Employees can learn resilience to stress

By Shelby Livingston

SAN FRANCISCO — After noticing that workers were often absent in its call centers around the country, Comcast Corp. implemented a resilience training program to get employees back in the office and more productive on the job.

A study commissioned by the Philadelphia-based cable company found that the majority of time when employees didn’t show up for work, stress was “a huge factor,” Dr. Tanya Benenson, Comcast’s chief medical officer, said during a panel discussion Wednesday at the Integrated Benefits Institute’s annual forum in San Francisco.

“People are bringing their work stress home and their home stress to work and now there’s this vicious cycle … You know that’s going to impact productivity,” Dr. Benenson said.

Comcast’s wellness initiatives at the time — lectures, an employee assistance program, meditation, yoga, and tai chi — weren’t doing enough to alleviate worker stress, so Comcast turned to a digital tool that teaches employees to be resilient in the face of stressful situations.

That is, it teaches workers to be “aware and then challenge and adapt their thinking for better and more productive behaviors,” said Boston-based Jan Bruce, CEO of meQuilibrium, the online resilience training tool adopted by Comcast.

Read the full article at Business Insurance.