Summer
2010
Summer
2010
by Jasen Walker, Ed.D., C.R.C., C.C.M, and Fred Heffner, Ed.D.
A commonly accepted definition in psychology of the term “resilience” is “the positive capacity of people to withstand stressors and to cope with trauma.”
While stress and trauma are present in all aspects of life, they are especially critical in the workplace, where employees become over-stressed by pressures of the job or by various life situations in general. These stressors are often antecedent to lost work time that follows reported illness or injury, but are not necessarily a consequence of it. Conditions caused by stress and catastrophe in life in general are the concerns of families and communities (i.e., the responses to hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.), sometimes schools, and frequently health care providers and psychologists. Aside from these institutionalized services available to most of us, the interventions to help us cope with stress and injury in the workplace are the responsibility of human resource professionals charged with operating Disability Management and Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs).
The primary mission of the occupational rehabilitation professional in a workplace setting is to prevent health impairments, but failing that, to deal with them so as to reverse their non-productive effects when they do occur. The objective of the reversal is to have the employee achieve “resilience,” a term, when used in a workplace context becomes synonymous with hardiness, resourcefulness, and/or mental toughness. As the employee chooses resilience, he or she will be in a position to return to productivity; failing to achieve resilience renders the employee non-productive, or at least less than fully productive. And failure of the individual to respond to stress or tragedy with resilience can affect otherwise well-adjusted, productive co-workers. (See Emotional Contagion, Appendix A). While the failure of resilience in the emotional contagion process can be contagious, the courage found in resilience can also be contagious.
In the workplace, resilience is what leads an employee to recovery from a prolonged or severe adverse experience. Employees who experience an acute trauma may exhibit extreme anxiety, difficulty sleeping, and having intrusive and continuing non-useful thoughts. Generally, however, these symptoms decrease and recovery is, in fact, likely. Even in physical traumas that result in amputations, for example, recovery is likely and commonplace (see Resilience After Loss of Limb, Appendix B).
It is the responsibility of a rehabilitation professional working with employees to help them secure supportive, therapeutic relationships, especially with family members and co-workers. The rehabilitation professional should assist directly in the effort to achieve favorable conditions of recovery.
The Evolving Background
Resilience is a critical construct of Positive Psychology. In Positive Psychology, the focus is on identifying the strengths of an individual when he/she is faced with adversity, rather than on his/her weaknesses. Although no universal definition for resilience has emerged, it is believed that the central characteristic of resilience (manifested through behaviors, thoughts, and actions) can be addressed in a way that will assist individuals to cope with life’s challenges and traumatic realities at any given time. It is also important to note that there is, to date, little research on resilience in respect to a traumatic injury. While the core hypothesis is that people with greater resilience demonstrate more positive rehabilitation outcomes, there has been essentially no research in terms of its effectiveness for individuals who have experienced traumatic injuries.
Resilience is the ability to bounce back from adversity. In the workplace, there is a need to consider resilience from two different perspectives:
1. training employees to be pro-actively resilient to meet challenges as they arise, and
2. facilitating recovery of employees who have an occupationally significant impairment that needs to be addressed for a return to productivity.
While there is little research on the value of resilience in the workplace, one study with a near corollary that specifically looked into promoting pro-active attitudes in the workplace was found. The study, reported by Mary A. Steinhardt, Ed.D., of the University of Texas in Austin, was developed for, and carried out with, Motorola. The results of that study are titled “Transforming Stress into Resilience” and are published in the Journal for Quality and Participation among other sources.
The premise of Steinhardt’s work is that employers are looking for employees who know how to take initiatives without waiting to being told to do so, and that, in fact, that characteristic can be taught. This approach starts with the premise that stressful conditions are inevitable, but that employees can be taught how to react to and cope with workplace stressors. (Resourcefulness is different from resilience).
Lowman (1993) conceived of work dysfunctions as resulting from the interactions of maladaptive personality characteristics with workplace conditions. These interactions produce tension, stress, conflict, and nonproductive states. Work dysfunctions are often a consequence of coworkers failing to find within themselves the resilience to deal with the inevitable stressful conditions of creativity and productivity.
