Latest / Authentic Living / Resiliency Training and the ROR: Return On Relationships with Treena Reilkoff

Transcript

Resiliency Training and the ROR: Return On Relationships with Treena Reilkoff · Authentic Living

• 0:01
  Welcome to authentic living with Roxanne, a place where we have as conversations about
• 0:08
  things that really matter in our lives.
• 0:11
  And now here's your host, Roxanne Derhodge.
• 0:36
  Hi, everyone.
• 0:36
  It's Roxanne Durgesh.
• 0:38
  Thanks for tuning in again this week.
• 0:40
  Today, I have a special colleague that I met through a friend in Cayman Islands, and it's
• 0:47
  it's talk.
• 0:47
  It's a funny thing about connections.
• 0:49
  So, hi Trina, so glad you could be here with us today.
• 0:52
  Oh, I'm excited to be here.
• 0:54
  And, Kim, if you're listening, this is happening because of you.
• 0:58
  Yeah.
• 0:59
  So, Athena is has is in a a field that I think most of us would find very intriguing.
• 1:06
  I'll I'll just read a little bit about her bio.
• 1:08
  And we'll jump right in because we're gonna have such a fantastic conversation.
• 1:12
  Trina Realcoff is a conflict management and resiliency specialist International author and
• 1:18
  the founder of TLR solutions for Conflict Inc.
• 1:22
  As a trauma informed mediator, psychological and safety advisor workplace, fairness, and
• 1:27
  restoration, analyst, and the resiliency trail trainer and facilitator Her passion is to
• 1:33
  support leaders, organizations, and businesses to become the architects of their conflict,
• 1:39
  resilient workplace.
• 1:41
  Wow.
• 1:41
  That's that's a lot in there, Trina.
• 1:44
  So why it's fascinating that I the topic of resilience.
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  I think that's that's gonna be coming in.
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  I'm gonna use a word buzzword because we hear it a lot, Trina.
• 1:57
  And I think I want you to start off by kind of sharing it with us.
• 2:02
  What what An average definition of resilience is and what it's not.
• 2:11
  Okay.
• 2:13
  So the one that's very popular is resiliency is the idea to bounce back after adversity.
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  How I like to frame it is resiliency is the ability to bounce back after conflict,
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  adversity, or a traumatic experience, individual, personal, or professional, but then
• 2:32
  from that experience of that event or incident, You have now gained skills, knowledge, and
• 2:38
  experience that has made you stronger for that next conflict, adversity, or incident.
• 2:45
  So what resiliency is not, it's not just eating well, sleeping well, and getting a having a
• 2:52
  community.
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  It's actually identifying skill sets and traits that you know you have because you experienced
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  and used them in different environmental contexts, and they're in your back pocket that
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  you pull out the next time you need it.
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  I like that because often you hear that basic definition, you know, it's how long you're
• 3:17
  gonna stay when something happens, how long you're gonna stay down and get back up.
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  Right?
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  It's like the bounce back effect.
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  But what I hear that I like about it is an, you know, who has not been through something.
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  I mean, we've all to have lived and breathe means we've been through things either
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  personally, professionally and oftentimes both, based on the extent or length of our career.
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  So it's really kind of understanding in those moments when things aren't so good.
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  What did I apply?
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  What didn't work?
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  Yeah.
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  What did I learn for the first time?
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  And maybe how do I iterate that each and every time should something come along again?
• 3:56
  Mhmm.
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  And its resiliency is not just personal.
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  It's personal, professional, operational and organizational, so it's learning risk
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  management within yourself and within your environmental contexts.
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  And it's transferable.
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  Transformational.
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  Let's let's talk about this, you know, op operational and organizational.
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  Right?
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  So, you know, I think that the average person isn't gonna think about that within the family.
• 4:27
  Right?
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  So we're not Yeah.
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  But I think within organizations, you know, I in my is my tenure as a a psychotherapist, I I
• 4:37
  was a first responder and and oftentimes organizations back in my time, I'm gonna date
• 4:45
  my time.
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  It was nice to have.
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  Right?
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  Yeah.
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  It's kinda within, you know, generally the norm for people that don't know about it is within
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  24 hours of a traumatic event occurring in the workplace.
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  You get in, you educate, you have a team come in, they educate on the biological,
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  psychological, and the emotional impact on employees.
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  Yeah.
