Organizational Dynamics (2018) 47, 124—134

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Building resilience in the workforce

Raphaelle Koerber, Michael Rouse, Kyle Stanyar,
Marie-Hélène Pelletier

Contents

Defining stress . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Defining resilience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Resources for resilience and associated organizational strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Social Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Employee Training Approaches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Relaxation Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Physical Fitness and Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Life Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Coping with work-related stressors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Coping with personal financial stressors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Cognitive Behavioral Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Traditional Cognitive-Behavioral Training. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Acceptance and Commitment Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Stressor-specific company protocols. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Critical Incident Stress Management Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Downsizing Protocol . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
Selected bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133

The impacts of workforce stress are well known. Yet, while
stress can be harmful, our ability to persist in the pursuit of
meaningful goals despite anxiety, worry and stress is part of
what makes us human. How then, can organizations
challenge employees to meet meaningful goals, while buf-
fering them against the negative impacts of stress? By study-
ing resilient individuals, the field of positive psychology has
found some answers.
As a female executive entering a consumer electronics
corporation traditionally led by men, Liz Shaw (named
changed to protect anonymity) faced challenges. Female
colleagues warned that women just did not fit in and male
executives would ignore her while shaking hands with the
men who reported to her. When she tried to create a leader-
ship forum for women within the company, she was taunted,
excluded from company social events, and had her car
keyed. Research suggests that minorities in the workforce
(e.g. women) can experience additional stress. However,
burnout, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and survivor
syndrome, among other stress-related challenges impact a
variety of workers across a range of industries. In the face of
significant stressors, some workers lose motivation, become
cynical and demonstrate decreases in performance, while
others, like Liz Shaw, persevere, adapt and recover.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.orgdyn.2017.08.002
0090-2616/© 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Building resilience in the workforce
In the case of Shaw, her organization’s CEO helped make
resilience possible. When Shaw approached him about devel-
oping a leadership forum for women, he surprised her by
providing the social support and decision latitude she needed
to get the forum running, and importantly, ignore the hec-
toring from coworkers. This act had consequences on
employees’ resilience across the organization. Her program
reduced female employees’ voluntary-turnover rates and
increased job-satisfaction scores. This saved the organiza-
tion 5 million dollars in training and recruitment costs. Shaw
eventually led initiatives that increased the company’s share
of the 90 billion dollar purchasing power of women in the
consumer electronics market.
In 2013, the Canadian Standards Association, in associa-
tion with its Quebecois sister organization the BNC (Bureau
de normalization du Quebec), released the ‘Psychological
health and safety in the workplace standard’. The first of its
kind, this standard provides a comprehensive strategy for
building mentally healthy and resilient workforces.
After describing and defining resilience, this article will
tie in selected recommendations from the standard with
current research to describe the foundations of workforce
stress and resilience, as well as practical ways to build a
workforce capable of recovering from and adapting to the
demands of this new millennium.
As evident in measures of social-health and wellbeing, the
current workforce faces greater challenges than those
experienced by their parents. The American Institute for
Innovation in Social Policy tracks 15 indicators (e.g., homi-
cides, food insecurity, high-school dropouts) and reports
them as a composite measure. It has tracked a 20% decline
in wellbeing since the 1970s. This decrease in wellbeing has
paralleled social changes. Research has associated growing
inequality and the de-industrialization of developed econo-
mies, to stagnating inflation-adjusted wages for the middle
class, and lower wages for both the working class and new
college graduates. Moreover, companies have been forced to
downsize and ‘rightsize’, causing employees to report more
worries about being laid off despite objectively lower unem-
ployment rates. This distress impacts employers’ bottom
line. Fears around layoffs are linked with higher levels of
employee illness and injuries. Studies have shown that large
layoffs are often followed by increased levels of employee
absenteeism. Importantly, factors that can buffer workers
against the impacts of stress, such as work-life balance,
physical fitness and a rainy-day savings account, are harder
to find. ‘Work extensification’, the blurring lines between
the office and home, has accompanied technological
advances. North Americans are now more than twice as
likely to be obese and in addition experience higher levels
of debt and lower levels of private savings than in the 1970s.
These personal challenges add to workplace stressors. Polls
from the Pew Research Center and Statistics Canada have
shown that 40% of American workers, and 27% of Canadians
have reported that their job is either very or extremely
stressful.
DEFINING STRESS
Stress and discussions about stress are common in organiza-
tions, but what is stress? As Hans Selye once told a reporter,
125
“Everyone knows what stress is, but nobody really knows”.
Here, we provide a brief refresher on the antecedents and
nature of stress, as outlined by the Theory of Cognitive
Appraisal, the Yerkes-Dodson Law, and the General Adapta-
tion Syndrome.
According to Richard Lazarus’ Theory of Cognitive Apprai-
sal, an event causes varying levels of stress depending on the
experiencer’s appraisal of both how threatening the event is,
and his or her perceived ability to deal with that threat.
Applied to the workplace, a worker who is given a new
assignment may either feel focused by the challenge or
overwhelmed with stress depending on (1) whether the
individual sees the assignment as routine, or as a last chance
to demonstrate competence (threat appraisal) and (2) the
employee’s perception of having enough time and training to
manage the assignment successfully (resource appraisal).
The outcome of this appraisal is then experienced physio-
logically and psychologically.
Physiologically, an individual under stress experiences
autonomic arousal of the sympathetic nervous system. At
high levels, this leads to dilated pupils, dry mouth, and
racing heart that we associate with fear. Over long periods
of time, this suppresses the immune system. Psychologically,
depending on their level of stress, individuals can experience
either anxiety, or a satisfying mid-level state of arousal
sometimes called ‘flow’. This relationship between stress
or arousal level and performance creates an inverted U-
shaped curve first identified by Yerkes and Dodson in 1908,
and now known as the Yerkes-Dodson Law. Shown in Fig. 1,
this relationship holds that stressors can be positive when
they fall within a person’s ability to cope with them. It is
important to note, however, that a person’s resources and
ability to cope change with time. As described by Hans
Selye’s ‘General Adaptation Syndrome’, and Theo Meijman
and Gijsbertus Mulder’s Effort-Recovery model, chronic
stressors and nonstop work depletes resources, eventually
leading to exhaustion and negative affect if the stress is not
relieved.
Based on these models, and an overview of the litera-
ture’s definitions of stress (summarized in Table 1), we
define the process of stress as follows:
Figure 1 Yerkes-Dodson Inverted U-shaped Relationship Be-
tween Stress and Performance (Yerkes and Dodson, 1908)
 126
Table 1 Defining Stress

