SLCo Employee Wellness Wellcast
The SLCo Employee Wellness Wellcast is a fun, entertaining, and enlightening look at health and wellness. It breaks down complex health topics and interviews experts in the wellness field to help participants live healthier lives.
SLCo Employee Wellness Wellcast
Part II - Resilience at Work
Part II of our resilience Wellcast is all about work. Listen in for tips and tricks with Dr. Lock from the University of Utah's resilience program on how we can create better environments for our teams and ourselves through vulnerability and advocating for ourselves.
Welcome back to the Salt Lake County Employee Wellness Wellcast. I'm your host, megan Mattson. I'm happy you are back joining us today. In our last episode, we explored what resilience means on a personal level and how we can build it in our everyday lives. If you missed it, I recommend going back and giving it a listen, because it really lays a great foundation for today's conversation. Today we are shifting the lens to look at resilience in the workplace. After all, most of us spend a significant part of our lives at work, and how we respond to challenges in that environment has a huge impact on our overall well-being. So, whether you are in a leadership role or part of a team, building resilience at work is something that we can all take part in. So, to guide us through this important topic, I'm so pleased to welcome back Dr Amy Locke from the University of Utah's Resiliency Program. Dr Locke, thank you for joining us again.
Speaker 2:Thank you, it's so nice to be here.
Speaker 1:So we often hear about workplace stress and burnout, but we don't hear much about workplace resilience. So how would you define resilience in the workplace?
Speaker 2:Well, I think that I have two thoughts here if I could share, oh please. Yes, as humans, we're often really drawn to the negative. We have an over focus on the bad things that are happening, and workplace stress can be very impactful on a person's life, and so we often talk about burnout in the workplace in fact. But it's important, and it's important to recognize that and process the stress from that. But it's also important to recognize the bright spots, and so that's where this kind of conversation about workplace resilience or system resilience can be really helpful, because it allows us to just redirect away from the bad things that are happening towards, maybe, where we want to go.
Speaker 2:So not being burnt out is great, but then what? That's not a space of thriving, right? So what does thriving look like in the workplace? And we often use concepts like appreciative inquiry, which is a great approach to the workplace, to think about what's going well and how do we do more of it. I think the second piece of that is that, while the definition of resilience doesn't really change in the workplace, it's still this idea of responding to stress in a healthy emotional way. We also need to look beyond the individual, to the system they work in and this is really really important for conversations around workplace resilience, because we often get really focused on how to rescue individuals who are struggling, who may, in fact, be very resilient already. So you can be the most resilient person in the world and you can be in a really toxic environment and you're going to have trouble.
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter right.
Speaker 2:So if you go in saying, hey, everybody, we're here to help you be more resilient, then that can fall really flat, because if they're working in an environment that is very challenging, we need to look at why people are struggling in the first place, and that's often the way systems are designed. Relationships with coworkers in the workplace and the amount of work we're asking people to do those are all really critical pieces to a person's wellbeing in the workplace or like professional wellbeing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so much at play, so much we can go a little deeper. So what do you see as the biggest challenges or obstacles that get in the way?
Speaker 1:So you mentioned a few like you know, last minute deadlines or you know all of those sort of things. My original question but I'm going to frame it a little differently based on your answer it was how can employees begin to stay grounded or adapt when they're facing difficult circumstances? But I guess that is to play, because we also want to have changes in the environment as well. So you know, employees can stay grounded as much as they can with our personal mindful practices, but how can leaders support that in a way from the top-down approach as well?
Speaker 2:So the resilience formula comes in really helpful here too, right? Because you're basically ideally helping each person find that locus of control and then act within that, and that really allows some autonomy and a feeling, a sense of which is very well linked in the literature to a sense of well-being. And while the biggest challenge struggles are often culture and the way systems are designed, there are opportunities within the individual, the team and in the leader level to intervene in those things. And so sometimes, when things are really hard, it can feel like, oh, they are doing this to me and not recognize the pieces that you do actually have control over. So that human interaction hey, I see you're having a really hard day. Is there anything I can do to help? Or hey, I can see you're having a really hard day. I wish I could do something to help, but I'm also having a really hard time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, just that vulnerability too, I think is important yeah.
Speaker 2:So we can dig into workload. Effective technology like barriers to everyday work, things like flexible schedules, but culture and stigma are things that are often very appropriate for individuals to lean into.
Speaker 1:I like the culture, yes, plays a big role On a broader level. Do you have any recommendations for like boundaries or strategies that organizations can take to create a workplace environment that supports resilience and that's a big question, I know.
Speaker 2:Yeah Well, what we know from literature is that the leader often, and their habits really can shape the wellbeing of a team, and some experts I've not I've not tracked this down to a study, but I've heard this repeated over and over, and so maybe that doesn't make it true, but it seems like it would be true. Experts estimate that about 70% of a person's engagement at work can be traced back to their drug supervisor, and so that relationship is so important to a person feeling like they're seen, heard and valued within the organization. Additionally, it may be a surprise to some that when a leader doesn't take care of themselves, we even just basic foundations of health like am I sleeping, am I working too much, am I, you know, taking care of myself, that we see leader, that those behaviors starting to impact team member burnout, and that's out of studies at Duke which show a really compelling comparison to the burnout of the team.
