Does workplace resilience training make a difference? (Mar 2019)

Two weeks ago (March 2019) I ran a short workshop on resilience for a group of HR managers and directors from the Association of Colleges – in recognition that HR professionals are often so busy looking after staff and team members that looking after themselves goes to the bottom of the list. This prompted me to revisit my notes on the topic, realise they were out of date, and spend some time reading recent studies on the effectiveness of resilience training. Here's what I found.

Does Workplace Psychological Wellbeing and Resilience Training Work?

With the so-called growing “stress epidemic” (1) many employers are offering their employees psychological wellbeing or resilience training, with the aim of helping employees develop sustainable habits that will help them cope with the daily stresses and strains of work in the 21st century. Indeed resilience training has rapidly grown over the last 15 years, from small scale experiments led by positive psychology researchers, to widespread use of the Penn Resilience Program in schools, and the US Army launching a resilience based Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Program in 2009 at an estimated cost of $75m per annum (2).

But is there good evidence such initiatives work? And practically what are the key ingredients of initiatives that employers need to include in training? In preparing for a recent resilience workshop I found I’d last reviewed the literature in 2015, at a time when the US Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness Program had been branded a failure in the popular press (3). What are more recent studies saying about the effectiveness of workplace resilience training?

Firstly a definition: resilience can be defined as “being able to bounce back from setbacks and to keep going in the face of tough demands and difficult circumstances, including the enduring strength that builds from coping well with challenging or stressful events” (4).

Vanhove et al (2016) (5) carried out a meta-analytic review of 37 studies - in very simplistic terms a meta-analysis is a way of averaging results across studies, and so is the gold standard of reviews. They found modest effects in reducing psychological defects, improving well-being, and improving performance immediately after training. However only a small effect on psychological defects remained a month or more after the training when it was implemented universally, that is to all employees. If the training was targeted at employees deemed to be at risk from high levels of stressors or low resilience resources, the modest effects in all three areas remained, perhaps as the employees had greater opportunity to use the skills they learnt.

I would agree with the authors’ conclusion that “the fact that resilience building have had modest effects should not diminish the perceived utility … even small effects at the individual level have the potential to yield considerable effects at organisational levels”. The authors also noted that with the rapid growth in resilience training in recent years, it’s likely some of the training methods used in the studies will be found at a later date (when we know more about the ‘essential ingredients’) to be poorly designed, which may have reduced the effect size of those studies.

The Vanhove et al (2016) review also compared studies using different delivery methods, and found one-to-one coaching was the most effective, followed by classroom based group training, then train-the-trainer and computer based methods. The finding that computer based training was the least effective delivery method is potentially concerning for employers looking for practical, low cost, scalable training.

However Carolan et al (2017) (6) carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis of 21 studies of digital mental heath interventions, and found modest positive effects on psychological well-being and work-effectiveness immediately after the intervention. The interventions used in the studies were a mix of universal and targeted, were an average of 6 to 7 weeks long, were sometimes self-guided and sometimes included guidance from a coach / therapist, and were based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), or mindfulness, or other techniques The authors concluded “occupational digital mental health interventions are as effective at improving mental health outcomes as other more non-digital occupational programs”. Good news for employers investing in computer or app based training, although the authors rightly cautioned that the flexibility of digital training maybe a negative for stressed employees who see themselves as time poor. Indeed nearly a quarter of participants dropped out over the course of the interventions, and only 45% completely adhered to all the parts of the intervention.

So if Vanhove et al (2016) and Carolan et al (2017) have found modest but positive effects from resilience training, why has the US Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program been criticised as a failure? A Harms et al (2013) (7) study compared four trained combat teams (4983 soldiers) with four waitlisted combat teams (2247 soldiers) up to 120 days after deployment. The trained group had 2.8% anxiety, 0.9% depression, 1.5% PTSD, 1.2% alcohol abuse and 0.1% drug abuse compared to 3.2%, 1.4%, 1.6%, 2.7% and 0.4% respectively in the non-trained group. So very small effects, but nevertheless improvements that are consistent with the Vanhove et al (2016) and Carolan et al (2017) studies.

Perhaps the criticism stems from the $75m per annum price tag of the program? That cost is for 900,000 soldiers being trained per annum, or under $85 per soldier. But what if the cost is considered only in terms of the soldiers showing an improvement? For example the 0.5% improvement in depression translates to 4500 soldiers, or over $16,500 per soldier, compared to say $2000 for 10 sessions of more traditional CBT. The main problem is the difficulty in finding more recent studies, with larger numbers of soldiers, in peer-reviewed journals. Until they are published I find it difficult to draw firm conclusions on the effectiveness of the US Army program.

So to answer the title question of this article, yes, workplace psychological wellbeing and resilience training does work. With the caveat that more research is needed into the most effective delivery method, the most effective underlying approach (CBT, mindfulness, or something else), and the most effective length of training, which may result in resilience training that has long-lasting extensive, rather than moderate, effects.

References

1. https://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/news/articles/work-related-stress-jumps-quarter-reach-epidemic-levels

2. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/nation/2013/10/07/army-resilience-training-research-criticism/2938069/

3. https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/04/16/army-survey-morale/24897455/

4. Cooper, C., Flint-Taylor, J., & Pearn, M. (2013). Building resilience for success: a resource for managers and organizations. Springer.

5. Vanhove, A. J., Herian, M. N., Perez, A. L., Harms, P. D., & Lester, P. B. (2016). Can resilience be developed at work? A meta‐analytic review of resilience‐building programme effectiveness. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 89(2), 278-307.

6. Carolan, S., Harris, P. R., & Cavanagh, K. (2017). Improving employee well-being and effectiveness: systematic review and meta-analysis of web-based psychological interventions delivered in the workplace. Journal of medical Internet research, 19(7).

7. Harms, P. D., Helan, M. N., Krasikova, D. V., Vanhove, A., & Lester P. B. (2013). Report 4: evaluation of resilience training and mental and behavioral health outcomes. Retrieved from Csf2.army.mil/supportdocs.TR4.pdf.