Domain Author How construct explained

External stressors
Perception of demands
overwhelming resources
Biological response
Psychological experience
Biological response and psychological
experience
Freses, 1985 Uncertainty in the job (such as ambiguities and conflicts), organizational problems (e.g., not getting
material) environmental stress (e.g. noise), danger of accidents, and intensity (i.e. speed of work).
Bascovich, Mendes, Hunter, “Challenge occurs when the individual experiences sufficient resources to meet situational demands.
Salomon, 1999 Threat occurs when the individual experiences insufficient resources to meet demands.”
World Health Organization, 2016 “Work-related stress is the response people may have when presented with work demands and
pressures that are not matched to their knowledge and abilities and which challenge their ability to
cope.”
Different from pressure, which is “unavoidable due to demands of the contemporary work
environment . . . ” and
“perceived as acceptable by an individual” and “may even keep workers alert, motivated, able to
work and learn.”
Stokes & Kite, 2001 “The result of a mismatch between individuals’ perception of the demands of the task or situation and
their perceptions of the resources for coping with them.”
Staal, 2004 “The interaction between three perceptions: a demand, an ability to cope with that demand, and the
importance of being able to cope (McGrath, 1976).”
Selye, 1973 “The nonspecific response of the body to any demand made upon it.”
Shin & Liberzon, 2010 Activation of the limbic-hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis (LHPA) and secretion of stress hormones
such as corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH), adrenocorticotropic hormones, and cortisol.
Merriam Webster, 2016 “A worried or nervous feeling that stops you from relaxing, caused, for example, by pressure at work or
financial or personal problems/”
Diamond, 2005 “Nonlinear (inverted-U) shaped relationship between arousal and performance.”
APA, 2014 “The pattern of specific and nonspecific responses an organism makes to stimulus events that disturb
its equilibrium and tax or exceed its ability to cope.”