Speaker 1:That's very interesting. So how, when we're having major disruptions like budget cuts, political uncertainty, how can organizations help their people stay resilient, help their leaders stay resilient so that their people can stay resilient? You know what are some things that they can implement.
Speaker 2:I think that leaders can focus on reducing stigma around mental health and encouraging people to talk about stress injury when it shows up. So this idea that the stress is so much that it's starting to affect my health and life. And in order to do that, leaders really need to focus on culture and community with an eye towards trust and psychological safety. So psychological safety is this idea that if I speak up in the workplace, it's not going to come back to get me later. I mean not that I have permission to be rude, but that if I share my opinion you're not going to make fun of me or discount my contribution.
Speaker 2:And then leaders can really create ways for teams to identify the pebbles that get in the way of their effective, efficient work. And what are the boulders? And so the pebbles often the team themselves can help resolve. The boulders are things that kind of get sent up the organization so that leaders can more easily or not address those.
Speaker 1:Oh, I like that metaphor. So what are some examples of big boulders that are in some organizations? Well, I think the of big boulders that are in some organizations.
Speaker 2:Well, I think the really big boulders are things like pay and stay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just feeling valued, and yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know an example from a few years ago. We were doing a session with a group of people who work in the hospital and they identified what at the time seemed like a pebble but really was a boulder, which was they didn't have a system to effectively communicate on the fly between each other during the day. Because hospitals are big, people are going all over the place, and so it was this huge amount of waste in the system where people are calling someone, leaving a message and then calling them back. You know, hospitals are a little archaic. Sometimes we can't just use text to get to where everybody is. So basically you're like yeah, that's why the iPhone was created. Yeah, but those are not HIPAA compliant, so we can't text personal health information. And that team felt like that was the most important thing, like if that one thing could get fixed, their life would be so much better. Now, three years later, we're still working on it, because it involves all kinds of contracts and other things. But just knowing we're working on it and kind of making progress can be a huge win, and someday it will be, but something much simpler. So my group I have a clinical group that I work with and we decided as a group.
Speaker 2:We were going to focus on team values. So what are the values for the year that we really want to lean into as a team? So, for example, respect. So for one month we might say, okay, this month we're focusing on respect as a team. What does it look like if we have respect within our team? So it might look like not just running up to someone and start jibber jabbering Like you know. You might say like oh, I see you're in the middle of something. Can I interrupt? I'm looking at someone when they're talking to you. You know just basic human decency. So it's really transformed the way we function as a team. There's so much more joking and laughing and we're so much more effective in getting the real work done because we're doing this work collectively.
Speaker 1:Ah, I love that and you're all deciding together what that means, that value means and what it looks like for you as a team. So I love that. That's really beautiful and I yeah, I think it also speaking to that boulder that you shared with, like the communication. I think just knowing that opinions being heard, I think, goes a long way in an organization, especially so. So, for those that are feeling overwhelmed that there's a lot of boulders in front of them, what are some simple things that they can try today to begin building their resilience while they're at work?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I think I would like to come back to three things that we've already talked about. But to drive it home, I would have people focus on what level of stress do I have right now, like how bad is it, and what tools have I used in the past when things have gotten bad that I could kind of lean on again, and what is my support system that can help me through this time? Yes, number two consider the resiliency formula. In any moment, I have the choice it's in my locus of control to keep things the same status quo, leave or change. And so what do I want to do in this moment, particularly in the workplace?
Speaker 2:Sometimes with personal things it's much harder to leave, but in the workplace it's a little bit more straightforward. Yes, yes. And then the third thing is what values do I want to return to when things get hard? So, for example, when things are really hard for me, I often really think about the value of kindness, like I want to show up and be kind in the world, and so how do I come back to that value in this moment, in a very stressful situation?
Speaker 1:I love that, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. This has been such a valuable conversation, to use the word. Like you, can, I keep going back to the idea of values over and over in my personal life, and so this is reinstated, that it's very important to come back to your values, and I love the idea of doing it in the workplace and as a team, because then you can really get that vulnerability going as well. Thank you, dr Locke, for sharing your insights on how we can strengthen our resilience in the workplace and in our personal lives. Thank you so much. Yeah, it's been a pleasure, thank you.
Speaker 1:Thanks again to Dr Locke for being with us and helping us rethink resilience not just as an individual trait, but also as a shared responsibility in our workplaces. Remember, resilience at work isn't just about avoiding burnout. It's about creating a culture that supports all of us to thrive. It means noticing what's working, improving how we work together, how we communicate, creating space for open conversations. So whether you're a team member, supervisor, manager, your daily habits and how you support others truly make a difference. If this conversation has sparked your interest, I invite you to join our June wellness program, focused all on stress and burnout, building resilience, and we'll explore tools for building trust, setting boundaries, managing stress and fostering that culture of support and resilience. So to learn more, you can check out our June newsletter, our weekly lineups throughout the month of June, as well as visiting our employee wellness page. Until next time, take care of yourself and each other.