Resilience training course impact

In Equilibrium has delivered stress management and resilience courses for 18 Councils and 31 other organisations over the past 3 years. This equates to approximately 256 stress management and resilience courses having been delivered.

Feedback from Stress Management and Resilience Training Courses

We have recently provided Stress Management and Resilience training for a UK council with over 10,000 employees.  Here we summarise a report which outlined the impact of the training.  There is a link to the full report at the bottom of this page.

Given the importance of  acquiring skills to deal with times of change and uncertainty, the Council commissioned 20 one-day workshops as part of their overall change support programme.

Initial Impact of the Stress Management and Resiliency Training

The initial feedback to these training courses was overwhelmingly positive and they have been very popular with both staff and managers, with a rolling waiting list for places on them.

Ratings from post-course evaluation forms:

Assessment Criteria
% rated as excellent or good

The extent to which the delegates learning objectives were met:
Managers 100%  Staff 96%

The facilitator’s knowledge:
Managers 98%  Staff 99%

The facilitator’s sensitivity to diversity:
Managers 98%  Staff 98%

The content and balance of the programme:
Managers 90%  Staff 98%

Usefulness of the handouts:
Managers 100%  Staff 100%

General Longer term impact

A number of delegates who had already attended the initial workshops were then invited to attend half-day follow-up sessions. The aim of these follow-up sessions was to review some of the key learning points from the initial workshop, introduce a range of enhanced resilience skills, and gather information about the impact of the training.

The feedback forms completed on the half day follow-up sessions were also overwhelmingly positive, with many delegates (both staff and managers) commenting on how useful they found this training.

Training benefits

Longer term impact – Managers
Managers have reported a noticeable improvement in all the areas assessed:

• 92% of managers feel that they have improved their ability to strengthen personal boundaries.
• 77% feel they have improved their initial response to setbacks and adverse events.
• 69% feel they have improved their ability to control their emotions with challenging people; they have a perception of having more control of their lives and have increased their ability to improve their work-life balance.

The overall benefits reported by managers include:

• An improved ability to set professional boundaries and to tackle difficult situations head on, rather than ignoring them.
• Being better able to step back and look at situations objectively and keeping things in perspective.
• Being more calm and controlled and focussing their energy on things they can control or influence.

Longer term impact – Staff
As with managers, respondents reported a noticeable improvement in all the areas assessed:

• 80% feel that they had increased their ability to improve their work-life balance
• 70% feel they have improved their ability to solve problems and find opportunities; taking responsibility for sorting things out; and strengthening their professional boundaries

The overall benefits reported by staff include:

• Increased self-awareness and being better able to control their emotions
• Improved ability to manage stress and anxiety
• Being more proactive and looking for solutions
• Feeling calmer and being able to recover more quickly from difficult situations (eg challenging customers)

Conclusions
The feedback generated throughout the series of workshops clearly and consistently shows that the delegates have experienced real benefits from attending this stress management and resiliency training. At a time of continued turbulence and uncertainty it is important for staff to feel supported and to equip them with tools to enable them to deal with a challenging environment.

Comments from delegates included:

“My manager told me in my 1:1 that I am more relaxed and happier despite all the pressure at work”
“The training has helped me to step back and enabled me to re-focus on the job at hand”
“I feel I have more tools at my disposal to allow me to stay calm and control my reactions”
“I can move forward more quickly from emotionally draining situations”

View details of our resiliency courses here
View details of our stress management courses here.