R. Koerber et al.
Building resilience in the workforce 127

External stressors — when perceived to be greater than

the resources needed to cope with them — create a
biological response and psychological experience that
at high levels, or over extended periods, can impair
performance and reduce wellbeing.
This definition highlights the important role that
resources play in buffering an employee against stress and
building resilience.
DEFINING RESILIENCE
Resilience, too, needs to be clearly defined. An overview of
resilience, as defined in the literature, is provided in
Table 2. This table shows that definitions of resilience always
include a reference to some sort of stressor to which resi-
lience is the response. The act of resilience, in turn, is
described as perseverance, that is, the ability to recover,
adapt or both. We draw these definitions together to define
resilience as follows:
The capacity for perseverance that leads to recovering
from or adapting to major stressors.
RESOURCES FOR RESILIENCE AND
ASSOCIATED ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGIES
The definitions of both stress and resilience indicate that
stressors do not directly harm individuals. Rather, the effects
of stressors are mediated by levels of internal and external
resources. The Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model, devel-
oped by Evangelia Demerouti and her colleagues, is outlined
in Fig. 2 and illustrates this relationship within the work-
force. According to the model, job demands (or stressors)
exhaust an employee’s physical and emotional resources. On
their own, they can lead to burnout, poor health, and
impaired performance. However, demands do not exist in
a vacuum. Job resources (e.g., social support, decision
latitude, and opportunities for recovery) not only motivate
employees and improve their performance, but buffer them
against the negative impact of job demands. The perfor-
mance and well-being of employees who are facing severe
demands can be protected through access to sufficient
resources and training. Resources, both internal and exter-
nal, create resilience.

