How to Improve the Health and Wellness of Your Organization with I/O Psychology and Lean Sigma

Over the past 10 years, I’ve worked hard, with so many, to better integrate helping agencies into units to build better relationships with our Airmen and families with a focus on human performance and resiliency to reduce suicides.

It wasn't until I learned about Industrial and Organizational Psychology and what it could do for organizations looking to improve many areas like recruitment, selection and placement, training and development, performance measurement, workplace motivation and reward systems, quality of work life, structure of work and human factors, organizational development and consumer behavior. After completing my degree in psychology at work from Penn State University, I began applying those lessons immediately to workplace culture winning a few best practices along the way that have helped many folks, to better days, including myself.

What is industrial-organizational Psychology?

Industrial-organizational psychology (also called I/O psychology) is characterized by the scientific study of human behavior in organizations and the work place.?The specialty focuses on deriving principles of individual, group and organizational behavior and applying this knowledge to the solution of problems at work." - Source

I started a CPI event to capture the tools and methodology being used while at NASIC after doing a Human Performance Wing Occupational Health Assessment. The results of this survey showed me the health implications and needs of our military and civilian population in order to become a healthier culture.?I also utilized several other data sources that when layered on top of each other, showed an accurate picture. This is difficult since there are a lot of stovepipes in regards to data surrounding the human weapon system. The data also doesn't account for those people in the struggle who aren't going to get any help of any kind and refer to them as suffering in silence. I believe any means of data collection we have in regards to peoples health will never be complete as there are too many factors that limit the reporting agencies reports with a fraction of the actual data.

Instead of running down lost data rabbit holes, I went with the mindset, that we all had a little room to grow when it came to self-care and our health. Over the course of a year and a half, I started a working group called the Health and Wellness working Group (HAWWG) which consisted of several helping agencies at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and specific NASIC organizations to focus on improving the quality of life of our teammates both military and civilian.?

We did root cause analysis, Gemba Walks, Cost Analysis, DEOCs correlation, Spaghetti Diagrams, 5 Whys, Takt Time, Check Sheets, Value Stream Mapping, Return on Investment, and used every tool and data source available to ensure accuracy.?

We found that due to the ISR communities and helping agencies barriers to access when faced with adversity and the resources having a clearance resulted in no sustainable way for these agencies to meet our teammates where they were, sometimes deep in the struggle.?

We shifted our approach to focus on growth mindset, self-care, and connection which resulted in several offerings of NASIC Self-Care Days which were full and half day offerings in the organization. It was very impressive to witness the helping agencies working together in tandem and teaching courses on exercise progression, finances, workplace conflict, spirituality, sleep clinics, burnout, mindfulness, and more. These offerings were in line with the Total Force Fitness framework developed by CHAMP and the DAFs 4-pillars of resiliency.

The helping agencies involved were the Military and Family Readiness Center, Civilian Health Promotion Services, Master Resilience Trainers, Mental Health, Human Performance Wing, Chaplain, Military Family and Life Counselors, VA Benefits advisors, Personal Finance Coaches and more.?

The result was an effective bridge for these much needed resources, agencies, and skills, to better integrate with the NASIC population on a regular basis and de-stigmatize what getting help means by shifting to a self-care model with everyone working together.?

From my experience, I saw folks who would never go to a helping agency show up and interact with these facilitators on how to exercise, practice their spirituality, and sleep better. I saw others wait after the presentation to get follow up appointments. I saw the helping agencies come together and develop training focused on self-care and how to recognize what thriving and struggle look like. I saw a much needed change and a potential to ease the system that is overwhelmed and reactionary.

This is what suicide prevention looks like, when we focus on the health and wellness of our teammates and deliberately train our folks and families on how to better take care of themselves while serving with all of the resources working together.

I/O Psychology and can make a huge impact in the DOD which is always looking for better ways of doing things based on data analysis. Many thanks to so many people through the years for helping this project come to fruition.