Walker (1990) constructed the paradigm of disability proneness by postulating that some dysfunctional individuals decompensate readily in stressful situations and following what Weinstein (1978) termed an “explanatory event” when they begin losing time from work, often in the absence of identifiable disease. Previously, Behan and Hirschfeld (1966) had chronicled their observations of employees manifesting disability without disease.
Borrowing from Martin Seligman’s formulation of Learned Helplessness (1975) and its reformulation, Walker (1992) coined the term Injured Worker Helplessness which describes the “crystallization” of the disability process portrayed by Weinstein. Walker hypothesized that injured workers learning helplessness as opposed to manifesting resilience were likely functioning at the lowest level(s) of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (1943).
The evolving concepts of effective disability management in which disability proneness and injured worker helplessness are addressed and reversed has been done by Walker and his colleagues at CEC Associates, Inc., in Valley Forge, PA. Walker creates and tests effective methods for disability management. These methods have been reported in a vocational rehabilitation newsletter published by the company, and in numerous articles in relevant professional journals.
Although all employers teach their employees to master job-related skills, most of them do not think of themselves as teachers. They insist that the public schools (and even colleges) are responsible, and they feel, largely, that the schools are not doing a good job of it.
In life, and, perhaps especially, in work, there is no more fundamental attribute (and skill learned) than resilience. People who can overcome adversity will fare better in life than those who cannot. A good argument could be made that resilience is necessary for people to actualize higher levels of Maslow’s (1943) Hierarchy of Needs, and the more resilient, the more likely one will progress upward in the Hierarchy.
In the workplace, employees are constantly being challenged to overcome some adversity: a supervisor’s reprimand, a disparagement by a colleague, failure to meet a quota, etc. The irreducible fact is that the resilient employees will persist and ultimately carry greater benefits for the organization than those who are not resilient.
So the question becomes one of how employers can address the issue of resilience to their benefit and profit. The starting point for employers who recognize the benefits of resilience is to make every employee aware of the value of personal resilience, and the specific features of resilience and its benefits at work and in other aspects of life. Employees should be given a brief list of factors that distinguish the resilient from the less resilient. That list will include, at minimum:
Resilient people:
- view the world in optimistic and hopeful ways,
- feel appreciated by the people that are significant to them and have self- esteem,
- are able to, and do, set goals and expectations for themselves, and have self-discipline,
- take responsibility for their actions,
- can solve problems and make decisions, and
- view mistakes, hardships, and obstacles as challenges to confront and overcome.
Employers who choose to do so, can, over time and on an on-going basis, introduce motivators and make resilience and integral part of their organizations’ cultures. For example:
- reinforcing responsibility can be achieved by requiring, or at minimum, encouraging
specific, measurable contribution by the employee,
- offering encouragement and positive feedback,
- challenging individuals to solve a specific problem,
- discussing a mistake frankly and with understanding,
- requiring individuals to set and document measurable objectives, etc.
Stressful events happen to everybody. We cannot change that reality. But we can change how we respond to adverse events. We can change an adverse reality by changing the focus of our thinking from the present to the future.
Employers can present the basics of resilience and confidence building by helping employees to think through the following. Individuals who:
- seem to do better than most on coping with adversity have goals for what they want to achieve in their lives. If an individual has goals, they need to remind themselves what they are. Goals need to be brought to the fore and reaffirmed. If there are no goals, a moment of adversity is the perfect time to set them.
- are decisive about going forward are more resilient. Employers can assist employees to set, document, and act on the achievement of goals.
- have positive attitudes about themselves tend to be more resilient. In the world of psychology, there is something new happening. Psychologists are now fostering something they call “Positive Psychology.” They think that rather than teach doctors and psychologists how to correct problems, they should teach how to avoid many problems by being positive.
- make an effort to improve their personal lives tend to be more resilient. Employers can assist employees to improve their personal lives by identifying internal and community-based resources to assist in addressing this need. Larger employers offer EAPs. All employers can provide assistance, with or without a formal EAP.