Table 2 Defining Resilience

Domain Author How construct explained

Persevere Waite & Richardson, 2003
Abbott et al., 2009
Recover Luthans, 2002 p.702
Macmillan Dictionary, 2012
Alliger, Cerasoli, Tannenbaum &
Vessey, 2015
Adapt Masten, 2001
Gardner and Schermoerhorn, 2004 “A dynamic process of positive adaptation that takes place despite
Wilson & Ferch, 2005 p. 42
Cooke, Cooper, Bartram & Wang, “One’s ability to adapt effectively in the face of severe adversity in
Mei, 2016
Recover and adapt Burton et al., 2010
Sood et al., 2011
McCraty & Atkinson, 2012
Merriam-Webster, 2012
Sherlock-Storey et al., 2013
Pidgeon et al., 2014
“A force within everyone that drives them to seek self-actualization,
altruism, and be in harmony with a spiritual source of strength.”
“A person’s ability to persevere in the face of challenges, setbacks
and conflicts.”
“The developable capacity to rebound or bounce back from adversity,
conflict, and failure or even positive events, progress and increased
responsibility.”
“Someone’s ability to become healthy, happy, or strong again after an
illness, disappointment, or other problem.”
“Able to recover from severe stress relatively quickly and
completely.”
“Good outcomes in spite of serious threats to adaptation or
development.”
significant adversity.”
“Resilience refers to the psychological ability to let go of old internal
structures of thinking and behaving to create and reintegrate new
structures that provide as a more mature sense of coherence.”
which it allows for the restoration of equilibrium.”
“The capacity of people to effectively cope with, adjust or recover
from stress and adversity.”
“The ability of an individual to withstand adversity.”
“The capacity to prepare for, recover from, and adapt to stress,
adversity, trauma or tragedy.”
“An ability to recover or adjust easily to misfortune or change.”
“When beset by problems and adversity sustaining and bouncing back
and even beyond to attain success.”
“Competence to cope and adapt in the face of adversity and to
bounce back when stressors become overwhelming.”
128
Figure 2 Job Demands and Resources Model of Work Engagement (Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner, & Schaufeli, 2001)
Think of someone you respect for having managed severe
demands in the workforce. Did they have support from key
coworkers or managers? Did they have adequate control
(both objectively and perceptually) over the job demands
placed on them? These factors — social support and control —
are among the most important resources to support
resilience.
Social Support
It is intuitive that people who enjoy good relationships with
coworkers and managers are better off, but why is this? The
benefits of social support can be understood through four
categories: emotional, instrumental, informational and
appraisal support. To illustrate, after experiencing a frigh-
tening near miss with a workplace injury, an assembly line
worker receives a variety of social resources. She receives
emotional support over lunch when coworkers intentionally
tell jokes to make her laugh. In the days following the event,
she gains instrumental support when a coworker, noticing
that she flinches when coming in contact with the machine,
offers to switch tasks with her. Through informational sup-
port from a manager, she learns what went wrong with the
machinery and how it will be prevented from happening
again. Appraisal support comes when, after discussing the
incident with her, her direct manager articulates a new goal:
to win the company’s “safest team” award. This allows her
and her team to see the situation as a frightening event, yet
also a turning point. Through emotional, instrumental, infor-
mational, and appraisal support, positive relationships pro-
tect this worker against the negative effects of stressors.
Research over the past 20 years confirms the importance
of these kinds of support, with instrumental support being
particularly key in buffering performance from the impact of
stress. However, there is an important caveat. Social sup-
port, particularly instrumental support, can increase stress
levels when unwelcomed. Our fictitious factory worker
appreciated a friend taking over her roles in the days follow-
ing the incident, but if this had continued, she may have
experienced the help as intrusive. ‘Imposed’ support leads to
employee stress because it takes away the worker’s ability to
control his or her own tasks.
R. Koerber et al.
Control
Since the 1970’s, an employee’s decision latitude, or level of
control over tasks and stressors, has been recognized as a
protective factor against stress. Both objective decision
latitude and perceived control (i.e., an internal locus of
control) matter. The perception of control is expressed in
three forms of psychological capital that have been outlined
by Fred Luthans. The first is self-efficacy, one’s confidence in
his or her ability to persevere and succeed in performing a
task. The second is optimism, an expectation of good out-
comes. The third is hope, expressed in the act of persevering
towards success and developing plans to overcome chal-
lenges along the way. In each form, psychological capital
reflects an individual’s belief that he or she has enough
control over him or herself and his or her environment to
attain important goals. The final element of psychological
capital is resilience.
A high sense of internal control builds resilience. For
example, long work hours are associated with higher levels
of illness. Yet, a series of studies found that when workers
have control over where and when they perform these hours,
they show a range of mental and physical benefits
(i.e., lower blood pressure and heart rate, better mental
health, sleep quality, energy levels, a stronger sense of
community). In a similar vein, creating a predictable envir-
onment also improves employee health and wellbeing.
