After securing an internationally recognized speaker on resiliency, Work/Life Connecting the Dots conference organizers found themselves drawing upon that life-skill when they responded to the nation’s current economic troubles with the addition of a special luncheon speaker.
As conference participants ate, Robert Cassel, director of TIAA-CREF asset management in Chicago, discussed ways to manage retirement accounts during times of great market volatility.
“We know a lot of people are getting close to retirement, and this is one way to reach as many people as possible on this issue,” Work/Life Resource Center Program Manager Valerie Palazzolo said of the program change.
Addressing the primary focus of the conference, psychologist and author Al Siebert said the modern workplace is a demanding and constantly evolving environment, and resilience is the most important skill needed to succeed.
“People in the workplace are under pressure to get more work done, of better quality, in new ways, with fewer people, in less time, and for less money than ever before,” said Siebert, who gave the keynote address at the third annual Work/Life conference Oct. 14 at the Michigan League.
“Resilience is the ability to cope well to change; resiliency is to quickly orient to new realities,” he said as he addressed a crowd of 270 faculty and staff members. “It is not the situation, it is your response to it that counts.”
Siebert, who holds a doctorate in psychology from U-M, is director of the Resiliency Center in Portland, Ore. He has been interviewed on The Oprah Winfrey Show and National Public Radio about highly resilient individuals.
Improving resiliency is similar to education, he said, and acquiring these skills takes time. Siebert led conference participants in interactive exercises in which they reflected on their experiences coping with difficult situations. “Oftentimes with these types of experiences we come out stronger and better,” he said.
In addition to his address, Siebert led a workshop titled “Management Skills for Developing Resiliency in Yourself and Your Staff.” The conference included a broad variety of sessions including caring for aging relatives, flexible work scheduling and healthy cooking.
“This conference allows people to spend a whole day thinking about balance,” Palazzolo said. “The idea is to help people better manage their responsibilities at home and in the workplace.
The Connecting the Dots conference was produced by the Work/Life Resource Center, a unit of University Human Resources.
Once resiliency was identified as a theme for the 2008 conference, organizers thought Siebert was a natural choice for the keynote address. “We look at what issues affect people, and try to provide a way to assist them,” Palazzolo said.
The conference also included shorter sessions that addressed issues such as budgeting and retirement savings.
For more information on work/life resources for faculty and staff, go to hr.umich.edu/worklife/.
