resilient employees

Bouncing back from bad times is one of the most underestimated emotional qualities, especially in the workplace. We invariably associate it with trauma or illness or adversity, but the truth is that the stresses of daily life can sometimes wear down a person as well.

When you look around the office, you will clearly see two types of people –

• ones who shrug off work stress easily and move on to the next task and
• ones who are constantly stressed and flustered.

The difference between the two is their emotional resilience!

While research says that our genes as well as our life experiences (particularly social bonds) play a role in making us more or less resilient, we can top up our resilience later in life too.

This is what the Centre for Confidence and Well-Being, laid out in their report way back in 2006, “The good news is that although some people seem to be born with more resilience than others, those whose resilience is lower can learn how to boost their ability to cope, thrive and flourish when the going gets tough.”

Now if you are a manager you might be wondering, “sure I would like a more dependable and calmer team, but is it worth investing in? This is a personal matter not professional; is it something I need to care about?”

THE ANSWER IS A RESOUNDING YES! Let us tell you why.

We all agree that an employee’s state of mind has a direct correlation to his/her productivity and creativity. A happy person will approach work in a relaxed frame of mind, will do a better job and create a positive work environment for the rest of the team and colleagues.

But the modern workplace can throw up several challenging situations for all of us, and we are not just talking about deadlines and less-than-sympathetic bosses here. Some of these everyday situations, like –

Negative work culture; sometimes an unsympathetic boss,

Continuously heavy workloads and tight deadlines,

Lack of job security – layoffs and cost cutting,

Discrimination and more.

These can become major bottlenecks for employees if they are not emotionally resilient by nature. Here it makes sense for the organization to offer additional support to ensure that people at work can deal effectively with stressful situations.

There is no way to judge/ measure emotional resilience during the recruitment process, after all, you hire candidates according to their expertise. So, what happens if some of your most valuable team members can’t manage the stress?

Investing in their emotional well-being ensures that they are productive – it’s great for business to be able to bank on a dependable workforce. Especially in the current economic climate – digitization has quickened the pace of everything – newer technologies pop up every couple of years, everyone is talking of disruption, no one knows which small startup will be the next Uber or Netflix of their industry and every other article talks of job cuts and reskilling.

Chaos and speed are the new normal, and you need to ensure that your workforce has the mental agility and adaptability to handle this lifestyle.

If you want to take immediate steps to help your employees, then we would recommend resilience coaching with experts.

Emotional resilience and mental agility can be inculcated through a whole range of activities. These need to be deeply researched and customized to your needs.

An experienced team, working in partnership with your HR managers, would be able to deliver real change. If you want to know more about our resilience coaching do get in touch by clicking the Request Consultation button above.