How to Improve Your Resilience in the Workplace

PMAC are the UK’s leading provider of workplace mental health and wellbeing training. In this article, they explore how to improve your resilience in the workplace.

What is Resilience?

Resilience is an important quality to possess in the modern workplace. It refers to an individual’s ability to bounce back from adversity or stress, and continue working productively despite challenging circumstances. Resilience helps people remain emotionally balanced and focused on their goals regardless of the workplace environment.

Those who are resilient have a greater capacity to make decisions under pressure, handle criticism more effectively, control their level of stress, and better cope with change. Research has shown that resilient individuals tend to be better problem-solvers, have higher job satisfaction and show greater career success than their non-resilient counterparts.

In order for a person to develop resilience in the workplace, it requires both emotional intelligence (EQ) and self-awareness. EQ involves understanding one’s own emotions and those of others around them, as well as being able to manage these emotions in order to achieve desired outcomes. Self-awareness is key too, as it involves recognising when one may be feeling overwhelmed by stress or difficult situations, and taking appropriate action before they become unmanageable.

Resilience can also be achieved through strategies such as time management, setting realistic goals, seeking support from peers or supervisors when needed, taking regular breaks during the workday for rest and relaxation, maintaining a healthy lifestyle outside of work via physical exercise or hobbies, avoiding negative thoughts that could lead to stress and anxiety, learning how to recognise warning signs of burnout and prioritising mental wellbeing above all else.

Overall, developing resilience in the workplace means being prepared for any challenges that arise along the way – having the capacity to take proactive steps towards overcoming them. By cultivating resilience within oneself in this way it will help create a more positive work environment which will ultimately benefit everyone involved; not just mentally but physically too!

Being Adaptable

Being adaptable is a key skill for resilience and is highly beneficial in the workplace. It allows you to think on your feet and quickly adjust to changing situations, using creativity and resourcefulness to get the job done. But how do you become more adaptable? Here are some tips:

1. Review your existing skills – take note of what you’re already good at and identify areas where there’s potential for improvement. Maybe you need to brush up on certain processes or learn new software programs.

2. Focus on communication – recognise when you are becoming reactive during communication with others. Recognising the changes in your behaviour and emotional state give you the opportunity to pause, and choose how to respond.

3. Open-mindedness – be open-minded about new ideas or working methods, as they could bring positive results that benefit both yourself and the company as a whole.

4. Learn from mistakes – don’t take it personally when you make mistakes. See mistakes as opportunities to learn and be even better.

5. Adapting your mindset – in the face of stress, we are prone to focus on the challenges and can engage in negative self-talk. Recognising this allows you to challenge your thoughts and replace them with more helpful or optimistic ones.

6. Ask questions – being inquisitive is another sign of readiness to accept change; asking questions helps build understanding so that everyone involved has a clear grasp of the situation at hand.

Being adaptable in any professional environment is invaluable – by developing these skills, you can become more resilient under pressure and help lead your team towards success!

The Benefits of Resilience Training

Resilience can help you to cope more effectively with challenges, difficult colleagues or customers, and high-pressure situations. However, it is not something that comes naturally to everyone — and for many of us, building resilience takes time and effort. That’s why workplace resilience training can be so beneficial; it provides organisations with an effective way to help their employees develop the emotional strength they need to thrive at work.

Workplace resilience training programmes provide employees with a range of practical tools and techniques that can help them build their emotional resilience skills. Improving emotional intelligence helps workers better understand their emotions and the emotions of others which translates into better communication in challenging situations. This can lead to improved collaboration among teams, improved customer service skills, enhanced self-confidence when faced with difficult tasks, and increased job satisfaction overall.

The benefits of workplace resilience training extend further than just developing individual skills — it helps businesses improve too. Companies who invest in wellbeing initiatives such as resilience training programmes have been found to enjoy higher levels of productivity amongst staff compared to those who don’t measure employee wellbeing. As well as this, investing in workplace resilience training has been proven to reduce stress amongst employees, reduce absenteeism due to burnout, improve retention and improve physical health.

Additionally, employee satisfaction increases after completing a workplace resilience training programme. Having happier members of staff leads directly to improved morale, and subsequently improved performance overall — which means that companies investing in these programmes often find long-term positive returns on their investment.

Ultimately, employers should recognise that investing in workplace resilience training is essential for the success of a business.