- relate positively to others tend to be more resilient that those who go it alone. This does not mean one can abdicate self-actualization, but it is not wrong to have others to rely on for reasonable assistance.
In short, individuals can become, or can be helped to become, more resilient if they plan (realistically), are optimistic, learn new skills, and manage their feelings in a constructive light. In general, people ultimately overcome all adversity. However, people react to short-term adversity in markedly different ways. Some individuals are more resilient than others and find ways to overcome a challenge and move on. We say that these people are more resilient, and resiliency is a valuable, even essential, human capacity.
The question is whether the tendency to be resilient can be measured, or at least anecdotally recognized, and whether or not coping skills to be more resilient can be taught efficiently.
Factors that can bolster resiliency include:
- having at least one supportive relationship available
- trusting someone enough to accept their provided support
- being capable of initiating a process to seek support
- being able to identify a role model
Characteristics of low resiliency include the inability to:
- make realistic plans
- take steps to carry out plans provided by supportive others
- have positive thoughts about one’s ability to move forward
- be confident in one’s ability to move forward
- communicate effectively
- solve personal problems
- control/manage strong negative feelings or impulses
The first step in assisting someone in achieving resilience is to assist that person in appreciating and accepting the idea that change is possible and building resilience achievable. Each of the steps given as “characteristics” above can be taught if the one doing the teaching is patient and if the circumstances surrounding the effort are conducive to affecting change.
The issue of whether or not resilience can be taught may not be a useful one in terms of a short-term workplace objective. The issue is better described as encouraging the employee to “cope” by having him/her work toward:
- having the ability to recognize and deal with stress effectively,
- achieving good problem-solving skills,
- seeking help,
- holding the belief that the problem can be solved (positive psychology, having positive emotions),
- gathering and holding social support,
- achieving connections with others (family, friends, and, especially, co-workers),
- disclosing and discussing the trauma or stress,
- considering the role of spirituality in achieving resilience,
- assuming the identity of a survivor,
- helping others, and
- finding positive meaning in the condition.
The need in the workplace is for those in human resource roles (as well as all supervisory personnel) to learn resilience and model it while providing prevention and wellness information for all employees, and to take positive actions when employees have been traumatized. The employer is responsible for planning and implementing Disability Management and EAPs and to committing to providing the determination and know-how to facilitate wellbeing and productivity.
The conceit underlying this paper is that resilience is a critical need for coping with the vicissitudes of life, but whatever they may be in general, they are especially significant as
workplace issues. As evidence of the importance of learning resilience, we note the recent emergence of specific resilience training in two other significant environments.
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration SAMHSA), a branch of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, “Children’s mental health is the foundation on which they build their future lives. It is up to policy makers, in concert with parents and others who can help influence the outcome, to ensure that children have every opportunity to achieve the mental health status that will enable them to be successful, contributing members of their families, their communities, and their nation.”
One important resource for parents and teachers in terms of the mental health of children is the Penn Resiliency Project, www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/prpsum.htm. This program, a component of the Positive Psychology Department of the University of Pennsylvania, focuses on providing resources (including specific “Lessons”) for late elementary and middle school students. An introduction to the program states: “The curriculum teaches cognitive-behavioral and social problem-solving skills and is based in part on cognitive-behavioral theories of depression by Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis, and Martin Seligman.”
Teaching resilience has significant merit to the military leadership in this country. The United States Army is teaching resilience to military families, civilians doing service-related work, and, most especially, soldiers. This process is being developed under a program designated Comprehensive Soldier Fitness (CSF). The objective is to assist GI’s to master new ways of thinking and solving problems. In short, the military has made a substantial commitment to teaching resilience.
While we don’t think of the U.S. Army as an employer, it is, in fact, the single largest collections of individuals being trained for specific jobs and to perform specific functions. The CSF program, initiated in 2009, is designed to provide soldiers with “better coping skills for times of adversity.” The Army says of their program, “resilience teaches self-awareness, bringing mental fitness up to the same level as a Soldier’s physical fitness.”
Employers do not generally take their cues for job training from the military services. In this case, however, the Army is ahead of the curve, and employers, large and small, will eventually also realize the value of resilience training. Just as the military has developed and uses the most efficient vocational suitability assessment, the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), so it is now taking the lead in demonstrating the critical need for resilience training across the board.
