How resilient are you and your workforce?

Over the last year resilience has been a word that has been banded around often. But what is resilience?

It can be described as the ability to bounce back from setbacks and is often described as the difference between successful and unsuccessful people. But it is not just people that need to be resilient it’s organisations too.

Characteristics of resilient people and organisations can include.

  • The capacity to accept and face down reality, acting in ways to enable us to endure and survive hardship.
  • the ability to improvise, innovate and solve problems outside the norm.

So why is it important to have resilience?

Research shows that it can improve work satisfaction, engagement and increase feelings of well-being and lower depression levels.

But do we all have resilience?

Is it something that is only internal, your tough ‘inner core’? Yes, we believe we all have a certain level of resilience, but it is enabled by building strong relationships and networks that nurture and build that resilience and through interactions with people in both our personal and professional lives.

Some people have learnt resilience early on in life because of their upbringing, experiences, and close personal relationships. They may exhibit a tougher exterior or be even-tempered under pressure.

Those who have not faced the same challenges in life could take a little longer to reach an even keel. But it does not mean that they can’t.

If we just internalise challenges, we can sometimes catastrophize and ‘make mountains out of molehills.’ Having a strong network can support you in several ways, including enabling us to reframe our perspective on the situation, remind us we are not dealing with this on our own and sometimes it is just empathy we need or someone to make us laugh.

The Importance for an organisation and the individual to build a strong network of support therefore is evident to enable us to bounce back. The past year has been difficult for many of us as we have worked from home in isolation from our teams and our wider family and friends.

I think it is fair to say that covid has set us challenges and setbacks in work and life and sometimes this has felt relentless. I would argue the importance of building and maintaining your network has never been clearer.

This year has shown just how quickly everything can change, and how resilience can help teams and businesses to adapt.

You may be eager to reopen doors and get back to business. But after time in isolation, furloughed employees may be apprehensive about returning to work, especially surrounding health and safety.

You need to understand their concerns, everybody feels differently about what has happened, returning to “normal” and the transition so take the time to listen and don’t rush.

Talk to us on how we can support you in building resilience in your organisation and workforce. We offer specific eLearning training as well as bespoke training and consultancy and can help you find a solution to benefit your business.

Published by

Tanya Lee

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