How HART proactively supports resilience and work experience
High Adversity Resilience Training (HART), was developed for people who work in roles where stress is not occasional, but part of the job. In these settings, resilience matters not only for coping in the moment, but for long-term wellbeing, sustainable performance, healthy teams, and the ability to keep showing up well under pressure.
Our newly published research paper, High Adversity Resilience Training (HART) Impact on Resilience, Motivation, Engagement, and Job Satisfaction, provides applied outcome evidence that HART makes meaningful gains across both personal resilience and broader workplace experience. The study evaluated standard implementation data and examined outcomes across the Predictive 6 Factor Resilience assessment (PR6) and the Job Satisfaction, Engagement, Co-worker Connection Quality, and Work Context Psychosocial Survey, or JSECC.
The HART impact research paper is now published and available to be downloaded here – driv.ai/hart2026
How to cite this article: Rossouw, J. G. (2026). High Adversity Resilience Training (HART) Impact on Resilience, Motivation, Engagement, and Job Satisfaction. ResearchGate. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.11330.24002
This matters because much of the conversation around mental health in high adversity work has historically focused too narrowly on trauma exposure and post-incident response. HART was built from a broader preventative perspective. It is designed not only to help people understand and manage adversity, but also to strengthen the protective factors that support purpose, composure, reasoning, persistence, social connection, and healthy functioning over time. The study reflects that broader model by looking not just at resilience, but also at workplace motivation, satisfaction, connection, and perceptions of the work environment.
About the paper
The research used a naturalistic pre-post evaluation design based on routine program delivery. The pre-assessment sample comprised 604 participants and the post-assessment sample comprised 471. Participants came predominantly from Australia, with smaller representation from the United States and other countries, and were drawn from a range of industries including Emergency Services and Safety, Mining, Healthcare, Education and Training, Government, and other sectors. Most participants completed HART through live instructor-led delivery, while a smaller proportion completed the self-paced online format.
The training itself is grounded in the PR6 model and focuses on the six core resilience domains of Vision, Composure, Reasoning, Health, Tenacity, and Collaboration. Alongside PR6, the paper also used the JSECC survey to assess four broad workplace dimensions: Job Satisfaction, Engagement, Co-worker Connection Quality, and Work Context. This combination gave the study a practical lens. It allowed the research to ask not only whether resilience improved, but whether people’s workplace experience improved as well.
Overall findings at a glance
Across the total sample, participation in HART was associated with significant improvement in PR6 Overall resilience, all six PR6 domains, and all four broad JSECC workplace factors. PR6 Overall increased by 11.6%. The strongest PR6 domain gains were seen in Vision at 13.4%, Reasoning at 13.1%, and Collaboration at 12.4%. On the workplace side, Engagement improved by 10.2%, Job Satisfaction by 8.8%, Co-worker Connection Quality by 7.1%, and Work Context by 5.0%.
Looking through the PR6 resilience score change overall as well as resilience domains shows that HART had a consistent effect of increasing personal capacity. The strongest PR6 domain gains were seen in Vision at 13.4%, Reasoning at 13.1%, and Collaboration at 12.4%.
That pattern is important. It suggests that HART is not only associated with people feeling more resilient in a general sense. It is also associated with stronger work-related functioning. In other words, the gains were not confined to internal coping alone. Participants also reported improvement in how they experienced their work, their motivation, their sense of connection with colleagues, and aspects of the environment in which they operate.
Why these results matter in high adversity work
High adversity occupations place pressure on people from multiple directions at once. The challenge is rarely just trauma. It is also the relentless operational load, time pressure, paperwork, difficult decisions, public scrutiny, organisational tension, and the impact that all of this can have on home life, relationships, and energy over time. That is why the HART model takes a wider view. The research findings support that approach by showing gains across both resilience and workplace-related outcomes.
What stands out most is that the strongest broad gains were in Vision, Reasoning, Collaboration, and Engagement. That combination points to something more meaningful than short-term morale. It suggests movement in future orientation, thinking under pressure, adaptive perspective-taking, social functioning, and willingness to engage with work. In high adversity environments, these are not minor extras. They are some of the capacities that help people stay effective, connected, and mentally sustainable over time.
JSECC results
The pre and post assessment completed through participation in HART includes the JSECC Work Survey. This measures a range of aspects across Job Satisfaction, Engagement, Co-worker Connection Quality, and Work Context factors.
Job Satisfaction
Job Satisfaction improved by 8.8% overall. Within this factor, Job Enjoyment increased by 10.0%, Development Opportunities by 14.6%, Recognition by 11.0%, Leadership Views by 8.4%, and Management Views by 5.4%. Commitment increased by 3.7%, but this change was not statistically significant.
