How to become more resilient at work

We’ve all seen the signs that say ‘keep calm and carry on’ – but many people don’t know that this motto originated from the second world war and was fundamentally for households across the world (especially in the UK) to keep and remain positive.

This was a message of resilience and now this message has been translated and modernized to help people cope with the stresses of their everyday lives.

Stress has been named by the World health organisation (WHO) as the ‘health epidemic of the 21^st century and this has meant that employers are now taking stress, anxiety, and depression in the workplace a lot more seriously.

Employers are concerned with easing stress in the workplace and are using various methods such as offering flexible work hours, changing workplace culture and reviewing workloads.

However, one of the best ways that companies are finding to support workers if to implement measures and techniques to help them boost their resilience. (1)

What is resilience?

Glad you asked – resilience is the ability or trait of a person who can:

• Maintain their equilibrium
• Have a positive outlook and sustain it
• Adjust easily to adversity
• Hold some sense of control over their working environment

As a fact of life, some people cope with stressful situations better than others – and this is almost always down to them being more resilient. These people absolutely thrive when others crumble under pressure – there is more good news too – resilience can be learned.

How employers can boost resilience in the workplace

 There is a plethora of techniques employers can adapt to bolster resilience in the workplace. Here I’ll go through some with you

Encourage physical well-being

 Physical health is a fundamental catalyst in mental health and creating a working environment that promotes healthy living can work wonders to your employee’s mental health.

These include:

• Encouraging employees to eat healthily
• Urge them to quit smoking
• The promotion of sensible drinking
• Urging them to exercise or introducing gym memberships as a staff bonus

Promote a psychologically healthy environment

Make the workplace a pleasant and happy experience for your employees – you can do this by:

• Rewarding great work
• Offer flexible working arrangements to employees
• Train staff in new skills
• Vary your employee’s jobs and responsibilities – variance is always great for resilience
• Coach them on how to deal with stress
• Train managers to consider the mental well-being of staff at all times
• Make sure treatment among staff is fair

Promote open communication policy and strong social networks/support networks

Everyone thrives on friendships and relationships and this can work wonders for people’s mental health in general. People who have positive relationships in the workplace often leads to better productivity and group resilience.

• Encourage teamwork to employees
• Organize team day outs and events
• Being sympathetic were required to your employees

How you can guide employees to help themselves

Along with any help that you directly give your employees, you can also give them tips on how they can help themselves become more resilience.

These would include:

• Building and maintaining good friendships and family relationships. Good quality social connections with positive people
• PMA – positive mental attitude – seeing problems as a learning process rather than another mountain to ascend
• Taking time out to recharge – take regular breaks, leave work on time and take holidays – everyone needs ‘me’ time
• Practice meditation and mindfulness – this can help deal with stress and confrontation.