Resilience-based interventions in the public sector workplace: a systematic review

Area of Science:

• Workplace psychology
• Organizational behavior
• Occupational health

Background:

• Workforce health and sustainability are increasingly linked to resilience-based interventions.
• Diverse definitions and measurements of resilience complicate intervention design and evaluation.
• A systematic review is needed to clarify resilience definitions, intervention content, and effectiveness in the workplace.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify how resilience is defined, operationalized in intervention content, and measured in workplace interventions.
• To synthesize the effectiveness of various resilience-based workplace interventions.

Main Methods:

• Systematic literature search from 2013-2023, including 24 studies with 26 interventions.
• Categorization of resilience definitions into trait, process, or outcome orientations.
• Calculation of effect sizes (Cohen's D) for pre-test to post-test and follow-up outcomes.

Main Results:

• Most definitions conceptualized resilience as a trait or process; no study used outcome-orientation exclusively.
• Nearly half (46%) of studies showed inconsistencies between resilience definitions, measures, and intervention strategies.
• Resilience interventions generally show positive impacts; educational workshops (frequent, long duration) yield medium to large effects, while digital interventions show small to medium effects.

Conclusions:

• Resilience-based interventions enhance employee psychological well-being and work-related outcomes like productivity.
• Resilience is increasingly recognized as a shared responsibility between employees and organizations.
• Future research must prioritize consistency in defining resilience, developing intervention content, and selecting outcome measures for workplace programs.