People react to short-term adversity in markedly different ways. Some individuals are more resilient, and resiliency is a valuable, even essential, human capacity. The question is whether the tendency to be resilient can be measured, or at least anecdotally recognized, and whether or not coping skills to be more resilient can be inculcated efficiently. There are many factors that can bolster resiliency and assist people who exhibit characteristics of low resiliency.
The first step in assisting someone in achieving resilience is to help that person to appreciate and accept the idea that change is possible. Each of the steps given as “characteristics” above can be inculcated if the one responsible for teaching and role modeling is patient, and if the circumstances surrounding the effort are conducive to effecting change.
Workplace Disability Management Programs that include employee assistance are becoming more widely accepted as essential components of the administrative process. In the immediate past, Disability Management programs were found primarily in well-managed companies, and their programs were frequently referred to as “exemplary” or “Best Practices.”
What is still missing, even in many so-called exemplary programs, and certainly in all other workplaces, is the recognition of two critical disability management concepts. They are:
- recognizing the disability-prone employee and working to avoid or mitigate disability for him or her, and
- understanding how the positive psychology concept of resilience factors into the “Disability Process.”
Why are Disability Management programs essential to business? The answer is that they significantly impact the complications of workplace absenteeism, thereby reducing costs. They also improve appreciably the wellbeing of all employees, thereby increasing employee loyalty and dedication to the employer’s best interests.
Appendix A: Emotional Contagion in the Workplace
Appendix B: Resilience after the Loss of Limb
Appendix C: Disability Proneness and Resilience
Awareness of the concept of “emotional contagion” goes back to at least the early 1990s. It has been defined as signifying the tendency to express and feel emotions similar to, and influenced by, those of others.
In psychology, the condition (emotional contagion) is frequently looked at as a cause of dysfunctional dynamics in families, and especially, in children. And, it can, of course, be a critical factor in the workplace. To understand employee behavior in the workplace, employers need to be aware of the phenomenon and take measures to counteract it.
While the most prevalent situation is that of the interaction between and among employees, the contagion is also cited as a condition sometimes present in the employee-customer relationship.
The author became aware of “emotional contagion” when he came across a “working paper” published in 2001 by a Yale School of Management professor (now at the University of Penn’s Wharton School), Sigal G. Barsade. Barsade titled her paper, The Ripple Effect: Emotional Contagion in Groups. Barsade wrote:
The results of the research confirms that people do not live on emotional islands, but rather, that group members experience moods at work, these moods ripple out and, in the process, influence not only other group members’ emotions but their group dynamics and individual cognitions, attitudes, and behaviors as well. Thus, emotional contagion, through its direct and indirect influence on employee and work team emotions, judgments, and behaviors can lead to subtle but important ripple effects in groups and organizations.
Barsade concludes, “Emotional contagion has been shown here to play a significant role in work group dynamics. A better understanding of the conditions and concepts of emotional contagion can lead to greater insight into and understanding of employee’s workplace behavior.”
The Landmine Survivors Network (LSN), a Washington, D.C. based agency created by and for survivors of landmine trauma, assists victims “to recover from trauma, reclaim their lives, and fulfill their human rights.” This group, along with a coalition of agencies focused on the same issue, was a co-recipient of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize, and with its partners, was responsible for the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty. The Network provides workshops on disability laws and human rights around the world.
In 2004, the LSN conducted a study “to determine factors that contribute to an individual’s recovery.” The study indicated that “the survivor’s acceptance of limb loss and their state of psychological recovery were greatly influenced by the individual’s resilience characteristics, social support, medical care, economic situation and societal attitudes toward people with disabilities.”
The study found, among other facts, that “personality dispositions, such as hardiness, may allow an individual to develop adaptive coping behaviors in response to traumatic stressors, thereby mitigating the development of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).” Further, people who recovered psychologically from the accident “developed new coping strategies and ways of thinking that allowed them to address their new role in society, in their family, and in their work.” Those who did better in the survival process described a conscious effort “to change their way of thinking to cope with their injuries and cited their own determination, perseverance, and positive thinking as important to their recovery.”
