Personal and professional setbacks increase employee stress, leading to anxiety and depression and negatively impacting job performance. Resilience training can help, but offering the training on-site can be time-consuming, expensive and may cause stigma for employees seeking help. The solution: online tools for resilience training, says a new article from Harvard Business Review, based on a study with Happify, an online platform that offers stress-reducing exercises.

Employers lose around 32 days annually due to reduced productivity for every depressed employee. With more than 20 percent of U.S. employees reporting depressive symptoms, that can add up quickly.

The researchers conducted a study with 591 U.S.-based users of Happify, asking them to use the platform two to three times per week for eight weeks. Users engaged in activities focused across five areas: mindfulness, gratitude, goal-setting, forgiveness and self-compassion. After eight weeks, there was a 25 percent improvement in resilience among employees with severe emotional and workplace stress who completed two to three online activities each week.

Online resilience programs can also be delivered in multiple languages, making them a more inclusive solution for employers with a diverse and global workforce, according to the article.

See the full HBR article: “Can Online Tools Help Employees Build Resilience?“