Building resilience for continual success
In these times of loadshedding and economic upheaval, a sense of impending darkness can be brought about by more than just a shaky electrical grid. Heightened and prolonged stress and fear can literally shrink the human brain, in turn affecting our ability to troubleshoot or think creatively. But when things seem difficult, opportunities can present themselves in the most unlikely places – what’s needed is a heightened sense of resilience in the workplace to shed light on innovation to solve the current challenges in your business.
Instead of retreating into organisational orthodoxies and clinging to established behaviours that reject novelty, leadership and employees alike need to draw on their resilience to adapt and solve for the current environment.
In fact, workforce resilience is a strong predictor of long-term employee satisfaction and retention, as this article by software company HubSpot illustrates:
- “highly-resilient people were 31% more productive during the pandemic than low-resilience workers”
- “resilience led to higher innovation (+22%), higher cognitive flexibility (+20%), and more novelty of ideas (+20%)”.
What’s more, findings by ResearchGate indicate that resilience training can improve personal resilience and is a useful means of developing mental health and subjective well-being in employees.
Research has identified top 10 skills associated with resilience, these are:
- Positive thinking: The ability to maintain a positive outlook no matter the situation is crucial for resilience. This includes viewing challenges as opportunities.
- Emotional regulation: The ability to remain calm and express emotions in a healthy way.
- Self-care: Prioritising your physical, emotional and mental wellbeing is essential for resilience.
- Goal-setting: Establishing clear, measurable goals helps to maintain direction and motivation, which are important contributors to resilience.
- Social support: A strong social support network of friends, family and community leads to greater resilience.
- Self-awareness: Understanding your own strengths and weaknesses and maintaining an awareness of how your behaviour can affect a situation.
- Flexibility and adaptability: The ability to adapt to change and be flexible.
- Mindfulness: The ability to be present in the moment instead of being stuck in the past or fearful of the future.
- Coping skills: These include things like problem-solving, relaxation techniques and humour.
- Self-compassion: Being kind to ourselves and being able to accept mistakes and failures without judgment is associated with resilience.
It’s worth noting that resilience is, in itself, a flexible trait and one that can be developed and improved upon with practice. Research shows that without resilience, organisations and individuals are unlikely to succeed when the going gets tough.
Michelle Frenzel - Human Resources Manager - KYOCERA Document Solutions South Africa
