Lowering the Stress in Your Organization

Lower stress and build resilience with state employees: A Pilot Study

One of our biggest clients, Integrated Behavioral Health (IBH), a nationwide EAP provider, recently conducted a pilot study to see if they could help a small group of Montana state employees (working in the prison system) lower their stress and build resilience. Dr. Eric Gustafson and Dr. Rae Hadley have been in charge of the study which combines weekly telephonic coaching sessions and a heavy reliance on both our online resources MyStressTools, and The Stress Profiler as well as several of our workbooks including The Employee Stress Reduction and Resilience Handbook as well as Stop Stress This Minute.

Our resources were made available or handed out to every person in the study. Here are the initial findings of that study.

EHA Wellness: Stop Stress Now Report

The Educators Health Alliance members participated in a program where they completed one stress management activity of their choice each day, used MyStressTools, and read Stop Stress This Minute. Here are their comments and data.

A case study of how one company did this and won an American Psychological Association Best Practice Award

Sherry Leggett, left and CAB’s Dr. Marianne Bowman at the American Psychological Association’s award ceremony.

Sherry Leggett, Director of Wellness for Certified Angus Beef (CAB), is passionate about health and wellbeing. So when she heard employees complaining about stress in her organization she wanted to find a way to lower it. Little did she know that this idea (combined with her passionate pursuit of a solution) would eventually lead to winning a prestigious best practice award from the American Psychological Association.

Sherry attended a program I conducted on stress assessments at American Journal of Health Promotion’s preconference. “It’s easy to get all wrapped up in all the wonderful activities at a wellness conference, but I like to come armed with specific goals in mind and then find the tools and resources to meet those goals.” When she came up to me after my presentation, she asked a lot of questions about how our stress assessment, The Stress Profiler worked and what data it could provide.

Every participant has their own home page.

When she got back to Ohio, Sherry pitched the idea of using the stress profiler to upper level management. “I do a short meeting opener for upper level management, once a month, and that has allowed me to develop relationships. They know me, and they trust me, so when I asked them to take The Profiler, they did it. People in the C-suite found it very interesting and they said that it gave them a lot of good advice about how to handle stress. And that really started the ball rolling.”

Sherry Leggett conducts a strength training class at CAB

“When we first started to do blood pressure screenings, or ANY kind of health risk assessment, it was like pulling teeth. But getting people to take The Profiler was easy. They had been asking me for help with stress and, because of the research I had done, I knew the online Stress Profiler (with it’s digital coaching feature) would help us get to where we wanted to go. Creating an initiative like this showed everyone that we cared about our employees. It was giving our employees exactly that they wanted.”