For example, in 2009 Lawson, Noblet and Rodwell found
that perceptions of organizational justice among workers in
Australia were significantly linked with their job satisfac-
tion. Findings from other studies support the provision of
both regular performance feedback, and clear explanations
for the presence of stressors.
Recovery
Hans Selye’s General Adaptation Syndrome contains three
stages of stress response: alarm, resistance, and recovery, or
if recovery is not possible, exhaustion. To demonstrate, one
study showed that demands and stressors actually increase
workers’ absorption and dedication (resistance) throughout
Building resilience in the workforce
the day, but only for those employees who were fully recov-
ered at the start of their shifts. Adequate recovery starts
with not only encouraging workers to take paid time off
(vacations, evenings, weekends and lunch hours), but
encouraging them to use these breaks for recovery. Speci-
fically, workers recover more successfully when time is spent
on relaxing activities (e.g., reading), mastery experiences
(e.g., learning new skills), socializing, and doing volunteer
work. In other words, activities that allow them to psycho-
logically detach from their work. Thinking about work-
related projects over lunch and checking emails after hours
can be counterproductive.
We make a special note here on the importance of sleep
and its role in recovery and overall health. Across the
population, those with the highest levels of personal and
professional demands report fewer hours of sleep. A series of
empirical studies have that those who sleep for less than six
hours each night are at a greater risk of developing metabolic
problems (i.e., high waist circumference, high blood pres-
sure, and diabetes). Given the sleep disruptions faced by
shift workers, special care should be taken to promote sleep
hygiene in this population.
To summarize, resilience is built on the basis of resources.
These resources take the form of social support that meets
workers’ emotional, instrumental, appraisal and informa-
tional needs, as well as the sense of control that comes from
both psychological capital and decision latitude, as well as,
adequate opportunities for recovery. In Tables 3 and 4 we
outline practical suggestions for using social support, and
control to build employees’ resilience.
EMPLOYEE TRAINING APPROACHES
In the last decade, a greater emphasis has been placed on
managing employee stress through organization-level
changes that increase such resources as control and social
support. However, workplaces have more traditionally aimed
resilience building programs targeted at employees directly
through training in stress management. These training semi-
nars and workshops have had some success. Thus in the next
few pages we provide an overview of best practices in stress
management training, and discuss the outcomes that can be
anticipated from these interventions. Specifically, we dis-
cuss training in relaxation techniques, life skills, and cogni-
tive appraisals.
Relaxation Techniques
Based on the premise that an anxious mind cannot exist
in a relaxed body, traditional stress management training
has included breathing exercises and progressive-muscle-
Figure 3 Progressive Muscle Relaxation (Bernstein, 1979) Instructions: (1) Tense Hands and Arms, (2) Hold for 5—7 s before
Releasing, (3) Take 3—5 Deep Breaths, (4) Repeat for Additional Muscle groups
129
Table 3 Strategies for Promoting Employees’ Social Sup-
port
1. Recognize and demonstrate appreciation for good work
2. Intentionally build positive relationships with marginalized
employees (e.g. workers with disabilities) to increase their
acceptance among coworkers
3. Honor a psychological contract in which social support and
career development resources are given in exchange for
organizational commitment and positive socialization
4. Respond to employees who demonstrate a personality change
and other symptoms of stress with a graded support protocol
5. Take an uncompromising stand for employee’s right to be
respected at work
Table 4 Strategies for Promoting Employees’ Control
1. Assess job demands relative to decision latitude and under-
takes job redesign after identifying situations in which
employees have not been given the authority they need to
do their jobs
2. Encourage workers to talk to supervisors about how work is
done; consider their opinions
3. Tell workers beforehand when changes are being made to how
work is done (e.g., need for more overtime)
4. When possible, give employees the option to work flex hours,
compressed work weeks, or from home
relaxation (see Fig. 3). A more involved relaxation training
method termed biofeedback, involves measuring a person’s
symptoms of sympathetic arousal (i.e., heart rate, sweat on
the skin, blood flow to the brain), and presenting these
metrics to the user in real time, as the participant learns
to control these physiological symptoms of stress. Through
biofeedback, users learn to decrease their heart rate, blood
pressure and stress hormone levels, and, in the long run,
learn how to lower levels of depression and negative emo-
tions. However, relaxation techniques are more effective in
tandem with other interventions. In a relaxation-training
guide manual for mental health professionals, Douglas Bern-
stein and colleagues warned that “relaxation training is not a
panacea and should not be presented as such to clients”.
Empirical evaluations of the effectiveness of relaxation
training exercises have had mixed outcomes in the work-
force. However, there is one ‘relaxation technique’ that is
highly effective: exercise.
130
Physical Fitness and Exercise
Participants in workplace physical fitness programs demon-
strate greater resilience against mental and physical fatigue,
and increased performance. For example, employees who
