Workplace strategy 5 – Build resilience and coping skills

What is resilience in the workplace? Put simply, it is our ability to bounce back from things like a stressful or busy period in the workplace, a traumatic event or some sort of difficulty. All workplaces have the potential to expose people to situations that test their resilience. In this sector, this can include fatigue, high workloads, time management pressures, isolation and exposure to potentially traumatic events such as road crashes.

People need the right environment in which to develop their coping skills and resilience. They need to know that the workplace supports help seeking and they need to feel it’s safe to reach out. The earlier people gain support the better the outcomes. Providing multiple ways in which employees can access help and support, and by ensuring that they are aware of what these support resources are, is essential. By raising awareness and encouraging all staff to use support services we decrease stigma and improve wellbeing.

It is important to be able to respond to someone who might be needing support, to notice signs in them and to be able to approach them and check-in to see if they are ok. Having targeted responses to psychosocial hazards means that different risks have been identified and there is a plan in place regarding how to support someone who might feel their workload is unreasonable, has reported being exposed to some sort of trauma or is feeling isolated and lonely in the workplace.

Regardless of the size of a business, organisation or team, enhancing the resilience of all staff by targeting industry-specific risk factors will provide a more psychologically safe and thriving workforce.

Building resilience and coping skills is number five in the Seven Workplace Strategies in the Roadmap Planner. The Planner has been designed to help businesses understand psychological safety and offer guidance about building your own Workplace Wellbeing Plan. Having a Workplace Wellbeing Plan means you will be taking steps to meet your Work, Health, and Safety duty of care by managing psychosocial hazards at work.
 
So where do you start?  
Try these as your first steps: 

• Read story 5 ‘Callum – Building resilience and coping skills’ in the Healthy Heads Planner
• Recommend that everyone in the business downloads the Healthy Heads App so they have a link to support services at hand
• Read the tip sheets in the Roadmap Planner and consider how you can better understand, consult, assess and manage these psychosocial hazards in your business
  • Isolation and connection tip sheet
  • Trauma and critical incidents
  • Workload and time management
  • Fatigue
• Download the My Organisational Tools document via the Planner for a list of support organisations that can be promoted to your teams
• Consider training opportunities for key staff in mental health and wellbeing. There are industry specific courses available via the healthy Heads website here
  • There are a range of courses for supervisors, business owners and frontline staff
  • Some courses are general awareness raising for all levels
  • Other courses are oriented towards developing the skills needed to pick up on signs that someone might be struggling, open conversations, support someone in crisis and connect people to the help they need

 
By completing these first steps you are well on the way to applying some of the elements within the Seven Workplace Strategies.  
 
If you would like further information on our Roadmap Planner please reach out to our Director, Industry Relations and Program Management, Melissa Weller on [email protected]  

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