Organisational success depends on an individual’s ability to cope and thrive when faced with stress situations and changing environments – they need a resilient workforce that can ride the wave and still come out on top. Staff cutbacks, deadlines, rivalry and organisational change can easily characterise today’s modern workplace. Companies need employees who can fight the ups and downs that come with each new challenge. More broadly speaking, they need individuals who can “bounce back” when they encounter challenges; in other words, they are resilient towards challenges. Resilient individuals can deal with life’s curveballs in a healthy and productive way. The exciting thing about resilience is that it is a life skill that can be learned – that means with a bit of practice and development, one can portray the ability to cope with unexpected challenges and stress, as well as know how to thrive during these situations.
Workplace stress is correlated with high levels of depression, anxiety and burnout. Employees experience physical and emotional fatigue, as well as a sense of low personal achievement. Burnout is associated with increased rates of absenteeism and reduced productivity. Resilience, on the other hand, is associated with numerous favourable conditions such as optimism, enthusiasm, inquisitiveness, energy and openness to experience. These positive states are of remarkable value to the workplace and can increase creative solutions and behaviours.
During resilience training in the workplace, 4 broad categories of outcomes can be measured:
1. Mental health and subjective well-being outcomes (stress, depression, anxiety, and negative mood/affect/emotion).
2.Physical/biological outcomes
3. Psycho social outcomes
4. Performance outcomes
Resilience training in the workplace may focus on content areas such as:
In conclusion, resilience can be seen as making courageous leaps. That means employees can view change as an emerging opportunity and even embrace criticism and opposition as a source of new ideas. It is therefore crucial for organisations to have the tools to not only survive but also thrive as they move forward through transformation and emerging stressful situations. A change process done right will ensure that employees stay productive and proactive, effectively dealing with all the stress and unknown factors involved. Therefore, resilient and productive workers can translate into company profits because they can learn to adapt, accept, and move forward with change and stressful situations.