use their companies’ fitness centre are more likely to work
the required number of hours and begin work as soon as they
arrive. The mechanism by which physical fitness contributes
to resilience is not fully understood, but a number of factors
contribute. First, physical resources deplete more quickly in
individuals with lower levels of physical fitness, pushing
them into the exhaustion phase of the stress response.
Second, our bodies control our physiological stress response
through vagal tone. Vagal tone is the nervous system’s ability
to return the body to a resting state, allowing for a faster
recovery from the physiological stress response. Exercise can
also strengthen vagal tone, highlighting the link between
exercise and stress-response recovery. Finally, the benefits
of exercise appear to be mediated by long term changes in
the opioid system of the brain that suppresses the stress
response and improves mood. Employers can nudge employ-
ees towards increasing their physical activity level through
various strategies. Suggestions from the Harvard School of
Public Health Obesity Prevention Source website are pro-
vided in Table 5.
Life Skills
Coping with work-related stressors
While training in emotion-focused coping (i.e., relaxation
techniques) can give participants control over their phy-
siological responses to stress, it does not give them control
over the actual stressors. A series of studies have shown
that behaviorally oriented stress-management programs
are more effective than those that teach traditional relaxa-
tion techniques (physical exercise not included). Workload
and interpersonal issues have been identified as the two
largest job stressors. This finding led to the development
of interventions that target an employee’s skills in time
management, goal setting, delegation, negotiation and
confrontation.
The results of this style of training, while inherently
difficult to measure, have shown promise. A large longitu-
dinal study of time management training across different
workforces was associated with improvements in the parti-
cipants’ ability to plan and prioritize, and importantly, lower
levels of stress. This successful intervention was based on
Steven Covey’s ‘First Things First’ approach to time manage-
ment, wherein employees sort their daily activities into four
Table 5 Strategies for Promoting Physical Activity
1. Make physical activities facilities available on the work site (e.
g. a gym or walking paths)
2. Facilitate participation in physical activity through flexible
work times or fitness breaks
3. Encourage employees to take the stairs by making them safe,
easy to find and attractive
4. Provide facilities that make it easier for employees to walk or
cycle to work (e.g. bicycle storage and showers)
R. Koerber et al.
quadrants, based on task urgency and importance, and learn
to delegate and dump unimportant tasks while managing and
focusing on important ones. In a similar vein, helping
employees clarify and focus on their goals through training
in goal-setting has been linked with increases in both
employee self-efficacy and effectiveness. To address stress
related to a second major stressor, namely interpersonal
issues, a negotiation and conflict training program, based on
books by widely recognized negotiators, has also been linked
to improvements in conflict management.
Given that many of these interventions are book-based,
employees may benefit from access to an employee library
that includes these resources. Research shows that self-
study (termed bibliotherapy) can lead to benefits that while
not as pronounced as those found in face-to-face training
and therapy, are more cost-effective.
An additional tool deserves mention: emotional intelli-
gence training. In 1997, Reuven Bar-On defined emotional
intelligence (EI) as “an array of non-cognitive capabilities,
competencies and skills that influence one’s ability to suc-
ceed in coping with environmental demands and pressures”.
EI not only directly predicts one’s ability to manage stress,
but for emotionally intelligent managers, predicts the
improved wellbeing and performance of their subordinates.
EI tends to improve with age and can be taught, as supported
by more than a decade of research linking organizational EI
training with not only higher scores on measures of social and
emotional competence, but with such secondary benefits as
higher morale, workplace civility, and decreased distress.
Coping with personal financial stressors
Employees may also benefit from building resilience against
personal challenges. Over the past generation, the ratio of
personal debt to savings has bulged. Workers with high levels
of debt are vulnerable to personal financial crises, poorer
self-rated physical and mental health, as well as higher rates
of drug abuse, obesity and suicide.
Given the potential for protecting employees against
financial hardship, companies and communities have pro-
vided financial training programs. Research shows that these
programs are more effective when they focus on specific
outcomes (e.g., managing a mortgage or increasing contri-
butions to a savings account). Table 6 outlines ways that
Table 6 Strategies for Increasing Employee Financial
Health
1. Default employee savings plans
2. Specific and goal oriented financial training and counselling at
key milestones: hiring, promotion, birth of a child, developing
a disability, job loss, retirement
3. Employee assistance programs for employees facing financial
crises
4. Financial literacy training (lunch and learns, gamification,
individual counselling)
5. Drawing on national financial literacy websites as resources
a. Canada: http://www.fcac-acfc.gc.ca/Eng/resources/
Pages/FLRDSAT-OAEBDRLF.aspx
b. United Kingdom: moneymadeclear.org.uk
c. USA: http://www.mymoney.gov/Pages/default.aspx
Building resilience in the workforce 131