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  And, just to kind of have people recognize what's normal.
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  And then within 72 hours, we, you know, generally, you'd get a debriefing, which is
• 5:14
  kind of really getting into impact of what the trauma is with the individuals.
• 5:20
  When I worked to incorporate, you know, companies were coming along with that, Trina.
• 5:24
  What what is it like now?
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  Like, I mean, I know you and I chatted a little bit about a event that your daughter had
• 5:30
  recently gone through.
• 5:32
  Mhmm.
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  What what
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  are you finding the pulse being when something traumatic is happening and and people's kind of
• 5:39
  responses organization into it.
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  Right.
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  Well, it it's twofold because we know with businesses organization, it comes down to time,
• 5:48
  money, reputation, and retention.
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  And unless there is not metrics available, to show what the impact of a potential or a
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  traumatic event or incident occurred it's hard to create a base lining where to go from there,
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  and you don't understand or realize the potential cost, time, money, liability, health
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  care, disability that might result of being reactive, not proactive.
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  So when we look into workplaces right right now and we think of our experiences with COVID and
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  new new legislation.
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  Like, a lot of businesses aren't aware within provincially and federally that under
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  occupational health and safety, labor Coblaw now, every business needs to have a workplace
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  assessment and have policy and procedure in place for workplace violence and harassment.
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  Right?
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  Because it's so new.
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  And and if we look at, the impact of COVID and, historically of events that have occurred, I
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  guess.
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  New, new information worldwide, and I kinda think COVID helped facilitate it.
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  So Canada has the Canadian National Standards of Creating Psychological Psychological Healthy
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  Health And Safety.
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  And then the Geneva Convention actually adopted some of those.
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  Last year, I believe, in 2022, ISO standards, it became what is, you know, psychological
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  health and safety in the workplace, workplace violence.
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  And then Australia has taken the lead over Canada because they've implemented it into
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  their government, into all work, and then the US just established the workplace mental health
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  framework.
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  So when we look at all these new initiatives of framework, you can get the policy procedure,
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  but what does it look like feel like?
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  For people in the workplace.
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  So an example, like using my daughter, she experienced, in her work, being a part of a
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  robbery.
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  And having first responder experience and clinical experience in the background, my first
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  question was where was the immediate critical incident response after to ensure nothing
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  internalized of potential fears going forward.
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  So when we're looking at a workplace assessment, what is what is the voice?
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  What are everybody's feelings in that workplace?
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  Do they feel safe?
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  Both physically and psychologically.
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  When we link in organizational and operational resiliency, the the the, company store, it
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  opened backed up within less than a 6 hour time frame and resumed everyday work, but then we
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  reflect on how did it impact everybody who was working there that day.
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  And if we look at organizational operational resiliency, they were resilient in the effect
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  that they were able to go back into being in business pretty quick after a robbery.
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  However, the personal and professional resiliency with a traumatic incident is
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  individual.
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  My daughter, being a very resilient Young lady has experienced certain events, and we used to
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  live in higher risk.
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  Cities out west in Canada where you had to be aware and alert to your surroundings and how to
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  respond to people and events.
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  So when we're looking at her recovery after this incident, she was able to identify, yep, I
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  I'm having a traumatic experience, the fear, the anxiety, She couldn't stay working.
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  She thought she could, but then when she knew, I didn't feel safe at the moment because she
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  was processing everything.
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  She called and said I'm coming home.
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  And then when we talked about the resiliency of going back to work, because some people would
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  not feel safe to go back to work.
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  She was able to process, I'm safe physically because She listed off what is safe within
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  where she works in her workplace.
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  She was safe because of the safe relationship and psychological protection she had with her
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  manager to be able to have transparent and open conversations about the experience.
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  They did a debriefing.
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  And then she was also able to process what she thought as her resiliency of going back to
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  wear, and this is where I'm talking the back pocket of skill sets, when she was threatened
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  at a younger age, in Saskatchewan.
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  Right?
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  And there was a threat of serious harm, and she was at a young age.
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  And how did we process the feelings?
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  The emotions, and then confirm she was safe, and what did that look like and feel like?
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  So when we look at her experience, we look at our organizational operational resiliency, what
• 11:07
  does that look like now with COVID?
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  We've reentered the workplace, but COVID and the effects of COVID are still present for many
• 11:16
  people.
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  So having that Organizational operational resiliency comes in with risk mitigating mental
• 11:25
  health, psychological safety.
