Building Resilience

Having recently won silver in the External Learning Solution of the Year Award, the Resilience Development Company are quickly becoming recognised for the incredible work they do

According to research, each year 12.8 million working days are lost to stress, anxiety and depression. Surprisingly little research has been done previously to evaluate ways to improve resilience and wellbeing for the general population, especially in local communities. 1 in 3 parents report feeling burnt out some or most of the time and schools have reported an increase in the last five years in the number of students experiencing poor mental health.

The Resilience Development Company’s mission is to help people work better, live better and feel better, which they do across the workplace, schools and in the community. Their skill-based resilience programmes offer a unique opportunity to make a really big difference in improving people's lives and increasing national wellbeing. But who and what is the Resilience Development Company?

In a nutshell, the Resilience Development Company is a local company that works both in Jersey and internationally. They’ve delivered their evidence-based and practical programmes to thousands of people, to enable them to better understand their thinking and emotions so they are able to stress less, perform more and lead happier and more confident lives.

Their programmes can be accessed individually and through training delivered within the workplace. The team offer 1:1 sessions that are flexible and work around a person’s schedule. The programme tackles a lot of major pain points from mental health in society all the way down to parenting – a huge transition. The programme also helps relationships in the workplace, from poor management to heavy workloads.

Their work in local secondary schools has given students, parents and teachers the vital skills to thrive at home, at school and in their studies. Year 10 students from Haute Vallée and Victoria College participated in a 9-week programme consisting of weekly 2-hour skill-based sessions. At the end of the programme, the students received a Chartered Management Institution certification.

The team

The Resilience Development Company was set up in 2013 by Emma Ogilvie and Louise Scambler.

Emma’s background is in counselling and psychology, and she has been an active member of both the Government Mental Health Strategy Review and the subsequent Scrutiny Report in which she was tasked with driving forward preventative strategies against poor mental health. Emma has also experienced first-hand the debilitating effects of anxiety and panic attacks. “The necessity to fund services to support people who are at the acute end of poor mental health means little action is taken to proactively prevent instances of poor mental health in the first place. Today’s world is full of challenge, change and uncertainty and our programmes give people and organisations the skills and strategies to enable them to manage stress and their own mental health, to boost their resilience and proactively navigate the rollercoaster of life.”

Louise worked for 27 years in the film industry before moving to Jersey where she began a career in learning and development. In addition to working within workplace organisations, she specialises in developing resilience within young people and parents. Louise explained that she lost her first husband to suicide, and this has made her incredibly passionate about what she does.

In 2014 Emma’s husband, David, joined the team. Having previously worked as a director in banking, he recognised that the key skills the resilience team were teaching were at the core of what leadership and good workplace culture is all about. “Research shows that what makes people sick at work is poor management, poor culture and heavy workloads, so we created programmes that directly address this. We’ve worked across FTSE 100 companies, Government, Emergency Services and the NHS and our programmes are proven to significantly reduce stress and increase engagement and productivity. In basic terms, it creates a workplace culture where people actually want to come to work every day”

In 2016, former elite soldier and ex-marine, Jon Watkins joined the team and brought a different dimension to resilience. “I was frustrated with Management and Leadership full stop and believed there was a fundamental gap in what I had been trained to do in the Military and the missing elements needed in both leadership and civilian life. I became more aware that resilience, relationships and transitioning skills were vital.”

Research and results

Their skill-based Resilience programmes take a unique, evidence-informed approach and the impact is both promising and exciting.

900 participants completed a 7-item validated questionnaire (GAD-7) routinely used across both Primary Care and Mental Health settings as a pre-screening tool to measure the presence and severity of symptoms of excessive, exaggerated anxiety and worry. All participants were unaware of the significance of the questions and were accessing the programme in the workplace or school.

Of the 900 people, 24% of people showed signs of severe anxiety before the programme. This number reduced to 13% as a result of the programme.

The Learning Awards 2020

The impact of their work across industry has now been recognised by the 2020 Learning and Performance Institute’s (LPI) Global Learning Awards, in which they were confirmed as the Silver winner of the ‘External Learning Solution of the Year Award.’ This accolade is presented to a learning provider that has undertaken a major learning and development project that is both innovative in concept and has produced demonstrable performance improvement and business impact as well as evidence of value for money. The team were up against the likes of GoogleUK and Dale Carnegie.

David commented: “The organisations we work with tell us our programmes are game changing in terms of workplace culture, wellbeing and performance and as a team, we’re passionate about what we do and have worked hard to develop programmes that deliver exceptional results.”

The ceremony, which took place at the London Mayfair Hilton Hotel on 20th February, was attended by global industry professionals from across the Learning and Development community, who joined finalists to recognise and celebrate programmes that are relevant, innovative and evidence best practice in today’s workplace. 