The Importance of Resilience in the Workplace

The workplace is an atmosphere that can be challenging and, at times, stressful. Everyday tasks can push even the most skilled to their limit.  

However, there are times when things are tense at work, and some employees seem to be riding the wave of challenges without skipping a beat.   

How can these employees remain calm and focused even if things aren’t going their way? This is called resiliency. 

We’re here to fill you in on the benefits of having resilience in the workplace and how you can foster and build it in your workplace.  

What is Resilience?  

We all will face challenges in various parts of our lives. The critical thing to remember is that these challenges only last for a short time, and we should do all we can to withstand them.  

Resilience is how people handle challenging experiences they face, whether those experiences occur at work or in their daily lives with family and friends.  Resilient people are able to bounce back and continue moving forward regardless of the issues they’re facing.  

Someone who has a high level of resiliency can control their emotions and thoughts while also reacting appropriately during specific situations.  

For employees, being resilient in the workplace means seeing a challenge coming and embracing it as an opportunity to prove themselves rather than feel defeated.  

Why You Need Resiliency in the Workplace?  

Promoting a resilient workplace atmosphere is beneficial to your company and the employees. One of these benefits is that it can help employees remain motivated and confident to handle changes while they’re at work.  

When employees feel backed by their employer, it improves your business on all fronts. It can even help increase your bottom line, so employee resilience training should be an integral part of the support you provide to employees.  

Before we discuss training, it’s essential to understand the benefits of resiliency to your workplace.  

Improves Business Communications  

Communication in the workplace is essential and can help avoid issues that could delay projects from being completed. When you’re working with team members, there will be times when you need input from them, but if they aren’t confident, the chances of them speaking up aren’t high.  

However, employees with a higher level of resilience are more likely to express themselves and speak up when asked to contribute to the discussion. They can communicate during these times, but they’re also able to deliver their opinion concisely so that everyone can understand.  

Collaboration and innovation are one thing that helps businesses to continue thriving and developing new ideas that meet the needs of their consumers.  

Better Challenge Management  

When you’re not resilient, it makes it hard to properly process situations at work and control the negative emotions that may occur due to these challenges. Resilient employees can manage and process their feelings without letting them affect their decision-making skills.  

Instead of acting quickly and without thinking, employees can logically decide how to proceed and find a solution to the issue before it gets out of hand. Problem-solving is a sign that many employers look for in their employees.  

Reduction in Employee Burnout  

70% of employees that took a survey during the pandemic stated the employers they work for don’t do nearly enough or provide the support they need to avoid burnout.  

When employees experience burnout, it affects the quality of work they produce and can cause them to contemplate leaving the company they work for.  

Employees experiencing workplace burnout will lose their passion and have issues with presenteeism. Presenteeism is when an employee is at work and their mind is focused on doing their job.  

When you’re burned out, you’re not entirely switched on and keen on what you’re supposed to be doing, which again can cause the quality of work you produce to suffer.  

Fostering a resilient workplace is crucial because it can help reduce the number of employees that suffer from burnout. Resilience helps employees capture that spark of passion and use it to fuel them daily.  

Employees can build their resilience and be present every day they have to come to work to do their job.  

Quality Coworker Relationships  

We’ve mentioned the idea of collaboration and innovation amongst team members. This can’t happen if they cannot work together to solve problems and create solutions.  

A key aspect of resilience is creating strong relationships between yourself and your team. This is because resilience can reduce the amount of friction that happens between employees and their colleagues.  

How does this happen, you might be wondering? When people are resilient, they take things less personally. When people take things less personally, things their coworkers might do or say won’t rub them the wrong way. Or if it does rub them the wrong way, it won’t do so nearly as often.  

Ability to Provide Support & Receive It  

In business, you have to have the mindset that growth is in the future because, at some point, all business owners want to scale their company. However, you must be willing to accept criticism and feedback from those around you to grow.  

Employees with a high level of resilience understand that the company must be firing on all fronts to ensure future growth. This means that when they’re not at their best, the company struggles too.  

Instead of allowing this, resilient employees will reach out and ask for the help they need to become better at doing their jobs. This can help reduce future mistakes. It also helps companies provide better and more frequent employee training sessions.  

How to Build a Resilient Workplace?  

We understand you want all the benefits of a resilient workplace, but you don’t know exactly how to create this type of atmosphere. We’ve created some tips that will help you improve the atmosphere of your company for the benefit of your brand and employees.  

Keep in mind that it will take ongoing work on your part and the part of your employees to create a cohesive work environment.  

Understand Resilience  

Before you can begin creating the best workplace possible, you must understand the elements of resilience. The five elements of resilience include:  

• Focus on the future  
• Workplace relationships  
• Emotional wellbeing & workplace mental health  
• Physical health  
• Inner drive  

While all these elements carry different meanings, they all work together to improve a person’s resilience. Each of these elements must be developed equally to strengthen a person and the skills they bring to the workplace.  

Ongoing Training  

Not everyone you hire will have resilience, so you should offer training that will help them learn these skills. It’s essential that you take your time to find the proper form of training. The training should encompass education about resiliency and quality workplace adversity training.  

Your employees will appreciate this training. They’ll appreciate it because it shows that you take pride in them as people and that you’re not purely concerned about what they can do for the company. Before you decide to work with a specific company, review their platform.  

They should provide the training your employees need while also allowing you to track things such as employees’ mental health and days of work missed as a result of injury or other illness.  

Keeping track of these things will make it easier for you to reach out to employees to ask how they’re doing. It also provides the perfect time for you to ask what your company can be doing to support them moving forward.  

Understand the Strengths & Weaknesses of Your Company  

One downfall for companies does not clearly understand your strengths and weaknesses. Understanding your strengths is easy, but not many companies find it easy to identify their weaknesses.  

If you don’t take the time to identify your weaknesses, you won’t be able to create a solution to make up for these weaknesses. A SWOT analysis is important for businesses at every stage in their company lifespan.  

For example, if employees think your company doesn’t provide the support they need but you never ask for employee feedback, you would never know.  

The only way you’d know is when you look at the employee turnover rate.  

Resilience in the Workplace & its Importance  

Resilience in the workplace is vital if you want your workplace to continue thriving. It reduces employee burnout and helps them remain motivated to do their jobs.  Do you need help building a resilient workforce?

Courtesy of Axiom

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