A RESILIENCE TRAINING MODEL FOR PROACTIVE EMPLOYEE ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS

Transcription

1 A RESILIENCE TRAINING MODEL FOR PROACTIVE EMPLOYEE ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS Some EAP history: How we develop and maintain effective Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) is shaped as much by the motivations of those who refer employees to EAPs, as by those who use them. When an EAP is viewed as something there to be used by the workforce, and especially when nudged by supervisors to do so, we are engaging a hierarchal model of management and related leverage points; we are moving people toward a particular treatment modality or some form of self-help. There is good reason to believe, the long standing hierarchical model is fast eroding, regardless of lingering desires to retain it as a favored management mode. Let s look ahead. There is a remarkable change taking place throughout corporate America. Looking beyond participative management trends in the workplace, it may also be important to conceptualize the workforce in the context of people being manager of their own human capital. In other words, we may indeed be entering an era when job security is a meaningless idea, where careers have no boundaries, and where success requires repeated re-invention and re-training of oneself. This suggests, on the plus side, new autonomy and independence. It also suggests that maybe employees themselves are the most accurate diagnosticians when they are in trouble, but only now are they emerging as the masters and mistresses of their own destinies. 1 Newt Gingrich takes the logic to its proper conclusion in his provocative book on transforming health and healthcare, Individual self-awareness and self-management is the greatest need in healthcare today. 2 Research on EAP utilization indicates clear interest by employees in these services. Dr. Roman further reports, EAP utilization is directly affected by educating supervisors and the workforce about the program and what it can offer. He then states, The data clearly indicate a steady increase in EAP presence over the past decade. In one study employees were asked the question, Would you use the EAP in your organization for yourself or for a member of your family? Summarizing the data, Dr. Roman reports, And again, we re talking about probably 2,500 different workplaces represented in the data set. Nearly half of the respondents show a strong readiness to use the EAP. 1 Paul M. Roman, Ph.D., 1/4/99, University of Georgia Center for Research in Deviance and Behavioral Health and Behavioral Health Institute for Behavioral Research 2 Newt Gingrich, with Dana Pavey and Anne Woodbury, Saving Lives & Saving Money, Gingrich Communications, Inc., 2003

2 A New Approach to Employee Assistance Programs: The vast majority of American workers are ordinary people with ordinary problems. This is to say, they are stressed, overburdened at home and at work, inclined to use various forms of pharmaceuticals to resolve personal problems, feel un-empowered and disconnected from their jobs, their communities and, very often from their own families. Given the situation, EAPs are now faced with a new and significant business opportunity. Successful EAPs will move beyond the historical managed care model, toward more proactive models of assistance, integrating the desire people have to manage their own lives, especially when offered thoughtful help along the way. The hierarchical management approach favors development of EAPs designed by management and/or vendors of EAP services. These EAPs are typically focused on the obvious concerns of alcoholism, depression, anxiety and so forth. The problem with this downstream approach is how it fails to address core upstream issues. Learning how to cope successfully with personal concerns goes directly to the core of the issue and to the solution. This is where employee resilience training enters the scene. Developing a more resilient workforce is an upstream intervention facilitating workers desires for enhanced self-reliant, self-managing capabilities. In Dr. Roman s words, they are managing their own human capital. After all, isn t self-interest the most profound driver of the majority of human endeavors? Resilience training based on the 4-Core Competencies of In The Zone performers: American Network Services has been involved in the development and implementation of human development programs for more than three decades. During these years, we have focused on the power of education and the learning of basic performance skills that apply equally well whether you are a professional athlete, executive or an employee. We teach employee resilience based on the 4 Core Competencies of In The Zone performers (i.e., relaxation, balance, flexibility and focus). Our training deals directly with the learning of coping skills, with employee s ability to bounce back, regardless of the severity of the challenge or set back. Our theatre of action is the everyday world of ordinary people seeking success in an ever changing, challenging world. Dr. Roman suggests an emerging autonomy and independence in workers. He goes a giant step further in suggesting employees may themselves be the most accurate diagnosticians when they are in trouble. He also documents how half of the workforce studied expressed a strong readiness to use EAPs when available, and will do so more often when employers take the time to educate employees of their intent and availability.