This is a strong and practical result. Job satisfaction in high adversity work is not just about liking one’s job. It influences morale, retention, energy, and how sustainable the work feels over time. What is especially interesting here is that one of the biggest gains was in Development Opportunities. That suggests participants may have finished the program feeling more hopeful about growth, more open to learning, and more supported in their longer-term development. Recognition also moved meaningfully, which may reflect a broader shift in how participants interpret their workplace role and their place within it.
Engagement
Engagement showed the strongest improvement of the four broad JSECC factors, rising by 10.2% overall. Within Engagement, Motivation increased by 16.2%, Interest by 14.6% (this is an indicator of burnout reducing), Involvement by 10.9%, Productivity by 7.5%, and Accomplishment by 4.0%.
This may be one of the most compelling parts of the entire paper. In high adversity work, fatigue and emotional overload can gradually erode enthusiasm, initiative, and the willingness to keep investing effort. A resilience program that is associated with stronger motivation and interest is doing more than just helping people calm down. It may be helping them reconnect with purpose, feel more energised about their role, and re-engage with work in a healthier way. For organisations, that has obvious implications for performance, sustainability, and culture.
Co-worker Connection Quality
Co-worker Connection Quality improved by 7.1% overall. The largest subfactor gain within this area was Co-worker Association at 11.3%, followed by Co-worker Trust at 8.8% and Co-worker Communication at 6.5%. Co-worker Harmony rose by 2.8%, although that change was not statistically significant.
This is another important pattern. Resilience in high adversity settings is not purely individual. The social environment matters enormously. Workers rely on trust, communication, peer support, and a shared language for making sense of pressure. Improvement in association, trust, and communication suggests that HART may help strengthen not only how people manage adversity internally, but also how they relate to one another within demanding teams and systems. That kind of shift can have real cultural value over time.
Work Context
Work Context improved by 5.0% overall. Within this factor, Training Regimes increased by 11.7%, Work Mental Impact by 13.9%, Work Relationship Impact by 10.5%, Policies and Procedures by 6.0%, and Ergonomics by 4.2%. Work Social Impact rose by 4.1% and Administrative Work by 4.8%, though those changes were not statistically significant.
Work Safety declined by 3.6% and Public Interactions declined by 3.4%, neither of which were statistically significant. This may indicate that as people increase their investment in self-care (increasing resilience factors), they become more aware of the impact of organisational design regarding their own safety and interactions with the public. This is important, as we need people to actively look after their own safety for the work to be sustainable over time, and a higher awareness of this can help drive workplace improvement that may be needed.
This is why this section deserves careful interpretation. Work Context includes areas that are partly influenced by the organisation itself, not just the participant. So it makes sense that the gains here were smaller overall than in resilience or engagement. Still, some of the most notable movement was seen in Work Mental Impact and Work Relationship Impact, which suggests that participants experienced positive change in how work was affecting them psychologically and relationally. Training Regimes also improved strongly, which likely reflects the sense that better support, better language, and better preparation can meaningfully influence how work is experienced. At the same time, areas such as work safety, public interactions, and administrative burden may be shaped by broader structural realities that a training program alone cannot easily change.
The standout subfactors
While the broad JSECC factors tell an important story, some of the strongest insights come from the subfactors. The largest gains across the total sample were Motivation at 16.2%, Development Opportunities at 14.6%, Interest at 14.6%, Work Mental Impact at 13.9%, Training Regimes at 11.7%, and Co-worker Association at 11.3%. Other key gains included Recognition at 11.0%, Involvement at 10.9%, Work Relationship Impact at 10.5%, and Job Enjoyment at 10.0%.
Taken together, these results suggest that HART is doing something important. HART not only helps with stronger resilience, but with a better day-to-day experience of work. Participants may be leaving the training feeling more motivated, more interested, more connected, more hopeful about growth, and more positively impacted by their work. In high adversity settings, that is highly relevant, because one of the central risks is not only acute distress, but also the slow wearing down of motivation, optimism, connection, and meaning over time.
Baseline starting groups and why they matter
One of the most important sections of the paper examines change by baseline PR6 starting group. This matters because not everyone starts the program from the same place. Some participants are already functioning relatively strongly, while others begin with considerably lower resilience. In previous research, we’ve established starting resilience groups that indicate how building resilience reduces risk in mental health. Therefore, being able to increase resilience more for those with lower starting scores result in greater achieved prevention outcomes.
Looking at baseline groups helps answer a practical question: who appears to benefit most?
The answer is clear. Participants who started with lower resilience (PR6 less than 50%) showed the largest gains. In the lowest baseline group, PR6 Overall increased by 39.0%. In the next group, it increased by 14.0%. In the third group, it increased by 5.2%.
The highest starting group experienced ceiling effects (difficult to go up when you’re at the top), therefore increased by 1.2%, which was not statistically significant.
This is exactly the kind of pattern you want to see in a meaningful intervention. People with lower starting resilience have more room for movement, so the potential gains are greater. That does not mean the program is only for those who are struggling. It means the impact is especially profound for those entering with greater vulnerability or lower starting capacity. This is an important point for leaders and organisations, because it suggests HART can be especially valuable as an early, preventative support for people who may be at greater risk.