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  It's like an after effect, quite literally, Trina, because, you know, when I talk to
• 11:35
  clients and, you know, these talk start to talk a lot about, fear.
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  You know, what I've been hearing a lot from a lot of people is that they are feeling when I'm
• 11:46
  coaching them or, you know, even managers with teams or or leadership teams are saying, you
• 11:52
  know, people are going on you know, like, but but they're still haven't processed, I think, a
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  lot of people.
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  And then also people that have been through other losses, right, Like, we know of because,
• 12:04
  you know, you and I talk the same language where people listening, you may not know, but
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  when if somebody has gone through something traumatic prior to an event, what there's a
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  residual, I'm gonna call it a reverb effect that occurs that puts that person at higher
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  risk for not being able to be resiliency enough to be able to go on and function.
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  So you think about a robbery, and I mean, when I was, in consulting, you know, bank robberies,
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  you know, would happen with some of the accounts that I would manage.
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  And those tellers, quite literally, at that time, and I'm talking 25 years ago to date
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  myself.
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  At that time, the banks didn't think it through as much.
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  They offered a bit of support but that translates out into the metrics that happened
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  after the fact.
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  And I think it's really important that we talk about that because We think that, oh, yeah.
• 12:55
  Well, you know, we're we're we're we can deal with that, but we know that biologically,
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  psychologically, demotionally, we could only I would say rent space for a limited period of
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  time.
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  And before it, it kind of shows its cracks, and that's what I often say.
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  Right?
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  So Yeah.
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  Let's talk a little bit about that because I think that's important for, let's say, the
• 13:16
  average leadership team that's listening in and they're saying, well, what does that kinda
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  mean?
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  Like, you know, you're talking about assessments.
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  Are you talking about numbers and, you know, what does that mean?
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  And how does let's say I'm in an industry and we kinda we put a little bit of a band aid air
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  off it and we send people off and say, I think they're fine.
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  Trina's fine.
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  I chatted with her.
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  She says she's okay.
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  What kinds of things have you can you find out about that event.
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  Let's start at the beginning.
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  And then let's kinda look at, mitigating the risks as you go and what kind of metrics
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  leadership teams or leaders should be thinking about as they consider what kind of things they
• 13:56
  should implement.
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  Okay.
• 13:57
  Well, I'll start with kind of an analogy because then it helps put it in perspective
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  that everybody can understand and relate to.
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  So say it's wintertime and there's ice in front of the main entrance of the Biz The ice is the
• 14:13
  hazard.
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  The risk for clients, stakeholders, employees coming in, is a risk to fall and have an injury
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  of a bruise, and that's the, you know, minimal risk, but then the 100% risk is depending on
• 14:28
  how an individual fell could result in death.
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  So you've identified the hazardous ice you assessed the risks, which could be 0, no injury
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  to 100% of serious injury and death.
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  And or death, and then how do you mitigate that risk?
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  You put, you know, salt on it or sand on it.
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  There signs.
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  Like, you go down down Toronto when it's springtime and you see the signs saying there
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  might be falling ice, right, and they're mitigating the risk of an injury on a sidewalk.
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  For the public.
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  So now you've put that in the context of a workplace organization.
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  And say there was a car accident, and somebody got seriously injured in the car accident while
• 15:14
  working.
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  So they are now off.
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  And there's been an upscale in sales or a business, but now they're short staffed.
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  Most, and, you know, common practice was reactive responses to how do we mitigate short
• 15:31
  staffed not getting out the the the products or, you know, meeting the deadlines of whatever
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  is the business.
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  So how would we mitigate that?
• 15:43
  Well, now under occupational health and safety labor code and looking at workplace violence
• 15:48
  and harassment, Workload is now considered a hazard, a workplace hazard.
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  Ummitigated workload in a business organization can contribute to risk of employees
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  experiencing mental health and or physical health impact, negative impact, illness, which
• 16:11
  then means stress leave, disability, potential re retention, right, issues with retention, and
• 16:18
  our reputation.
• 16:20
  Because now after the experience of COVID, more younger generations, even my kids, right,
• 16:26
  they're they're saying they're looking for workplaces, careers, organizations, businesses,
• 16:31
  that create that psychological health and safe workplace.
