In part one, we looked at how individuals’ pessimistic "explanatory styles" can hinder their recovery, diminish return to work outcomes, decrease productivity and increase their chance of illness or injury by more than twice. For those injured workers who have a tendency to err on the side of pessimism, the likelihood of developing secondary problems is greatly increased.

Profiling workers’ explanatory styles helps to gauge whether an individual tends towards an optimistic or pessimistic world-view. There is a sound business case for challenging employees’ pessimistic thinking and promoting optimism in the workplace.

Profiling explanatory styles

Peter Sullivan of Australian Business Training profiles workers’ explanatory styles to assess how they tend to explain the events that happen in their life – from either a pessimistic or an optimistic perspective.

“We use a 20-minute questionnaire which lists six good events and six bad events. One of the questions details a good event, asking, ‘You come into a lot of money, what’s the cause of that?’ Often people will interpret that event as winning the lotto,” Peter says.

“One of the really interesting insights comes with the next question, which asks, ‘was the cause of this event something about me, or circumstance?’ The pessimists will often explain that they won the lotto, ‘through circumstances beyond my control.’ The optimist, however, might say, ‘I won the lotto because I picked the numbers.’ This difference in perspective has a considerable effect on how individuals succeed in return to work following an injury or illness.

Prescription without diagnosis

In much the same way a doctor is obligated to understand the cause of an illness before attempting to treat it, Peter maintains the importance of understanding each individual’s own explanatory style before attempting to facilitate optimal return to work outcomes. Failing to account for the individual’s own emotional perspective in the return to work process is akin, Peter says, to prescription without diagnosis.

“One of the things I do if someone’s stuck in a rut is to profile their explanatory style for a start, so at least you’ve got the data. And then you can show them how that influences their behaviour.” By taking a return to work approach that is centered on the individual employee’s needs, there is a far greater likelihood of success. Peter takes a look at the profiling process:

“Often you get people having a real ‘ah-ha!’ moment - though sometimes it takes a little bit. If you ask most people if they’re an optimist or a pessimist, everyone wants to think they’re an optimist. But two-thirds aren’t - which is a bit of a surprise for some people at the start.”

This process can uncover some deeply-entrenched patterns of thinking.

“Sometimes you get a little bit of push-back, but when they go away and think about it they usually come back and say, ‘you know that’s right, when I really stop and think about it, I do that.’

“Even taking that step,” says Peter, “and raising their awareness, puts them in the position where they can choose to stop doing something.”

As Peter points out, if people begin to become aware of how their explanatory style affects their emotions - and in turn, their way of reacting to life’s situations - they become more capable of assessing whether it is likely to be helpful or harmful to them.

This is especially the case for injured workers experiencing a difficult return to work process.

“That’s where you’re getting the pushback with management or whoever’s trying to help them, whereas if they have that awareness and start taking that responsibility themselves, and see that it’s in their best interest to go in that direction, then you don’t have to push them,” Peter said.

Which means, as we know, a shorter claim, faster and more durable return to work, improved workplace health and wellbeing, and increased productivity.

Empowerment vs. helplessness

Employers are increasingly recognising the effect of secondary problems - exacerbated by pessimistic thinking - on return to work rates, workplace wellbeing and productivity. Yet, alarmingly, few employers actively promote the development of emotional coping skills in the workplace.

“One of the things that happens in the business world is that we’ve been trained to dismiss emotions as irrelevant,” Peter said. New evidence supporting the role of optimism in the workplace, however, contradicts this old era. Peter explains the concept of the positive/negative ratio:

“The positive/negative ratio refers to the number of positive emotions experienced by a person compared with the number of negative emotions. Now part of that can come from their own cognition of course – their own perception or attitude - but part of it also comes from their environment (i.e. the workplace).

“80 per cent of organisations have a positive/negative ratio of 2:1 or under. In other words, employees are experiencing two positives to one negative. You would think that would be good, but it’s not sufficient for an organisation to thrive. In other words, it’s not adding to the wellbeing of the individuals or the productivity. It needs to get above 3:1 in order to get a leverage effect.”

“The good teams have an average of 5:1. You need those positive emotions to have an ‘undo effect’ on the negatives. If somebody has experienced an illness, and injury, an accident, there’s a fair bit of negative in what they’re experiencing. So there needs to be a ramp-up on the positive to help them thrive.”

This means that businesses can’t afford to just avoid overly negative behaviour, they must actively seek to create a positive working environment. Promoting emotional resilience and optimism in the workplace is the key to improving workplace wellbeing and return to work outcomes – which ensures increased productivity and financial security.

Peter points out that only 12 hours work on people’s attitudes and thinking styles can have significant benefits in the workplace.

Making the case to employers

Peter has some tips for RTW coordinators who are trying to convince their employers to get on board.

“When it comes to employers, you’ve really got to show them where they’re going to get return on an investment. If you put up a good business case - whether you’re going to save them money or make them money, or people are going to get back to productivity quicker - that’s the case they’re going to listen to more than anything.”

Pater says despite your interest in emerging research, “don’t complicate the issue with the science much. It’s too overwhelming if they’re not really a fan of it anyway. They just want to know what’s in it for them, what difference it’s going to make; what’s the payoff."

Peter suggests raising broader, open-ended questions to help employers compare potential outcomes.

“What happens if you don’t do this? What will it cost you? What will be the negative outcomes if you don’t help these people? What’s going to happen to your workers comp insurance premium?' Rather than tell them that it’s going to go up, ask them the question, ‘how much is it likely to go up?'”

Public perception and corporate image are increasingly significant considerations for employers and CEOs. Peter suggests asking, “how much would this approach support the values of your organisation? What would this perception or public relations in the marketplace be worth? What would be the upside if this is the reputation you had?”

Staff morale is also an important consideration. Peter suggests asking, “what sort of messages would this send to your other staff who haven’t had an accident? Is it important for you to be perceived as an employer of choice? How do you see this approach would fit in with that?”

Peter’s final words of advice?

“One of the things I’ve learned is: don’t tell them, ask them. I’ve never found people very good at arguing against their own opinion.”

His motto rings true not only for employers, but certainly for injured employees as well.

Peter Sullivan is CEO of Australian Business Training.

More info:

Positive psychology in the workplace.

Emotional resilience and return to work.