Why is resilience in the workplace important?

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Resilience is the ability to bounce back after adversity. A resilient person can grow and adapt well to difficult life experiences. Now, more than ever before, there is a need to help your clients develop social and personal resources and skills that will help them persevere. Clients need resiliency to withstand the many challenges that are occurring and will continue to occur over the next few years as we work to recover from a global pandemic and the economy slowly gets back to normal. 

 

Your client’s chances of maintaining successful employment are strongly impacted by their ability to be resilient in the face of stressful situations that occur in the workplace. Your clients may face intense workplace stressors such as intimidation, sexual harassment, discrimination, humiliation, or betrayal. And, there are less severe stressors such as not getting along with coworkers or simply feeling overwhelmed.

 

If your clients are unprepared for workplace stressors their emotional reactions in the moment or inability to recover and demonstrate psychological resilience may result in personal and professional harm for them. By equipping your clients with the tools necessary to handle stressful situations, you can greatly increase their chances of success.

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Workplace Benefits of Resilience For Your Clients

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• Greater job satisfaction 

• Increased workplace happiness

• Increased organizational commitment and employee engagement

• Improved self-esteem, sense of control over life events, and sense of purpose in life

• Improved employee interpersonal relationships

• Increased productivity

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What does it mean to be a resilient person?

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Many of us gain resilience as we journey through life and overcome obstacles. We absorb the lessons we learn and the skills we acquire from those obstacles so that we are better equipped to face difficulties in the future. Some people seem to be more naturally resilient than others. However, resilience isn’t a static personality trait. It is a skill that we can all learn. It can be boosted through practice. 

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Resilience isn’t a solution to all of your client’s problems, it is a coping mechanism that will help them adapt to life and stay afloat. The beautiful part about resilience is that you don’t have to wait until you experience an obstacle to strengthen it. 

 

 

You may work with clients who have gone through adversity that has overwhelmed their ability to cope and bounce back. Learning about resiliency and teaching new skills to your clients can give them the strength to persevere and succeed in moving forward. 

 

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Building Workplace Resilience

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Ever since the World Health Organization (WHO) deemed stress the “health epidemic of the 21st century”, employers have been taking stress, anxiety, and depression more seriously now that they understand the impact it can have on their employees. According to Fit For Work, “every year an estimated 17 million workdays are lost to stress, anxiety, and depression,” and these lost workdays result in consequences such as a decrease in productivity due to absent staff, increased workload for those picking up the slack of absent staff, and higher staff turnover as a result of the two.

 

Many employers recognize the impact that stress has on their employees and implement a variety of programs to help them build resiliency. However, even in the absence of employer-sponsored programs, there are steps you can take to help your clients build resilience.

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What can you do to build your client's resilience?

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Help your clients to: 

• Build a support network

• Be Self-Aware: acknowledge the current problem they are facing and recognize how it makes them feel instead of suppressing it

• Believe that they can overcome obstacles and achieve goals

• Accept that change is a natural part of life

• Realize that they don’t get to choose the situations life puts them in, but they do get to choose how they react to them and their attitude

• Understand that not everything will be perfect

• Strive to do their best but don’t aim for perfection

• Set realistic expectations for themselves

• Put things in perspective: Life is a long journey with many bumps in the road

• Use laughter and humor to clear feelings of stress

 

Cultivating and strengthening resilience is a powerful tool to help us handle the challenges that inevitably arise in life. Working with your clients to build this skill will provide them with a better chance of success at work and in all other areas of their life.

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