Building resilience as we recover and return
Almost overnight our working lives changed in unthought of ways as the pandemic took over. Our lives and social support systems have been put on hold. Organisations have had to pay attention to peoples’ wellbeing during the last few months as the situation has taken a toll on mental health. Uncertainty lies ahead, coupled with potential continued disruption for months to come.
In the words of Jayne Hardy recently:
“Societal pressures and expectations already had us on the go-go-go, juggling balls aplenty and never quite feeling as though we were doing or being or giving enough. And then, seemingly overnight, we found ourselves faced with unimaginable added demands.”
Rebuild work with wellbeing at its heart
The talk about #buildbackbetter and not going back to ’normal’, whatever that is/was, needs turning into action.
Reclaiming working lives in a way that embodies wellbeing is central to this change.
Transition and wellbeing over ‘back to business’ and safety over strategy.
People are less inclined to go back to long hours, are more focused on life and family, more aware of mental and physical health, perhaps more connected to their community now. Add to this the massive drivers in our external landscape that continue to steer society, work and life:
People are more environmentally conscious and climate breakdown is the continued existential threat and the need to get to zero by 2030
#BlackLivesMatter demonstrates the fundamental, deep shift that is needed to tackle and deal with racism at every level
We are in a recession and anxiety levels are likely to go up as people remain uncertain about security of employment and finances
Brexit - who knows but I’m not holding my breath
The VUCA environment remains (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) generally but particularly at work
Change the organisation and manage the transition of people by doing three things
Introduce a learning culture. As John Amechi said in his great CIPD Festival of Work address I saw last week, “click and quiz is not a learning culture”. Such a culture is embedded as part of organisational change going forwards, and day to day work. It is:
sharing practice
core to performance management and achieving work success
peer and social learning
part of the working day
seen as part of progression, recognition, reward
not training courses (although training as an input may be part of a broad delivery of various interventions)
not something that is cut or curtailed in difficult times, as it is valued and integral to thinking and doing the job
modelled by leaders as the exemplars
Manage expectations of a workforce that has been isolated and needs to get back on its feet by focusing on wellbeing and through managers managing to outcomes. This means consulting and listening more and for leaders to be inclusive and engage their team members. People need to know where they stand and uncertainties acknowledged as well.
Move to agile working. This includes remote and flexible practices, WFH, and some of the things people have become accustomed to already, but is also about working to core values and the aspirations of the organisation and its culture, so, yes agile saves money but it is not economically led. People won’t buy in to that after the experience they have just had. Agile has deeper benefits. The idea of a full work commute again won’t appeal either.
Stop thinking ‘deficit’ when building peoples’ resilience
Whilst helping people increase their confidence and capabilities to adopt more personal resilience has benefits, this deficit model in a post-covid transformation of work is not the only way of building resilience now.
The three points about change above pave the way for rebooting organisations from the inside. So changing to agile ways of working, for example, gives the responsibility back to the employers and their leaders to create the right, healthy environment at work as essential.
Engaging people about resilience and wellbeing will be vital as we transition back. Acknowledging the tough journey is followed by listening and learning, so that plans are implemented together, people feel safe and they are motivated to be involved in transformation and change. Personal reslience aligns with this as part of the process.
Remember where resilience comes from - it’s all there!
Personal reslience development arose from Seligman’s global work on positive psychology (PP), which is the understanding of the science of wellbeing, resilience, happiness, adopting positive emotions and optimism and flourishing.
I have no doubt, having participated myself in training and learning about PP, that it is a core part of helping people flourish and have welbeing at work.
Key points are:
Providing learning and experiences in the work place that promote these capabilities is a core strand in return to work post pandemic and re-building organisational life differently. Remember resilience involves thinking and re-framing.
Building personal resilience should no longer be an optional ‘training course’, however, with nothing else to support it.
Managers have a role to play in focusing on resilience and wellbeing through 1-2-1s and coaching individuals and teams. This involves building the relationship over task and process.
Recovery through trust
As we move to recovery, resilience will mean more about ‘building for tomorrow and being sustainable’ rather than ‘getting through today/the crisis’.
Leaders need to build trust as the foundation for moving forwards into this change, where everyone is focused on outcomes. Uncertainties remain, people will be uncomfortable, but continuing to work in a more agile, remote way requires this trust.
Embracing trust is the way forwards.