The LSN study provides crucial guidance to Disability Management professionals involved with trauma cases from workplace accidents. The critical findings of the study show that while there are essential contributing factors to the recovery, such as the level of medical care, societal acceptance, family supports, and the economics of the case, a significant aspect, in the final analysis, is the ability and determination of the injured individual to cope with the situation. Resilience is defined, in essence in the study, as “determination, perseverance and positive thinking.”
Perhaps resilience cannot be taught. But recognizing that some individuals repairing from trauma do better than others, rehabilitation professionals need to understand why that is and to do all they can to encourage this essential trait. Resilience may not be a skill that can be taught, but it certainly can be encouraged.
Walker (1990) has established that individuals with particular personality styles when exposed to pre-accident stress are “disability prone.” That is, notwithstanding the nature or severity of the injury or illness underlying a claim of disability, certain individuals will lose time from work following an accident or illness onset. Often in the context of a worker’s compensation and/or personal injury claim, individuals with disability proneness will not return to work following what has been described by others as an “explanatory event.” Walker combines the ideas of several other theorists, including Behan and Hirschfeld, Weinstein, Seligman and Lowman, for direct application to workplace disability programming.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Behan and Hirschfeld, two practitioners of occupational medicine treating injured workers in the demanding environments of the Detroit automotive industry, observed what they called “disability without disease.” That is, these occupational physicians documented lost time and complaints of vocational disability where the worker had no accompanying evidence of objective medical impairment. Building on the Behan and Hirschfeld observations, Weinstein (1978) delineated the concept of the “disability process” and graphically portrayed its stages. In the late 1970s, Weinstein argued that the disability process leading to incapacitation actually began before the accident or illness in what he labeled the “explanatory event.”
While Weinstein was describing the disability process, Martin Seligman was reformulating the learned helplessness paradigm in the general population, a theory of human motivation that said when “individuals are exposed to uncontrollable circumstances,” (or for that matter even the perception of uncontrollability) they give up, they surrender, they stop moving forward. Seligman recognized that an individual’s attributional style is key to his/her learning helplessness in stressful situations. Walker applied the learned helplessness model to the injury process to elucidate how injured workers develop helplessness. His concept of Injured Worker Helplessness became a fundamental argument for the development of organizational Disability Management Programs. Coming full circle, Walker has recently described Disability Proneness and advocates for workplace programs in which employees are trained to cope and to be resilience.
Resilience is defined as a dynamic process in which individuals exhibit positive behavioral adaptation when they encounter significant adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or even significant sources of stress. Some believe that individuals can be taught resilience, and as noted elsewhere, the U.S. Military has adopted a program of Military Resilience Training (MRT). We suggest that resilience can be taught or at least facilitated in individuals during various stages of development and experience, including as children, students, employees, and rehabilitation clients.
Behan, Robert C. & Hirschfeld, M.R. “Disability without Disease or Injury.” Archives of Environmental Health, v12, May 1966.
Maslow, A. H. A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review 50(4) 1943: 370-96
Lowman, Rodney L. Counseling and Psychotherapy of Work Dysfunctions. Washington, DC., American Psychological Association, 1993.
Seligman, Martin. Learned Helplessness. San Francisco, W.H. Freeman, 1975.
Walker, Jasen. Disability Management and the Disability Prone Employee. Society for Human Resource Management White Paper 1990.
Walker, Jasen. “Injured Worker Helplessness: Critical Relationships and System Level Approaches for Intervention.” Journal of Occupational Rehabilitation, v 2, no 4,
December 1992.
Weinstein, M.R. “The Concept of the Disability Process.” Psychosomatics. 1978.
While resilience is generally thought of as what helps some individuals survive adversity, it is also, more recently, being thought of as a critical, and indeed indispensable, management skill. That is, resilience in an individual manager is being touted as more important than that person’s level of education or even his or her level of experience. The level at which an individual can be resilient will determine who succeeds in management and who fails. (Paraphrase from a quote in an article by Diane Coutu in the Harvard Business Review).
