Workforce resilience arguably includes three aspects; protection, durability and healing. This article examines the final one, healing in more detail. 

Health workers are experts in helping people heal after illness or accident.  They may even have multiple healing options at their disposal. They adapt the treatments as needed. In the A&E/ER environment, medics handle multiple problems that one or more patients might present with, using triage, surgery, drugs and even heart shock treatment, all done in close sequence if necessary.  Patient care includes selecting the fastest recovery (healing) rate for the patient, ideally the most enduring one too. 

But what about healing approaches in other workplaces? Can they imitate good practice amongst health workers, to boost the healing aspect of workforce resilience? Staff resilience can be a challenge for those returning to work after a sabbatical, giving birth, illness or accident. Those needing to rebuild trust and strength after close family bereavement, domestic trauma, hate crime incident or romantic betrayal. And amongst the survivors of a significant organisational restructuring event, internal fraud or cyber attack.

Regarding adaptations to improve healing rates, organisations can create bespoke ‘treatment plans’ to help staff heal from major trauma in their lives. HR data captured helps identify good treatment plans for different kinds of staff trauma events. In hospitals, if the medics can’t identify the biggest problem and if the patient is conscious, medics typically ask the patient for more information. They know that the bigger the set of relevant information (allergies, family medical history, asking where does it hurt?), the quicker they can treat it and the faster the healing rate will likely be.

Regarding handling multiple problems at once to improve healing rates, medics triage the patients, concentrate their medical resources (multiple medics hovering around one patient), then concentrate on breathing and blood flow, followed by other secondary treatments. Essentially, they stabilise and buy time in the A&E/ER, in order to do more extensive surgery later. In other organisations,  setting a priority order on assessment and treatment is advisable. Buy some time if possible and concentrate the healing resources.  If planning a restructuring event, avoid a big bang approach, since the ‘mass casualties’ aren’t just those made redundant, but the survivors too. And with HR, as with medics being on the frontline (in HR’s case, the frontline of the restructuring event), their resilience will likely be tested the most.

Perspective and attitude

Whether in a hospital or other workplace setting, the ‘patient’ needs to do much of the healing themselves. In other workplaces, staff can be encouraged to view themselves as a patient wanting support, not a trauma victim inviting pity. 

Work colleagues can choose to be in the healing partnership, to help accelerate the patient’s healing rate (HR can encourage this). And the ‘patient support’ will probably do wonders for firm loyalty and staff retention too.

I once joined in an organisation in a senior role, following an internal fraud event that had just happened. Team morale was at rock bottom. Forensic auditors and detectives were onsite, like winds buffeting a struggling garden. Managers and board members were passing blame around at a rapid rate.  Yet the healing really started when the staff and board, following information gathering and adaptation, accepted that there was only one guilty party who had let everyone down. We then became one big healing partnership (patient support choice). And organisational resilience prevailed.

Lastly, to finish, I recently saw a great quote about healing rates on YourPositiveOasis.com. The first to apologise is the bravest. The first to forgive is the strongest. The first to forget is the happiest.

Simon Leicester

SME Consultant