19 May Change Adaptability and Stress Management
How to cope with stress and change to fit in future roles
Virtual reality, augmented reality and automation are the key expectations for future aviation operational scenarios.
These will lead to a redesign of tasks and skills of aviation operators, who will need to be updated through targeted training courses in Skilling, aimed at new entrants, or in Upskilling and Reskilling for professionals.
Every transition to a new operational environment brings an experience of change and novelty, which includes positive and negative aspects:
Possibility to discover new aspects of yourself and your job
New issues to cope with and potential difficulties
Without specific strategies to deal with the transition successfully there is the risk to move from the learning zone to the stress zone.
Stress: imbalance between the requirements of a given situation and the resources we perceive we have to cope with it. Stress impacts our attention, memory and decision making, thus ultimately affecting human performance.
Understanding how to design target human factors courses to complement the initial and recurrent training programs is important to start facing changes as incentives to grow, with a positive and stimulating valence (eustress) and not as disturbing elements difficult to master (distress).
In the framework of the Skill-UP project, Deep Blue, collaborating with Anacna, has designed a training about change and stress management, targetting tower controllers who are being reskilled into rTower controllers. To customize the training content, Deep Blue developed a Persona, Mary, that represents a tower controller who is being reskilled into rTower controller.
Structure of the training
Taking Mary’s professional history and training needs as a reference, in this training module Deep Blue aims to make operators aware on how they deal with change and stress and what strategies can be applied for effective change management. At the end of the training module, they will be able to:
• Understand the effects of stress and reactions to change
• Analyse their natural tendencies in coping with stress and change
• Understand the different coping strategies in dealing with new and difficult situations
Participants will learn about stress and change mechanisms and will receive support tools for self-empowerment. Among the latter, the Locus of Control framework will help describe the personality traits connected with stress management, whilethe circle of change will be provided as a method to plan proper change management strategies.
Change and stress are almost always related, but a stimulation, if conceived in a functional way, can definitely be a challenge, avoiding distress and enabling behavioural growth.