Resilience is a significant factor in whether an employee will return to work after an injury or illness. However, there are no tests or assessment instruments that can be used to demonstrate that an individual is resilient and will want to return to work. Rather, resilience must be, and can be, assessed anecdotally by experienced counselors, especially vocational rehabilitation counselors.
The most effective methodology to induce resilience is through (a) assessing attributional style and (b) cognitive therapy. Cognitive therapy seeks, first, to identify negative thinking, and, second, to change the distorted or unrealistic way of thinking that is the result of the negative thinking. The anecdotal assessment includes evaluating the validity of the client’s beliefs and predicting from the client’s expectations.
The Gulf Oil Spill and Resilience
While the BP oil spill is a man-made catastrophe of unparalleled proportions, there will come a time when people affected by its devastation will need to move on. Some individuals will find it more difficult to do so than others. Those most capable of moving forward with their lives will be those who can muster the personal resilience to do so.
In the workplace, resilience is thought of as being able to cope with the adversity at hand and use the skills associated with being resilient to their advantage. The time will come when it will be important for government, corporate, and social entities to assist individuals who have not made it back with coping skills.
A significant factor in creating and operating an effective Disability Management program is “Worker Learned Helplessness.” One all-too-frequent manifestation of the worker’s learned helplessness is a resistance to return to work. There are a number of causes for the helplessness. One of those is that the client has low, or no, resilience to overcome negatives. Some of these negative thoughts or beliefs include:
- being unable to accept the value of the RTW (the client undervalues the positives of RTW)
- enlarging the challenge to RTW; distorting/magnifying the RTW reality
- having a low frustration threshold
- fearing disapproval or criticism
The assessment process may include any or all of the following:
The term Explanatory Style is used in psychology to signify how people explain to themselves why they feel the way they do about a particular event. Psychologists have shown that some people tend to blame themselves for negative events and believe that the these negatives will persist (Pessimists). Other people tend to blame others for the negatives in their lives and that these negatives will end soon (Optimists).
2. Locus of Control
“Locus of Control” is the concept of where individuals place responsibility, choice, and control of events in their lives. There are two ways to ascribe control: internal and external. Individuals with “internal” control tend to attribute the outcomes of events in their lives as being under their own control, whereas individuals with “external” control attribute the outcome of events to external circumstances.
3. Testing and Assessing
There are test instruments available for both Explanatory Style and Locus of Control. The Attributional Style Questionnaire (ASQ) is used to determine Explanatory Style, and the Rotter I-E Scale is commonly used to determine an individual’s Locus of Control orientation. (At least one version of a Rotter Scale is free on the internet: www.Ballarat.edu.au).
How can employers address the issue of workplace resilience for their benefit and profit? The start point for employers who recognize the benefits of resilience and choose to address the issue is to make every individual employee aware of the benefits of resilience and what the specific features of resilience are. Employees should be given a brief list of factors that distinguish the resilient from the less resilient. (See main article for list of factors).
One concept closely allied to resilience is “mindfulness.” The objective of making oneself, or someone else, aware of the value of being “mindful” is to train the mind to reduce distress, promote emotion regulation, and foster wellbeing. The first steps are to become aware of one’s emotions by identifying them and then, in turn, managing them.
One highly regarded researcher in this field, J. Kabat-Zinn, has defined mindfulness as “paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.”
The idea is that by becoming aware of the thoughts that are in the mind, we can avoid over-reacting to them. (This avoiding process is called “decentralizing.”) In the process of recognizing intrusive, nonproductive thoughts, we tend to increase positive emotions and decrease negative emotions. It takes practice to be mindful and to maintain it.
Originally, “mindfulness” derives from Buddhist psychology as a mental state that we can use to control daily life experiences. More recently, it has become a significant aspect of medical training in America. At least two major medical training institutions have specific programs:
- Center for Mindfulness at the University of Massachusetts Medical School
- Duke Integrative Medicine
Programs designed to teach mindfulness methods are frequently called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBST). A growing number of curriculum builders for public schools are creating MBST programs for children, especially for under-performing children.