Table 7 Automatic Negative Thoughts

Type of thought pattern Example

Overgeneralizing - ‘I lost a sale, I never do things right’

Filtering - ‘The principal said she liked how I interact with students, but isn’t happy with my lesson plans, she must
think I’m a bad teacher’

All-or-nothing thinking - ‘I’m not going to get this report in without at least some mistakes, so I might as well give up’

Personalizing - ‘The patient died during my shift, it’s completely my fault’

Catastrophizing - ‘If I mess up this presentation, I’m going to get fired’

Emotional reasoning - ‘I feel angry with my assistant, so she deserves to be yelled at’

Mind reading - ‘I can tell she doesn’t want me working on her team’

Fortune telling - ‘I’m making so many mistakes, I’ll always be a bad lab tech’

Should statements - ‘I should never ask questions, it will make me look stupid’

Magnification/minimization- ‘John wasn’t wearing his earplugs properly. He clearly doesn’t respect the safety rules!’

organizations can help their employees become more finan-
cially stable.
Cognitive Behavioral Training
In a study comparing the effectiveness of training in relaxa-
tion techniques, important life skills, and cognitive apprai-
sals, the cognitive appraisal approach was shown to be the
most effective. Organizations looking to invest in stress-
management training workshops should look for programs
based in either Cognitive-Behavioral approaches or Accep-
tance and Commitment Training.
Traditional Cognitive-Behavioral Training
Traditional Cognitive-Behavioral training, developed in the
second half of the 20th century by Aaron Beck and Albert
Ellis, addresses the way that workers perceive potential
stressors in their environment. This is done by teaching them
to identify automatic negative thoughts and then challenge
them. Examples are identified in Tables 7 and 8.
Acceptance and Commitment Training
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, pioneered by
Steven Hayes, is considered a next generation of Cognitive
Behavioral Therapy. In the workforce, where it is termed

Table 8 Strategies for Challenging Negative Thoughts

Strategy Challenging questions

Reality testing - What evidence supports my thinking? What evidence counters it?
- Am I jumping to negative conclusions?
- How can I find out if my thoughts are actually true?

Looking for alternative explanations- Are there any other ways that I could look at this situation?
- What else could this mean?
- If I were being positive, how would I perceive this situation?

Putting it in perspective - What is the best thing that could happen?

- Is there anything good about this situation?
- Will this matter in five years?

Using goal-directed thinking - Is this way of thinking helping me to achieve my goals?

- How can I start solving this problem?
- Is there something I can learn from this situation, to help me do better next time?
132
“Acceptance and Commitment Training”, it has successfully
increased psychological flexibility, a key trait in resilience.
People with psychological flexibility do three things well.
First, they are more mindful, in that they are aware of their
present environment. Second, they are capable of observing
their mind work rather than becoming ‘lost in their
thoughts’. This allows them to select and act on thoughts
that are helpful, and avoid being swept away by those that
are not. Third, psychologically flexible workers focus on
their values. Hence, they choose actions and thoughts that
move them towards these values. Consequently, they are in
control of their minds rather than the other way around.
Evaluations of Acceptance and Commitment Training pro-
grams have demonstrated that this intervention increases
psychological flexibility. Participants demonstrate an
improved ability to learn and implement new skills, greater
psychological health, a greater propensity to suggest stress-
reducing strategies for the worksite, as well as lower levels
of general stress and emotional exhaustion.
STRESSOR-SPECIFIC COMPANY PROTOCOLS
By providing employees with personal and environmental
resources, the strategies outlined thus far improve employ-
ees’ baseline resilience. More targeted strategies can be
used to support resilience in the face of even more acute
stressors.
Critical Incident Stress Management Protocol
Lim, Childs and Gonsalves defined a critical incident as “a
situation faced by an employee causing the individual to
experience unusually strong emotional reactions”. Research
has suggested that critical incident stress management pro-
tocols increase recovery rates. These protocols are multi-
step processes implemented both before and after traumatic
events. The protocol is facilitated by a trained individual.
Members from within an organization can be trained through
the International Critical Incident Stress Management Foun-
dation. In organizations where this is not practical, trained
facilitators can be identified beforehand by contacting local
first responder units (e.g. police stations).
Downsizing Protocol
Downsizing is a typical critical event. In an increasingly
dynamic market, downsizing may improve organizational
competitiveness. Unfortunately, it can also impact employ-
ees’ sense of control, particularly if they had expected
employers to honor a psychological contract, where an
employees’ commitment to the job is reciprocated with
job security. The dangers of downsizing for organizations
R. Koerber et al.
is that job instability decreases employees’ performance and
organizational citizenship behavior, it increases absenteeism
and voluntary turnover intentions. These effects can often
linger in the form of survivor syndrome long after the layoffs
have been made. How then can employees become resilient
to the realities of downsizing?
Appelbaum and Donia suggest the ‘Realistic Downsizing
Preview’. This downsizing protocol is based on the impor-
tance of predictability and the assumption that accurate
information provided beforehand can “inoculate” workers
against impending stressors. The Realistic Downsizing Pre-
view model includes 16 recommendations. To summarize
them: (1) downsize over a short period of time using con-
sistent rules to identify excess positions, (2) provide tools for
career self-management, articulating a new psychological
construct where careers are self-managed, with support
from the current employer, (3) over communicate informa-
tion about the downsizing, beginning as soon as possible and
giving terminated employees as much advance notice as
possible, and (4) removing redundant tasks from remaining
employees’ workloads. A full outline of this model is avail-
able in Appelbaum and Donai’s paper, listed in the suggested
readings below.
SUMMARY
High performance organizations create a psychological
environment that buffers stress while increasing employee
resilience. Resilience is the capacity for perseverance that
leads to recovering from or adapting to major stressors.
Stress cannot be entirely avoided but it can be managed,
and even have a positive impact. Resilience can be built
through the recommendations in Canada’s ‘Psychological
health and safety in the workplace’ standard, a number of
which are touched on in this article. At an organizational
level, policies can promote social support, bolster employ-
ees’ decision latitude, and protect opportunities for recov-
ery. At an employee level, training programs on relaxation,
coping with life’s personal and professional challenges, and
emotional regulation, can provide employees with the per-
sonal resources they need to manage stress. Finally, stressor-
specific protocols can maintain workforce resilience through
major challenges such as downsizing and critical incidents.
Ann Masten described resilience as an ‘ordinary magic’; by
providing employees with sufficient resources in the face of
stress, organizations can watch it work.
FUNDING
This work was supported by a grant from the Ivey Interna-
tional Centre for Health Innovation, Ivey Business School,
Western University, London, Ontario, Canada.
Building resilience in the workforce 133

