Developing Workplace Resilience

Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) is offered by many EAP companies to assist employees deal with their emotional response to a critical event. Some organizations utilize employees in this process while others focus on the work of the mental health professional. A current model (Justice Institute of British Columbia) for CISM utilizes both mental health professionals and peers in CISM response and this is the model utilized by Family Services EAP within Canada Post Corporation Pacific Region. The use of employees (peer diffusers) in critical incident response has its locus within the fire, police, and ambulance services (Mitchell, 1988) and is well established within these groups as a requirement of the CISM process. The focus of this study was to develop a system of intervention utilizing peer diffusers to assist the employees of Canada Post Corporation Pacific Region who experience emotional trauma due to a significant or traumatic event. The results of this applied research exhibited the value of peer diffuser intervention in the quick emotional recovery of employees. It also met our primary purpose of demonstrating validity for the involvement of peer diffusers in this workplace. An unexpected result was how the peer diffusers reduced lost employee time, were able to transfer skills to other employee workplace issues enhancing employee resilience and how their involvement in the workplace improved organizational culture and workplace health.