An official website of the United States government
Here's how you know
A .mil website belongs to an official U.S. Department of Defense organization in the United States.
A lock (lock ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .mil website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

News | Sept. 30, 2021

Federal employees learn to share resilience skills to strengthen workforce

By Christian Deluca DLA Troop Support Public Affairs

It is an accepted fact that life and work can become stressful at times. But when that stress is allowed to build up, it can affect a person’s productivity and well-being.

Twenty employees of the Defense Logistics Agency Troop Support learned how to better deal with the stresses of life during a Master Resiliency Training Course September 13-24, and now they are ready to share their newly learned skillset with the workforce.

The course included a variety of individual and group exercise designed to enable individuals to better understand their own thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, as well as others. Students like Peter Monteleone, Medical Integrated Supply Team chief, learned to create a more resilient workplace by strengthening relationships through communication, praising effectively, responding constructively to positive experiences and discussing problems effectively.

“The course touched and remedied very realistic applications to include both personal and professional issues,” Monteleone said. “I have team meetings on a regular basis and plan on teaching doses of the course at those meetings. I believe the workforce will benefit from the resiliency skills while dealing with the ups and downs at work, and at home, as most of the course transcends professional and personal life.”

The 10-day “train the trainer” course, provided by the Army Resilience Directorate, focused on teaching Master Resilience Trainers how to “enhance their leadership and effectiveness and learn how to teach resilience skills,” to the rest of the workforce according to the MRTC website. Students learned 14 distinct skills that will enable them to develop personally within the course's six competency areas of self-awareness, self-regulation, optimism, mental agility, strengths of character, and connection.

“Resilience training has been researched, studied and proven to help reduce depression, stress, sleep issues, PTSD and anxiety amongst other issues,” said Aaron Mitchell, DLA Troop Support’s resiliency program manager. “It helps combat counterproductive thoughts and helps us achieve our goals and change the way we interpret and process our thoughts, and therefore our actions.”

Mitchell said the course falls in line with DLA’s core values and current Strategic Plan, which puts workforce resiliency as a primary objective of their People and Culture goal.

“As a core value, resiliency promotes a DLA workforce that is flexible, responsive, recoverable and able to quickly adapt to changing business environments while achieving outstanding results,” Mitchell said. “We hope students will bolster and fortify resilience within the workforce and assist others to become more effective in their professional and personal lives.”

The course was taught by an Army Sharp Ready and Resilient, Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness mobile training team of contractors who traveled to Philadelphia from military bases throughout the east coast.