According to Psychology Today, resilience is the psychological quality that enables a person to bounce back and thrive when faced with life’s adversities and challenges. Resilient individuals don’t let difficulties, traumatic events or failures overcome them. Instead, they find a way to change their course, emotionally heal and continue moving towards their goals.
In the workplace, resilience is crucial, given the fast-paced culture that often leads to people overworking, facing tight deadlines, dealing with job strain, managing work relationships and peer conflicts, all while trying to maintain a healthy work/life balance.
This workplace culture can frequently lead to stress, fatigue, and ultimately burnout, which affects performance, mental health, and relationships. The workplace is identified as the number one stressor in a majority of working individual’s lives, and those who feel this way in their work environments are more likely to develop depression or anxiety. This is why it is critical to improve these skills."
How would this benefit companies?
Alongside the benefits employees gain from developing resilience, companies will also benefit significantly. As people are the biggest asset to any business big or small, their well-being should be a top priority, the flow-on effect of the prioritisation will bring many benefits.
Stress reduction = Increased productivity
Studies have shown that, “There is a negative correlation between overall stress and productivity: higher stress scores were significantly associated with lower productivity scores.” When employees are stressed, they become less productive causing companies to lose out on profits as they invest in labor without receiving the required output. Additionally, it leads to lower-quality work. If companies focus on building a resilient workforce, employees
can use new mechanisms to handle stress healthily. They develop skills to understand, manage, and push through stress, resulting in increased productivity, higher profits, and better-quality work."
Job Satisfaction
When resilience is present in a workforce, there will be an overall sense of job satisfaction within the company. When an employee feels a strong sense of job satisfaction they will feel as though their day-to-day tasks are more approachable. They feel happy at their workplace, are committed, loyal and engaged with their role, as opposed to feeling dissatisfied, weighed down and unmotivated. Employee satisfaction is essential for organisations, and this can be achieved through learning skills and tactics.
Uncertainty
We all know from the past few years that things can change quickly, and nobody truly knows what the future holds within professional environments and personal. While no one can control when or what uncertain things may happen, what can be controlled are reactions, and having a resilient mindset can help you overcome any challenges.
The benefits companies would see from their employees having the skills to bounce back and thrive when faced with adversities and changes would be beneficial in the long term.
Relationships
Rasing resilience in the workforce leads to an improvement in self-esteem, a recognition of individual worth, purpose, and better interpersonal relationships.
By enhancing these aspects of how employees perceive themselves and their interactions with others, companies will recognise the value of focusing on developing resilience skills. When employees feel positive about themselves and are comfortable around others, their output will reflect the positivity they experience.