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY
For a concise review of stress in the workplace, including the
General Adaptation Syndrome and symptoms of stress, see
Von Onciul, J. (1996). ABCs of work related disorders. Stress
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The Canadian Mental Health Commission (2013) Psycho-
logical health and safety in the workplace-Prevention, pro-
motion, and guidance to staged implementation. Toronto:
Canadian Standards Association, is an excellent resource for
organizations seeking to evaluate and implement policies
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Organizations wishing to learn more about specific stress-
management strategies may find the following readings to be
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497 provides a helpful overview of the elements of the
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26(1—2), 25—54.

Raphaelle Koerber Ph.D. candidate in Hearing Sciences, University of Western Ontario Raphaelle Koerber is a
PhD candidate at the University of Western Ontario. With a background in emotional intelligence research, she
studies the intersection between disability and employee performance. Specifically, Raphaelle looks at how the
aging workforce copes with the onset of hearing challenges, and how interventions can support their resilience. In
partnership with Sun Life Financial, Raphaelle is implementing an online aural rehabilitation program for
nurses. (Western University, Elborn College, Room 2236, 1201 Western Rd., London, Ontario N6G 1H1, Canada.
Email: rkoerber@uwo.ca).
134 R. Koerber et al.

Michael Rouse Ph.D., associate professor, Ivey Business School at Western University Dr. Michael Rouse is the
principal investigator of the Sun Life-Ivey Canadian Wellness study. Michael’s research is published in prestigious
journals such as: Strategic Management Journal, Management Learning, Journal of Occupational and Environ-
mental Medicine and the Journal of Public Health Policy. (Western University, 1201 Western Rd., London, Ontario
N6G 1H1, Canada; Ivey Business School, Western University, 1255 Western Rd., London, Ontario N6G 0N1,
Canada).

Kyle Stanyar Ph.D., Senior Organizational Consultant, Mental Health, Integrated Health Solutions, Sun Life
Financial Kyle holds a Ph.D. in Industrial-Organizational Psychology and a Certificate in Occupational Health
Psychology from Clemson University. He is well-versed in the development, design, implementation and
evaluation of occupational health and wellness programs. As a Senior Organizational Consultant in Mental
Health, Kyle contributes to the mental health consulting model and Sun Life’s Workplace Mental Health Risk
Assessment and consulting services, providing an integrated perspective. (Sun Life Financial, 225 King Street
West, 6th Floor, Toronto, Ontario M5V 3M2, Canada).

Marie-Hélène Pelletier Ph.D., Assistant Vice-President, Workplace Mental Health, Sun Life Financial As Assistant
Vice-President Workplace Mental Health at Sun Life Financial, Marie-Hélène oversees the organization’s mental
health strategy for its Canadian group clients. She also oversees the financial health pillar of the company’s
Integrated Health Solutions mandate. She holds a Ph.D. in counseling psychology from UBC and an MBA from the
UBC Sauder School of Business. With her unique background in both psychology and business, she continues to
evolve business and human resources strategies to critical new areas — most recently to the integration of
financial, physical and mental health. (Sun Life Financial, 225 King Street West, 6th Floor, Toronto, Ontario M5V
3M2, Canada).