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Last month, I hosted a hangout on childhood trauma for my peers. A facilitator of one of the sessions, while speaking about the topic, shared that some of the things we often think are our unique qualities are actually trauma responses.

For instance, you might think that you are independent and self-reliant. This often manifests in your being avoidant. A lone wolf. What this shows is that you are using this coping strategy to protect yourself from potential disappointment or harm due to past betrayal from family or friends.

Knowing this information was eye-opening for me. And it got me thinking about setting boundaries at work. Psychological studies show that trauma can distort how we view safety, control and personal rights. Working in an environment that does not respect boundaries validates the fear that if this happened before when one was young, it will probably keep happening. As a consequence, one can easily swing towards believing they do not deserve boundaries at work. Others can set high and impenetrable walls or find it hard to create healthy boundaries at all, thus making them susceptible to future psychological, physical and emotional harm.

Accommodating this fact in everyday work life is paramount. Respecting that employee, especially Gen Zs, have life outside work underscores the importance of having healthy boundaries as a culture at work.

Creating the boundaries is not for comfort but to ensure everyone feels accommodated and their value respected. This means allowing employees to work within work hours, close to zero work-related calls after work and especially at night, zero work during off days and unwelcome comments about an employee’s bodily features, just to mention a few.

Such issues can make the work environment toxic, and since some Gen Zs have been brought up to be the ‘good’ kids, they are in a never-ending pursuit of being good at work, over-accommodating others and completely overworking themselves. These people-pleasing tendencies close the gap between creating boundaries and not, and as a result, they can be very easy to be manipulated by an employer. Here, kindness and empathy are taken advantage of. Unalishwa dust!

Every employee expects their employer to respect set boundaries. At the very least, they should respect even the unspoken boundaries. For example, if work ends at 5pm, a meeting at 4:50pm is almost unnecessary if it’s going to ‘eat’ more time.

However, there is a role Gen Z employees can play to ensure that they can set healthy boundaries and respect them. Gen Zs must first learn how past trauma affects their work and the relationship with their employers. It will only make sense to point fingers if you are not part of the problem. If healing is all it takes to be a better version of yourself, dear fellow Gen Z, then you need to put in the work. This might look like guild-tripping, but I kid you not, you will enjoy your work more on the other side. It would be incredible to fight employers who don’t respect boundaries when you are healed of past trauma.

— The writer is the founder of Tabasamu Concept, a community that creates spaces for Gen Zs to network, unwind and spread positivity-