Building a mentally fit workforce with Pulse

New Gallup findings from their latest Annual Global Update determined, among other disturbing findings, that stress, sadness and worry have all increased around the world, pushing Gallup’s Negative Experience Index to a new high. Our professional lives are certainly suffering.

New ‘Pulse’ app helps create a more mentally fit, less toxic and more profitable workforce

On the heels of its virtual employee training and simulation deployments on artificial intelligence (AI), metaverse and interactive 3D, global leadership training and development company Fierce, Inc. is once again changing the way which people communicate with each other to cope with stress at work. This time via the visionary company’s new “Pulse” app, set to refine and redefine workplace culture, while dramatically improving results. With the ability to demonstrate double-digit reductions in stress and anxiety, as well as improved levels of resilience, Pulse is designed to deal with the stressors that today’s pressure-laden business climate places on the collective psyche of industry personnel.

The problem

“Beyond the increasingly tumultuous economic, political, supply chain and other macro issues facing businesses and their employees, wearable technologies and better-equipped home, remote and on-site offices have made people more easily accessible, leading to increased demands for work participation and productivity Expectations of availability or punctuality contribute to higher stress levels, as downtime is the time to relaxing, enjoying family and friends, and exploring hobbies that could help moderate those levels of stress that pay off on many emotional, psychological, physical, operational, and fiscal fronts,” notes Dr. Gabe De La Rosa, Director of Behavioral Sciences at Fierce Inc.

Workplace stress has been well proven to seriously undermine productivity, efficiency and morale. Today, in the post-pandemic era, employees are finding it all the more difficult as companies struggle to adapt and respond appropriately to the changing needs of employees. In this vicious circle, hundreds of billions of dollars of revenue are lost, a situation that can be avoided if properly addressed. A notable Cost of Illness study estimated that “the cost of work-related stress ranged from US$221 million to over US$187 billion…” A more comprehensive analysis conducted by the American Institute of Stress revealed that after including factors such as absenteeism, turnover, decreased productivity, increased medical costs and increased legal costs, the total economic impact of stress on U.S. employers was been estimated at $300 billion.

The solution

For 20 years, Fierce has challenged companies and those who run them to have the kind of dialogue that drives cultures of transparency, a philosophy that prompted Fierce founder Susan Scott’s first book, “Fierce Conversations,” to selling over 800,000 copies while propelling her second book, “Fierce Leadership,” to become a New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestseller.

Today, Fierce, Inc. CEO Ed Beltran and Dr. De La Rosa brought forward the idea that “conversation is culture” to develop the revolutionary Pulse app, a technology solution affectionately dubbed ” The Fitbit of Corporate America”. With this in mind, Pulse strives to build a mentally healthy workforce and build financial fitness in kind.

Early data from the Pulse app, which is now available for early registration ahead of its official launch in September, has demonstrated several staggering results, including:

14% decrease in anxiety

10% stress reduction

8% decrease in burnout

11% increased resilience

Pulse uses stress and heart rate variability (HRV) to objectively measure stress. It categorizes stress and links it to specific times and events, allowing the user to decipher and identify their true causes. Beltran highlights the value of this approach, noting, “The app identifies stressors and can help both the individual and the company determine if it was triggered due to something in the employee’s personal life. employee, an intense temporary assignment in the workplace, or more macro-business issues like identifying signs of a toxic work culture.”

“The essential element goes beyond simply managing stress through meditation, exercise, diet and becoming aware of the root cause of your stress and fighting it head on. This is what Fierce has been teaching for more than 20 years how to engage your environment through conversations to enrich relationships and achieve desired results. This is what Pulse does at your fingertips,” continued Beltran.

Characteristics

Characteristics

  • Mediation specific to your stressors
  • Biometric analysis to increase self-awareness
  • Interactive AI bot to guide you through your stressor
  • Optional support from coaches
  • Integration with today’s top wearables
  • Integration with calendar and GPS to identify the origin of stress

Benefits

Benefits

  • Empowers users to identify and eliminate stress through patented technology, groundbreaking research, interactive content and coaching
  • Connects self-awareness, identifying people’s toughest challenges, and taking action
  • Quicker identification of problems and movement towards a resolution
  • Eliminates open coaching that is hard to tie to results
  • Determines organizational issues/themes for broader virtual or live L&D/wellness engagements
  • Connects users directly to wellness and employee assistance programs
  • Connects users to relevant and applicable on-demand L&D content
  • Develops and increases resilience that generates economic impacts on the organization, supporting a thriving culture
  • Supports EAS compliance
  • Delivers results in as little as two weeks and one coaching session

“A leader’s best friend is visibility, and Pulse is perhaps the greatest innovation in employee engagement in many years, one that helps leaders see and solve what would otherwise be difficult to detect,” Beltran said.

One of Fierce’s most compelling findings from his research is that a lack of self-awareness decreases the effectiveness of traditional coaching, leading to longer engagements with less impact. Studies have shown that while 95% of people think they are self-aware, only 10-15% really are. No matter how difficult the situation, being resilient is possible. The Pulse app promotes an increase in self-awareness and gives leaders valuable insights that help create a more positive culture that can trivialize staff resilience.

“Since founding Fierce 20 years ago, we’ve been at the forefront of communications training serving more than half of Fortune 500 companies. Today, we’re delivering industry-leading technology solutions and unleashing Fierce in as an API of the human – to the human connection”. Pulse is intended to help companies ensure they end the toxic culture and support a transparent, low-stress culture that drives results. Like a driver, for leaders, visibility drives success,” Beltran added.

Dr. De La Rosa stresses the importance of stress mitigation and the importance of developing the Pulse app, and noted, “Companies should have a proactive communication strategy to help manage and mitigate stress and staff anxiety and the tools to help achieve these goals. Solutions like Pulse can help create cultures by closing the gap between how people feel and what they say in workplace conversations, which is central to what drives poor mental health and emotional. corporate cultures. When employees feel safe to truly show themselves as they are, they can become more invested in their professional role. While stress has always been a cause of operational discomfort, the ensuing pandemic has raised the stakes much higher. It has exacerbated concerns far beyond the realm of health, a reality that can have serious consequences for individual businesses and industries in general. »

Dr. Gabe De La Rosa

Dr. De La Rosa brings extreme expertise in organizational stress to the development of the Pulse app. He has valuable experience measuring the impact of stress on individuals in one of the most important working cultures: the United States Navy. There he worked as a contractor in the role of industrial/organizational psychologist for the Naval Center for Combat and Operational Stress Control. He is responsible for understanding and improving the organizational factors that impact the performance of Sailors and Marines. His work has been published in peer-reviewed empirical journals such as Military Medicine Journal of Traumatic Stress, Journal of Addictive Behaviors, and Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy. He has also edited books such as “The Handbook of Employee Engagement”, which is considered a valuable resource for organizational psychologists.

Dr. Gabe De La Rosa

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