What is resilience and how can it affect the workplace environment?
A person’s resilience is typically defined by how well they cope with obstacles and the stresses and strains of everyday life. As the workplace can present a whole host of challenges, you could see a lack of motivation, lowered productivity and your employees may even be more prone to burnout. While low resilience is certainly something that can affect an individual’s personal life, it’s important for any manager to consider how something like this could impact the business as a whole.
While it may not be too significant of a change in some cases, any business that relies on its employees should consider some of the ways that they could help their more fragile workers. If one link in the team can’t pull its weight, it’s generally best to do something about it rather than letting everything else suffer as a result. On the plus side, there are often many things that you can do to help boost confidence and independence in your employees and bring out the best in them.
All that being said, here’s how to foster resilience in the workplace and some of the advantages that it can offer.
The importance of resilience at work
When it comes to reducing stress and having happy, fully functioning staff, resilience in the workplace can be very important indeed. Aside from producing better work and being more focused, studies suggest that workers will also see an increase in their overall well-being when given the necessary tools to better cope with unexpected problems. You will likely see an increase in attendance as a result – and your employees will bring a higher level of value to your business.
Resilience can lead to many excellent opportunities too, as well as helping individuals to take advantage of them and strive for more. You’ll also find that it’s great for those who need to be more adept at facing challenges and in most cases, this encourages to them grow from the obstacles they overcome. Simply put, resilience at work is going to be a necessity for practically anyone, whether they’re an employee or a manager.
Four benefits of resilience in the workplace
There are simply so many benefits of resilience in the workplace. The good news is that you can define them into four key sections, all of which come with their own array of advantages. These are:
- Emotional wellbeing – as with many things in life, simply being in a good emotional state will have an impact on an array of things within the business. Typically speaking, your employees being happy and feeling like a team can increase workplace communication, attendance and a drive to work better.
- Physical wellbeing – similarly, being conscious of physical health is generally going to be important to an individual’s mental health too. In most cases, an employee who knows how to take care of their body is more likely to take care of their mind. They will be more aware of their role in the workplace, conscious of meeting deadlines and often much more.
- Drive and a good level of self-motivation – an individual who has inner drive will be more likely to set themselves realistic goals and be motivated to get things done. They could potentially encourage other workers to have a more positive mindset, too.
- The psychological damages of low self-esteem – on a similar note, it will usually be a good idea to consider how lower levels of resilience can affect an employee. From burning out faster to simply feeling the pressure far more, there are a lot of challenges that workers can face if they don’t have enough confidence, willpower and strength.
As a whole, these four points alone illustrate why a more positive environment and having strong, resilient workers can be so essential to a business.
Once you understand how to be resilient at work, you’ll be able to develop ways to encourage your workers, as well as identify any areas that are lacking and deal with them accordingly. Simply put, learning a few lessons in building your own resilience will often come with an array of advantages, even outside of the workplace.
Five tips for developing resilience at work
One great point is that it doesn’t have to be too challenging to foster resilience in workers; in fact, some may find that it’s relatively simple. When considering how to develop resilience at work, here are some tips to help you:
Talk about strengths and weaknesses #1
Resilience can be worked on by teaching your staff how to better self-reflect. Employers should encourage talk and give regular positive feedback. Be sure to promote trust by allowing your team to get the downtime they need to reflect and improve.
Change the negative-thought mindset #2
One of the biggest obstacles to workplace resilience is negative thought. An individual who doesn’t have faith in themselves will ultimately lack in certain areas, but this can be avoided. Work with your employees to address their inner thought processes and promote mindfulness in the workplace.
Be more mindful #3
While changing a negative attitude can come under this umbrella, generally being more mindful is impactful enough on its own that it’s worth drawing some attention to. The less you stress yourself out and focus, the better.
Encourage goal setting #4
Setting realistic goals can help your staff to better manage their time and up productivity, so be sure to get them to think about how specific, relevant and attainable their current work process is. Get them to work smarter by using tools like work time trackers, to assist with good habit-forming.
Be a good role model for your team #5
Working on your own confidence will often be a must if you truly want to see results. The more you show resilience in how you carry yourself and respond to situations, the easier it will be for your employees to do the same.
