PSHSA ‐ Resilience

About Resilience

Resilience is often defined as the process of coping with, adapting to and overcoming adversity, obstacles or significant sources of stress. This may include family and relationship troubles, health issues or work and financial strain. While people often refer to resilience as “bouncing back” from difficult experiences, being resilient is not as simple as being down one moment and up the next – it’s more like running a marathon with hurdles to jump through.

There is no clear roadmap and we are all affected differently by life’s challenges, but it is our resilience that guides us to a more balanced life, enabling us to survive and thrive.

Research suggests that resilience involves a combination of activating internal qualities and accessing external resources to positively deal with stress, setbacks and work through problems. Put simply, resilient people draw from both their strengths and support systems to face challenges. In this sense, resilience is more than just mental toughness and perseverance. Resilience isn’t a single skill or trait that one either possesses or doesn’t, it involves a variety of skills, behaviours and actions that anyone can learn and strengthen.

Fostering Resilience in the Workplace

The workplace is an important support system and resource to help workers build and strengthen resiliency. There are many ways leaders and the work community can foster qualities for resilience. PSHSA offers training programs to help you build on these practices, improve employees’ capacity for resilience and promote positive mental health in the workplace.

Leadership

Organizational leaders should highlight the importance of supporting mental wellbeing and demonstrate their commitment to identifying and addressing work-related stressors.

Resources

Offer workers various resources to foster qualities for resilience and support mental health and wellbeing inside and outside of the workplace, enabling employees to thrive even when there are unusually high levels of stress.

Communication

Ensure employees know what resources are available and how to access them and provide support with navigating and negotiating the resources. Consider what information employees may need at various times and ensure this is provided.

Culture

Implement programs and practices across the organization that support individual and organizational resilience and look for ways to improve the work environment and reduce stressors.

R2 for Leaders: Building Resilient Organizations

Understand what resilience is and how qualities for resilience can be used to build a resilient organization.

ResilientME

A free program designed to help strengthen resiliency through the use of strategies and tools in 6 areas: mental fitness, physical fitness, nutrition, financial fitness, sleep and social connections.

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Occupational Stress Injury Resiliency (OSIR)

Occupational stress injuries (OSI) are high-stress or traumatic experiences at work that cause psychological difficulties and can accumulate over time. OSIR is an evidence-based screening tool that can assess employees’ risk for occupational stress injuries. In addition, the OSIR tool will guide users in making meaningful organizational changes concerning psychological health and safety. Significant benefits of this new service include understanding OSI risk in the workplace, targeting employer investment in health and safety resources, providing recommendations to enhance and or create a wellness program, and ongoing consultant support using service.

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