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  So when we're looking at time, money, retention, reputation, and the resiliency of
• 16:40
  organization operational, what have some businesses done to make it feel both physically
• 16:48
  safe and psychologically safe returning to work after COVID, or have they basically just sent
• 16:55
  back to work and there's no open transparent discussion.
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  So what do people then do reactively?
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  They take sick leave, stress leave, put in harassment complaints.
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  The bullying goes up because wellness is just not eat well, sleep well, have a community, do
• 17:16
  some fun you know, potlox, wellness is just one component where mental health is another
• 17:22
  component, and psychological safety is another component.
• 17:26
  You know, I I'm gonna I'm gonna play devil's advocate here to employer listening, and
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  they're gonna say, you know what, Trina?
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  We've lost massive share.
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  We've we've managed through things.
• 17:38
  You know, we gotta wake up and start to get back to work.
• 17:41
  Yeah.
• 17:42
  So I hear I hear what you're saying, and I completely agree with what you're saying.
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  But on the other end, there's, I think, with employers that I'm speaking to, they're like,
• 17:53
  When you open up this divide
• 17:56
  Yeah.
• 17:56
  What if you can't close it up again?
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  And I think that's where humans and just when we look back in how we've all just it's human
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  nature.
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  Conflict avoidance is easy.
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  Conflict curiosity is kind of anxiety provoking because it's the unknown.
• 18:18
  So if we take it into the context of becoming conflict and trauma resilient, the idea of this
• 18:24
  new baseline, the occupational health and safety code lay code with the workplace
• 18:28
  assessment.
• 18:30
  And if you put in the context of COVID where how we used to live with COVID, it's like a
• 18:36
  dep.
• 18:36
  We have to grieve it.
• 18:38
  Now is the time in life where we get to create a new leadership legacy.
• 18:42
  What is it gonna look like to create and improve that intergenerational conflict
• 18:48
  resiliency in business and personal and professional.
• 18:52
  So for a business organization, compliance, because it's gonna cost you a lot of money if
• 18:58
  you don't comply and you're not even aware of the new labor code law, What's that cost?
• 19:04
  But if you enter it into you're creating a baseline, being the architect, right,
• 19:10
  Mhmm.
• 19:10
  It's you're the business.
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  You're gonna build a new skyscraper.
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  You need a solid foundation.
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  Without that solid foundation, the skyscraper is not gonna stand.
• 19:19
  Right, a hurricane, a windstorm, no storm, it's gonna collapse.
• 19:23
  So by engaging in curiosity, conflict curiosity, the workplace assessment allows
• 19:31
  specific metrics based on the Canadian National Standards of Psychological Health And Safety of
• 19:36
  what is the culture, what is the feeling, what is the voice of the people, from the very front
• 19:41
  line, all the way to CEO.
• 19:43
  And what is so enabling and engaging is that the survey is confidential, All the metrics are
• 19:52
  stored within Canadian occupational health and safety.
• 19:56
  The department, right, nobody can access So it's voluntary confidential, but an
• 20:01
  organization actually gets the metrics of, say, a hundred people did the workplace assessment.
• 20:07
  50% are being feeling discriminated.
• 20:10
  Out of the 50, 20 are being discriminated based on a trauma experience related to COVID.
• 20:16
  So it'll break it down specifically and identify the gaps, the pain points, the
• 20:21
  unresolved historical conflict, But then it will also identify what are the resilient
• 20:28
  strengths of the organization and operation, and what's the easiest cost effective way to
• 20:35
  make improvements in a business that have sometimes no cost is listening to what the
• 20:40
  employees want and need.
• 20:42
  So I recently did a workplace assessment, and what was interesting was through the
• 20:48
  assessment, and it was not just the survey, but then there was individual confidential focus
• 20:52
  groups and interviews was coming back to work, and it was a very high risk environment.
• 21:00
  That what employees really needed was was upper management, the CEO, the leaders, to just come
• 21:07
  out of their office and do check ins, not do your your regular routine of where you have to
• 21:14
  go do the the walk through of different areas and check-in, but they wanted that authentic
• 21:20
  connection of just come out and just check-in and see how we're doing.
• 21:24
  Something that basic.
• 21:27
  So what you're saying is that a lot of since so this got instituted by the government, was this
• 21:35
  recently?
• 21:37
  How how recently with the standards?
• 21:39
  With the psychological
• 21:42
  Yeah.
• 21:42
  Psychological health and safety national standards have been with candidates for 10
• 21:47
  years.
