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Stress & Wellbeing

By Eduardo Lan In my work as a safety culture and leadership consultant with Propulo Consulting, I often hear clients complain about how busy people are with meetings and paperwork and how little time they have for other things, such as getting out in the field. In this complex and fast-paced world of ours, it is normal to feel like this. At times, it seems like the number of emails, meetings, deadlines, and projects people are responsible for is never-ending. Dealing with it is a fact of life. However, there are things we can do to prioritize and act on what

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By Josh Williams, Ph. D. A recent incident at the Cleveland Medical Center got national attention when a patient was given the wrong kidney during an operation. Two hospital staff were removed from their jobs pending an investigation.1 Some may applaud this action as frustration mounts with ongoing reports of human error in the medical community. So, the question is: Is firing people really the answer? In a previous blog, empirical evidence demonstrated the benefits of human performance (HP) tools to minimize human error and reduce: Communication breakdownsOperating delaysPost-operative complicationsOverall mortality and morbidity rates The same benefits from HP that help patients also apply to health

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By Josh Williams, Ph.D. We are continually asked by leaders some variant of the question below: “We provide all the PPE and safety policies for our employees and they still get hurt. What else can we do?” One way to address this issue to use the HAT principle which involves Hearing your people, Addressing their concerns, and Telling everyone improvements you’ve made based on their feedback. Sounds simple, right? Unfortunately, many leaders have not fostered a learning environment within their organizations. Getting and using employee feedback is simply not a cultural norm. As a result, important organizational decisions are often made in a

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By Madison Hanscom, PhD It is common to assume that executives, CEOs, and highly successful entrepreneurs just ‘have it all’, but many of these individuals are silently suffering. Executives can have a lot on their plate. They might feel responsible for the ups and downs of employees. They might work long hours and feel pressure to make the company more successful. They also can feel very isolated, like they can’t be vulnerable without looking weak. Despite having a great deal of weight on their shoulders, it is important that leaders are doing well both psychologically and physically. When executives are doing well,

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By Madison Hanscom, PhD Researchers collected data from over a thousand adults in the U.S. to get a sense of what factors were associated with an individual having greater psychological resilience during the first few weeks of the COVID-19 lockdown (Kilgore, Taylor, Cloonan, & Dailey, 2020). They defined resilience as the ability to withstand setbacks, adapt positively, and bounce back from adversity. There are a great deal of factors related to resiliency. The researchers found the following factors to be significantly associated with greater resilience during the COVID-19 lockdown: • More days a week spent outside in the sunshine (at least 10 mins)•

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By Madison Hanscom, PhD Burnout is deep and pervasive. It is marked by emotional exhaustion, physical fatigue, cynicism towards others, and depleted mental resources (1). The bad news: Burnout has negative effects on everyone. It is related to turnover, lessened productivity, counterproductive work behavior, lower motivation, and negative health outcomes (3). The side effects of burnout can last a long time. Burnout in time is associated with diseases in the long term (e.g., musculoskeletal, cardiovascular) and mental health consequences such as depression, insomnia, and anxiety (4). Helping a workforce suffering from burnout is not an easy task. The good news: Burnout does not appear overnight.

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