3 The Personal Change Indicator (PCI) employee psychological self-assessment tool: We take the words of Dr. Roman seriously. We believe employees are indeed in the best position to diagnose their problem, especially when they have a measurement tool helping them to do so. The Personal Change Indicator (PCI) was developed by Dr. Ray Mulry, Clinical and Sport Psychologist, and specialist in the development of psychological assessment tools. The PCI was developed specifically to help individuals find their particular focus of concern, so they can then resolve that concern in an efficient, timely and strategic manner. The PCI thus surfaces what matters most to employees, making self-management of their personal concerns more possible. Dr. Mulry further assumed, employees confronted with the reality of their most important concerns may not know how to best proceed to resolve the problem. They may need a form of coaching or counseling depending on the complexity of their concern. In the formulation of a focused action plan, individuals often need and benefit from external forms of assistance. Such assistance need not be that of expensive and time consuming psychotherapy or counseling. It can be as simple as brief focusing interactions with coaches who know how to listen and keep employees focused on their dominant concerns and how they, themselves, may resolve these concerns. The first step, when developing an Employee Resilience Program, is implementation of an employee self-assessment procedure, facilitating focus on employees actual concerns versus management or EAP vendors predictions. In the words of Dr. Roman, the logic of the EAP vendor goes something like this: I ll tell you what you want, and then I ll sell you what you want. And, I ll stay here long enough and I ll figure out what you want so I can sell it to you instead of somebody else selling it to you. Through systematic inquiry we can discover those EAP issues most important to employees so well stated in Six Sigma Credo: We don't know what we don't know. We can't act on what we don't know. We won't know until we search. We won't search for what we don't question. We don't question what we don't measure. The second step is to introduce The Natural Athlete in YOU! employee resilience training program, focused on acquisition of the 4-Core Competencies of In The Zone performers. In so doing, employees acquire basic coping skills and greater personal effectiveness as they embark on a self-directed course of conflict resolution. The Natural Athlete in YOU! EAP employee resilience training program: When management is clear employee resilience is the superior result of an EAP, it is essential to inform the workforce of the existence of the training and how they will benefit from it. There are several steps in the process:

4 1. Employer funds a resilience training EAP, supportive of employee interest in managing his/her own personal capital; 2. NETWORK establishes a Personal Change Indicator (PCI) database account for the employer. This is an Internet based, online employee self-assessment process, where each employee self-assigns a username and password, guaranteeing personal privacy and absolute anonymity. Employees learn during resilience training, how to take the PCI, preparing them for skillful PCI completions and increasingly valid employee selfassessment data. Such data is filed in the confidential and highly secure NETWORK database; 3. The Natural Athlete in YOU! resilience training program is implemented, first with upper management, then with supervisors and finally with front line employees. An overall attitude of resilience and self-reliance is developed through this training, surfacing a corporate culture supportive of employee individuality, autonomy and independence. Resilience training sessions are conducted in small groups, over four consecutive hours. In these sessions, employees acquire the 4-Core Competencies of In The Zone performers and follow-up, home-study materials. The stage is now set for employer support of employee self-management of their own concerns as measured by employees. As mentioned above, in these same resilience training sessions, employees are instructed how to access and complete the PCI, and how it is used in conjunction with focused action coaching available through the NETWORK. Note: The Sport Psychology theme of our training is widely embraced by employees, quickly acted upon, and readily observable in their daily behaviors (i.e., more relaxed attitudes, increased stretching activities throughout the day, improved body postures while sitting, lifting, more focused job performance, etc) The Natural Athlete in YOU! also teaches employees how to prevent strains and sprains and how to engage in self-managed early interventions, when pain is first felt. Emphasis is on early, upstream interventions, reducing the likelihood of unnecessary downstream medical and legal attention, Worker s Compensation claims, as well as group health claims. (Self-insured corporations will find this aspect of the overall program especially inviting) The EAP generates cost reductions in health care, greater than the cost of resilience training. 4. The Natural Athlete in YOU! program follow-up: Offered periodically in meetings by Resilience Coaches online and onsite, through printed materials from the employers HR department, online communications with Dr. Ray; all collectively reinforcing the value of personal resilience, self-reliance, emotional intelligence, and selfmanagement of employees personal capital. Basic to all NETWORK resilience training follow-up programs is our reinforcement of employees desires to manage their emotions. Our particular focus is on the tension/relaxation dimension underlying most emotional experiences which directly

5 affects emotional expressions, interpersonal relationships and ultimately, personal resilience. In the words of Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, Emotional intelligence includes self-awareness and impulse control, persistence, zeal and self-motivation, empathy and social deftness. These are the qualities that mark people who excel in real life; whose intimate relationships flourish, who are stars in the workplace. These are the hallmarks of character and self-discipline, of altruism and compassion basic capacities needed if our society is to thrive. In summary, NETWORK resilience training is focused on fundamental drivers of In The Zone performances. Each of the 4-Core Competencies is one such driver, with many secondary implications for employees abilities to manage their own lives in multiple spheres of personal and professional experience. 5. PCI measurement of personal change and evolving resilience: Two basic tenets underlie all NETWORK resilience training: 1. What gets measured is what gets done. 2. Do the most important things first. The PCI measures personal change from the point of view of employees experiencing said change. This is an important measure of the effectiveness of NETWORK resilience training. While we do measure important financial results like reductions in Worker s Compensation claims and costs, reductions in loss work time and absenteeism, measurement of employees conception of their own change process is unique and important to the success of the overall training. Employees view of themselves, in the pursuit of their own management of their own personal capital, is the ultimate barometer of success.