inflexible, which reduces the risks of polar biases developing. STEER has produced a series of resources to train managers to improve their steering which are freely available at USTEER.IO

  The pandemic poses many threats to the wellbeing and efficacy of a workforce, but with the right support, these can be overcome, putting your business in a position to not just survive, but to thrive.