The workplace-related outcomes by baseline group strengthen that interpretation even further. In the lowest resilience group, Job Satisfaction rose by 20.3%, Engagement by 20.5%, Co-worker Connection Quality by 15.3%, and Work Context by 11.2%. The next group also showed solid gains across all four broad JSECC factors. Even the higher-resilience groups still showed meaningful movement, especially in Engagement and Job Satisfaction. In the highest baseline group, Engagement still increased by 7.8% and Job Satisfaction by 5.4%, despite minimal movement on PR6 Overall.
It means HART appears to be particularly useful for those starting lower, while still offering value to those already functioning at a high level. For higher-functioning participants, the benefit may be less about shifting a resilience score dramatically and more about strengthening engagement, motivation, and workplace experience.
Live and online delivery formats
Another important part of the study was the comparison between live instructor-led and self-paced online delivery. Both formats were associated with favourable outcomes across all broad PR6 and JSECC factors. However, the online group generally showed larger gains. PR6 Overall improved by 10.2% in the live cohort and 17.6% in the online cohort. In the online group, especially large gains were observed for Collaboration at 21.8%, Reasoning at 20.0%, and Vision at 19.9%. Work Context improved by 12.8% online compared with 3.5% live, while Engagement improved by 12.6% online compared with 10.2% live.
Work Context improved by 13% online compared with 3.4% live, while Engagement improved by 12.6% online compared with 10.1% live. Job Satisfaction remained similar, while overall there are some stronger impacts noticed with online training.
In addition to this, adjusted for participants still in progress, completion rates are 88.4% for Live training, and 86.4% for Online training.
This is helpful when considering scalability across regions. High adversity workforces often face schedule constraints, geographic spread, and operational barriers that make live training difficult. The fact that self-paced online delivery was associated with strong outcomes supports the idea that HART can be deployed flexibly without losing value. It also creates more options for organisations and individuals who need access to resilience training in a way that fits operational reality.
What we do note from practical implementation is that live training is overall more practical for taking teams through and ensuring there is consistent training. While the self-paced approach achieves strong results, ensuring completion tends to be a difficult task within workplaces if there is no specific time provided for completion. Most workplaces and participants prefer in-person training, while the self-paced option can be provided for those specifically requesting and alternate mode of delivery.
Gender outcomes
The overall pattern of results was broadly similar for female and male participants. Female participants improved by 11.5% on PR6 Overall, while male participants improved by 11.3%. Both groups showed significant gains across all six PR6 domains, as well as Job Satisfaction, Engagement, and Co-worker Connection Quality. The main difference was that Work Context improved significantly for males at 5.9%, while the increase for females at 3.3% did not reach statistical significance.
The main takeaway here is consistency. The findings suggest that HART was associated with positive outcomes across gender, rather than appearing effective for only one group.
Participant feedback
Satisfaction ratings were very high, with 93.6% of respondents rating instructor satisfaction positively, and 92.3% rating both the materials and the program overall positively.
Qualitative feedback was also strongly positive. Participants most commonly valued the practical nature of the training and described HART as providing usable tools and strategies for managing stress and adversity. Other themes included the relevance of the content to both work and personal life, the quality of facilitation, the benefits of the interactive learning environment, greater self-awareness, appreciation for the clear six-domain framework, and the sense that the training both reinforced strengths and introduced helpful new perspectives. Suggestions for improvement were relatively modest and tended to focus on more interactivity, more time for discussion and application, and minor refinements to pacing and materials.
That is important because it aligns with the quantitative findings. The program was not only associated with measurable change. It was also experienced as practical, relevant, and valuable by participants themselves.
What this means in practice
The findings support the idea that this resilience training in high adversity occupations is more than just a narrow trauma-response tool. HART makes gains in adaptive thinking, future orientation, social connection, motivation, and workplace functioning. It seems especially valuable for those entering with lower resilience, while still offering benefits for those already functioning at relatively high levels. It also appears workable across both live and self-paced formats.
For organisations, this means that HART can play a role in a broader preventative strategy. For individuals, resilience-building is not only about surviving adversity, but about strengthening the capacities that help people function, connect, and sustain themselves through challenging work.
Conclusion
The release of this paper is an important step in the ongoing development of HART. It moves the conversation from concept to evidence, showing that the program is associated with broad gains not only in resilience, but also in motivation, engagement, job satisfaction, workplace connection, and aspects of work context. The results are especially compelling among participants who started with lower resilience, while still pointing to value across the full spectrum of participants.
In high adversity work, prevention matters. The pressures are real, the costs of cumulative strain are real, and the need for practical, scalable, evidence-informed support is real. These findings suggest that HART offers a meaningful contribution to that space.
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