Why is Resilience important in the workplace?

In my last blog, I considered the meaning of the word ‘resilience.’

I advised that, quite simply, resilience is the ability to learn from your setbacks and mistakes. – recognising how to turn mistakes into opportunities, and looking past the immediate setbacks to keep your eyes firmly on the long-term goal.

So having explained the meaning of resilience, I know want to discuss seven benefits of introducing resilience into the workplace.

Reduced absenteeism and presenteeism

When you feel pressured or overwhelmed, it creates a sense of presenteeism where you feel the need to work harder for longer. Your productivity and engagement are heavily impacted, which could lead to burnout and long-term absenteeism.

Resilience helps reduce absenteeism and presenteeism by giving you more efficient and effective ways to manage your workload.

Improved communication

A resilient person is often outwardly more confident and assured, but resilience also helps improve your communication skills enhancing the ability and confidence you need to speak up and contribute as well as speaking out when required.

How good is your team’s communication? Photo Pravan Trikutam Unsplash

Colleague support

Resilience changes your mindset and allows you to ask for help and support when you need it.

Being resilient also helps you to see the value in, not just asking for help, but also in offering help and support to others for the greater good of your team or department.

Improved working relationships

Good working relationships are crucial to the overall effectiveness and productivity of any team. Resilience helps you strengthen your current relationships and build new ones more easily. It will also help you take constructive criticism or feedback less personally.

Remain calm under pressure

A pressured or stressed environment can have a negative impact on how you do your work and achieve your goals or targets. Building your resilience will help you stay calm and work better under pressure without affecting your mental health.

When it’s chaos all around, how does your team remain calm? Photo Markus Spiske

More receptive to change

We can all become set in our ways in how things are at work - affecting how we feel about change.

But change also relates to bigger things like promotion, restructuring, or any situation that makes you feel resistant or hesitant. Resilience will help create awareness of how you perceive change and turn it into a positive.

Improved optimism and attitude

A shift in mindset is an important part of resilience at work.

We can all suffer from negative self-talk which can affect our confidence and ability, but healthy workplace resilience has the power to give us renewed optimism and an enthusiastic ‘can do’ attitude.

If you’d like to explore the subject of resilience more deeply, please contact me via Email: russell@theresiliencecoach.co.uk.