This post is by Anthony Savage of Sparta Health
Resilience is a highly underestimated skill, both for the individual and a whole company. It is defined as “the capability to maintain high performance and positive wellbeing in the face of adverse conditions, and to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change” [1]. The hard fact is that it’s important from a business perspective because staff who aren’t resilient aren’t productive. We all know that it’s more cost-effective to the business to protect and maintain employee wellbeing than lose them to sick leave. It's therefore clear that "organisations need to make building resilient teams and resilient workplaces a top priority" [2]. But how do we measure such a thing? Teamwork, leadership or technical skill are assessable, resilience is more complex to pinpoint. Or at least, it was. WRAW, or Workplace Resilience and Wellbeing, "is a psychometric tool that has been developed to provide" [2] insights into measuring resilience.
How do you do it?
WRAW is a 15-minute online psychometric. Its results provide "data on the resilience and its impact on wellbeing for leaders, teams and the whole organisation" [3]. The idea is to be proactive with wellbeing in the workplace to "support a culture of healthy high performance for employees" [4].
The psychometric gives an insight into aspects of leadership which impact employee resilience. It also highlights other features which affect resilience. These can include long working hours, feeling undervalued, lack of managerial support, and so on.
What's the aim?
The aim is simple: to boost resilience and wellbeing. Through the psychometric results, WRAW provides organisations with tangible targets to improve workplace wellbeing. An organisation can then work with a certified resilience and wellbeing practitioner, to create targeted health, wellbeing and resilience programs to benefit their employees and boost company resilience, morale and productivity, and reduce absenteeism.
Benefits
There are endless benefits of WRAW. Improved wellbeing and resilience is, of course, the ultimate goal, but many other positive attributes grow from WRAW. Key benefits include:
- Gain a robust measure of employee wellbeing and resilience
- Be proactive and help minimise the risk of employee physical or mental wellbeing declining
- Help employees identify personal strategies to habitually enable resilience and wellbeing
- Understand individual results and how they compare to the UK general population
- Identify key pressure points or drainers in the workplace
- Generate reports for individuals, teams, leaders and the whole organisation
- Nurture and promote a culture of wellbeing and healthy high performance." [4]
- Target investments in wellbeing initiatives more effectively to gain maximum return on investment [4]
- Reduced absenteeism and the financial costs associated with this.
How does it work?
It might seem a bit confusing on first look, but at its core, WRAW is simple. It is based on "the 5 pillars of resilience, a robust model used by hundreds of leading organisations" [5] globally. It's a highly effective framework:
- Energy: Your physical energy and capacity to persevere through challenging times.
- Future Focus: Your sense of purpose, direction and goal orientation.
- Inner Drive: Your self-belief, confidence, motivation and perseverance.
- Flexible Thinking: Your ability to have an open and optimistic mindset, allowing you to be adaptable.
- Strong Relationships: Your support network and how you use it.
These holistic and comprehensive approaches to wellbeing in the workplace have "achieved substantial positive results for employees and their performance" [4]. Using this model, WRAW supports individuals, organisations, teams, and leaders to boost their resilience and sense of wellbeing.
In summary, WRAW can strengthen both organisations as a whole and the individuals within them. It provides an insight into why resilience and wellbeing may not be thriving in a workplace and provides realistic, attainable strategies to both individuals and organisations on how to improve it. We all know the importance of wellbeing, but its relationship to resilience often is overlooked. WRAW determines the key aspects of your organisation that impact wellbeing and resilience and provides you with a definitive solution.
The Wraw (Workplace Resilience & Wellbeing) psychometric tool will provide your organisation with the data, insights, support and tools you need to meet your duty of care around mental health and to develop a robust, resilient, high performance culture and wellbeing strategy. Call us today to discuss your needs on 0345 872 2161 or e-mail healthenquiries@sparta-group.co.uk.
About Anthony Savage
Anthony Savage is the Medical Services Manager at Sparta Health, having joined the team in 2017 and is responsible for the overall operational delivery of our high quality services to our clients. He has a solid background in workplace physiology, health and safety, as well over 12 years of delivering, and holding senior management positions, for leading injury and condition management providers.
He is known for his innovative approach in his design and execution of services and his ability to build enduring relationships.
References:
- What is Resilience? [Internet]. [cited 2021 Jan 31].
- The Coaching Project. Wraw (Workplace Resilience & Wellbeing) [Internet]. The Coaching Project. [cited 2021 Jan 31].
- Wraw [Internet]. Skills Local. [cited 2021 Jan 31].
- The Wellbeing Project. Wraw for organisations [Internet]. The Wellbeing Project. [cited 2021 Jan 31].
- Lead Coach Manage. What is Wraw? [Internet]. Mysite. [cited 2021 Jan 31].