• 21:47
  It was this year was their 10 year anniversary.
• 21:50
  Okay.
• 21:50
  Okay.
• 21:50
  But it's only recent because of mental health in the workplace of well-being that it's
• 21:55
  becoming recognized that there are psychosocial hazards, not just physical hazards, but
• 22:01
  psychosocial hazards.
• 22:03
  Right.
• 22:04
  Right.
• 22:04
  And like you're saying, if I, you know, you're thinking, well, I think it the solution is
• 22:09
  enough.
• 22:10
  And then you do what think you need to do.
• 22:13
  And if you don't get a baseline from an assessment, let's say with this robbery, and
• 22:19
  and what Amazing information they would get.
• 22:24
  Mhmm.
• 22:24
  Right?
• 22:25
  Because then this is an international company.
• 22:29
  That has locations across Canada.
• 22:32
  And the impact is, let's say they do this, not very well.
• 22:38
  And it's a, you know, basically, you know, I think it's a 20 4 7 service.
• 22:44
  And let's say you do it poorly on one location, and that ripple effect.
• 22:49
  So other people working, say, the particular shift that your daughter was working or even
• 22:54
  just working off shift or maybe not even off shift.
• 22:57
  Right?
• 22:58
  And you do it poorly, then what does that do?
• 23:00
  Like, you said to retention, with people thinking, Well, I like what I do, but I don't
• 23:07
  wanna be held at that point.
• 23:09
  Yeah.
• 23:10
  And and it's reputation too.
• 23:11
  Right?
• 23:11
  Because Right.
• 23:12
  Absolutely.
• 23:12
  Getting on the business, the cost of reputation, you can't do a little formula for
• 23:18
  that if it's a major company.
• 23:20
  So it's like thinking, I always ask.
• 23:23
  So when you see your company in the news, do you want to see this company did not have
• 23:30
  anything proactively in place to mitigate physical and psychological risks due to a
• 23:37
  robbery.
• 23:38
  Or do you want to see in the news this company is ahead of the game?
• 23:44
  They are taking the lead in creating psychological health and safety in the
• 23:47
  workplace and ensuring their staff, employees, clients are safe, feel welcome, and we look
• 23:56
  after our staff and our clients.
• 23:59
  Right?
• 24:00
  So it's that reputation on there.
• 24:02
  Yeah.
• 24:02
  That would just be a backdrop to that company versus, of a sudden, you know, you're realizing
• 24:08
  the Yeah.
• 24:09
  And, you know, now we are our own media.
• 24:13
  Like, you have interaction.
• 24:15
  Somebody put something on social, and it doesn't get addressed.
• 24:18
  That's that's like, you know, wildfire.
• 24:21
  We're and that reputation, like you said, that you're like calling in people to mitigate the
• 24:25
  reputation that now has not it's kinda come out of the gate.
• 24:29
  I know you gotta pull it back.
• 24:31
  Right?
• 24:32
  So, yeah, and you do a cost comparison, k, the cost to bring somebody in to mitigate the
• 24:37
  reputation now that's been tarnished, or somebody also, through that event, put in a
• 24:43
  workplace violence complaint that now has to be investigated so the cost of the investigation
• 24:49
  and what are the potential outcomes of it versus being proactive and should an event
• 24:55
  come, you've already recognized what are the psychosocial hazards, what are the risks, what
• 25:01
  is missing, what is working, and how to strengthen that, and then should an
• 25:05
  investigation come or a lawsuit, you already have the liability covered saying we've done
• 25:11
  this, this, this implemented, Yes.
• 25:14
  The event happened.
• 25:15
  This is the action we took because we were aware of proactive measures we needed to
• 25:19
  mitigate the psychosocial risk.
• 25:22
  This was such a great interview that we decided to turn it into a 2 part series.
• 25:27
  Be sure to tune in next week for part 2.
• 25:29
  So you don't miss out on the amazing content.
• 25:32
  Thank you for tuning in again.
• 25:34
  Before I sign off, I want you to consider What is it disrupting your bottom line?
• 25:40
  Just a reminder that my book return on relationships will be available on June 10th on
• 25:44
  Amazon And it's available today on my website at broxandrhodge.comforward/book.
• 25:50
  For more tools, insights, and anecdotes about your leadership story, Consider pre ordering,
• 25:55
  you'll find the link in the show notes.