Building a Resilient Workforce Opportunities for the Department of Homeland Security: Workshop Summary (2012) / Chapter Skim
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7 Understanding Individual and Organizational Resilience and Performance Measures
7 Understanding Individual and Organizational Resilience and Performance Measures
Pages 141-166
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Arnetz discussed his research in measuring individual and organizational stress, and how stress can be linked to organization performance. Nancy Rothbard is the David Pottruck Associate Professor of Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
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Furthermore, Dr. Arnetz's research was, in part, supported by a research award from the Swedish Royal Foundation (Kungafonden)
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These challenges and stressors generally activate the normal human stress response, which includes both emotional and physical reactions. In dealing with challenges and stressors, people usually go to an elevated psychophysiological level where they sleep less and are more alert and operationally ready.
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The intervention included a broad range of services such as stress management, nutrition, exercise, and sleep. The study used a measure of selfreported mental energy as an indication of resilience.
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On top of the normal basic training, the study participants received psychological training similar to that used in military special forces. The training included emotional control and regulating stress levels as well as imagery-based performance enhancement training.
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A study that assessed the use of mental imaging training and the reenactment of crisis situations found that officers who participated in the training had a lower heart rate than the control. The officers' performance was also evaluated by police experts in the reenactments.
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measured mental energy, which is another measure of resilience. Arnetz noted that in healthy populations mental energy scores are usually 70 percent or higher.
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At the organizational level, he advised assessing leadership, performance feedback and goals, skills utilization and development, organizational efficiency, and work climate.
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The problem with burnout is that it can also affect an employee's current quality of work because of fatigue and the inability to focus on the work at hand and do it well. The classic conceptualization of burnout from the Maslach Burnout Inventory includes three components: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and personal accomplishment.
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Because the results are mixed, Rothbard focused on the elements with the stronger predictive validity -- emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. Measures of Burnout Rothbard cited the Maslach Burnout Inventory, which includes multiple questions for each of the three dimensions mentioned above (Maslach et al., 1996)
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Questions also address the socio-emotional side, whether the person feels that coworkers are also committed to doing quality work and whether the person has a best friend in the work environment. Questions also address the values of the individual -- whether there is a feeling of doing something important and whether there are opportunities for learning and growth (Harter et al., 2009)
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The depersonalization and emotional exhaustion components of burnout are negatively related to pretty much all of these outcomes and are positively related to turnover intentions. When Rothbard reverse-coded depersonalization and emotional exhaustion to compare the effect sizes, she made some interesting observations.
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Meta-analytic findings suggest that the strongest predictors of burnout are such factors as role conflict, role stress, and stressful events. Workload and work pressure predict emotional exhaustion but do not predict depersonalization as much.
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Person-Level Factors The meta-analytic results also indicate that conscientious people and people who have higher positive affect than others are more engaged. People who have a proactive personality, meaning they take initiative and are go-getters, are also more engaged.
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. Consequences of Misfit There are a number of consequences related to a bad fit or misfit including lower satisfaction and commitment, higher turnover intentions, and higher stress.
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Engagement has a stronger effect on performance, whereas burnout has a stronger effect on turnover intentions. When considering what measures to select in a study it is important to keep in mind the differences in what each measurement explains and how the measurements relate to the aspects of the employee experience with which you are most concerned.
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Increase employee satisfaction, motivations, and effectiveness. Survey The annual climate survey is fielded to all FedEx employees around the globe and is translated into 22 different languages.
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The Corporate Identification Average looks at how strongly employees identify with the company and includes attributes that research shows to be critical to employee commitment and retention. The SFA average is a percentage of favorable responses for core survey items and provides an indication of overall morale of the work group.
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Employees have to work hard to make the SFA process
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Any program will get rusty over time, so the corporation updates some of the survey questions, changes the way results are communicated, and looks for ways to improve the process in general. UNDERSTANDING INDIVIDUAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL RESILIENCE AND PERFORMANCE MEASURES PANEL DISCUSSION The three speakers participated in a panel discussion and addressed questions from workshop participants.
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Reber noted that there might also be concerns with bringing data about their organization to the forefront. Rothbard noted that it is clear that all the speakers feel measurement is critical for assessing and diagnosing in order to figure out the problem that needs to be solved and how to develop an appropriate intervention.
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The key report is at the manager level because that is what is needed to develop action plans. Planning committee member Joseph Barbera asked the speakers to discuss the segmentation between work and home and the effect of shift work.
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Many workers, however, particularly firefighters and law enforcement, will say that those highintensity moments are why they went into this field. Planning Effective Performance Measurement Planning committee member Scott Mugno asked the speakers if they had suggestions about where DHS should start as it moves forward on these issues.
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That does not include the separate IT piece, which is part of the larger FedEx system. It is a logistically complex process because all employees have to be assigned a manager, and the survey results must be disseminated to the senior manager level and director level.
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1997. Psychophysiological effects of mental imaging training for police trainees.
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1996. Maslach burnout inventory manual, 3rd ed.
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