Wellbeing: Building resilience in the workplace

If one thing’s for sure, it’s that the COVID-19 pandemic has given us opportunities to test and grow our resilience, individually and organisationally. Challenging times stretch us out of our comfort zone. Lauren Parsons, wellbeing specialist, shares her insights into learning and growing from these times.

Resilience is defined as your capacity to recover or bounce back from difficulties. Picture yourself five years from now, reflecting back on this period. What lessons will you have learnt? What gifts will you be thankful for? What processes will you have changed?

You can take steps right now to ensure your workplace is more resilient for whatever lies ahead. The sooner you can reflect on and implement those learnings, the stronger you and your organisation will be.

These five strategies will help you build a resilient workplace culture.

1. Commit to wellbeing

In 2017, the World Health Organization cited leadership commitment and engagement as the most important factor to achieve healthy workplaces. Yet an Australian report showed that only five-in-ten employees believed their most senior leader valued mental health and a British study showed that 40 per cent of employees felt their line manager wasn’t genuinely concerned for their wellbeing.

To foster a positive work environment that supports people to be at their best, senior leaders need to be on board and prepared to lead by example. Too often, staff wellbeing is seen as a lower priority than financial goals, which is ironic because the research shows such a strong return on investment.

A 2017 Deloitte study showed a return on investment of between $4 and $9 for every dollar spent on workplace wellbeing, with the average return on investment being $4.20. Safe Work Australia showed that businesses that improve their mental health environment rating from poor to good can save $1,887 per employee, per year, from lost productivity. For a team of 55 staff, that’s over $100,000 a year; for a firm of 550, that’s over $1 million a year.

Creating a positive, resilient, wellbeing-focused workplace culture attracts and retains great people, reducing the massive costs of staff turnover. It allows people to perform at their best, increasing productivity and reducing absenteeism and presenteeism.

For any sort of wellbeing initiative to gain traction, leaders need to show staff they believe in it and clearly signal that it deserves their time and attention. Senior leaders set the tone for the wider leadership group who ultimately have the most significant influence on the resilience of individuals and teams day to day.

2. Build leadership capability

Leaders need to be equipped with the skills and tools to influence their own and others’ wellbeing. All leadership starts with self-leadership, and the example managers set is vitally important. It creates a whole set of ‘unwritten rules’ that form part of your workplace culture.

Is it acceptable to get away from your desk at break times? Is flexible working encouraged? Is it safe to speak up in meetings or put forward new ideas?

It’s critical that leaders understand how their behaviour affects others around them. Managers need to lead by example in terms of their own wellbeing, for example, switching off from emails in the evenings and on weekends, encouraging standing or walking meetings and having a resilient, optimistic outlook and expressing this in the way they speak and act.

Managers need to positively influence their team’s wellbeing through the way they lead, for example, taking time to greet and acknowledge people every day, having zero tolerance for poor behaviour, bullying or exclusion, fostering positive team dynamics and being skilled at catching people doing things right and providing immediate, specific praise.

Understanding how to spot the signs of mental distress and being able to respond confidently is also an area that often requires special training and development. A major British study revealed that 48 per cent of workers had experienced a mental health problem in their current job. But only half of those who had experienced poor mental health at work had spoken to their employer about it, suggesting that 25 per cent of workers are struggling in silence.

“The behaviours of line managers will, to a large degree, determine the extent to which employees will go the extra mile in their jobs, are resilient under pressure and remain loyal to their organisation.”

3. Create a high-trust environment

An extensive two-year study at Google showed that the number one factor of high-performing teams is having high psychological safety. In other words, a high-trust environment. Paul Santagata, Head of Industry at Google, says, “In Google’s fast-paced, highly demanding environment, our success hinges on the ability to take risks and be vulnerable in front of peers.”

When a workplace feels challenging but not threatening, teams thrive. In environments where people feel unsafe and uncertain, they waste precious time and mental energy worrying and trying to defend their ‘position in the tribe’ rather than just getting on and focusing on doing great work.

Creating a safe environment where people feel connected and have a strong sense of belonging, boosts resilience. Patrick Lencioni, author of Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable (2011, USA: Wiles), cites that the biggest dysfunction is a lack of trust. Without trust, it’s impossible to have robust conversations where people openly share their differing views and come up with better solutions.

Leaders need to prioritise building trust and connection. This requires vulnerability and a willingness to say things like, “I don’t have all the answers”, “What do you think?” and “Can you help me with this?” rather than pretending to have all the answers.

A study by the Canadian military defined the four pillars of trust as competence, integrity, benevolence and predictability. Leaders can take actions to increase the perception of these four distinct things to build trust, both of themselves, and within their teams.

4. Foster open two-way communication

During periods of uncertainty and change, communication goes a long way to allaying fear and confusion, both of which undermine individual and team resilience. Leaders should communicate more than what they feel is required during periods of rapid change. Even if there is no new news, regular updates and ‘ask us anything’ sessions provide reassurance and get concerns out in the air before they snowball.

Two-way communication is vital because staff need to feel that their opinions are heard and valued. Constantly encouraging open, honest feedback loops at all levels of an organisation ensure you avoid the insidious creep of dissatisfaction created by feeling ignored or overlooked.

Staff need to hear from leaders, and leaders also need to hear from staff. Not only does regular feedback drive innovation and constant improvement, it validates people’s sense of purpose and belonging. Three of the six human needs are significance, growth and contribution. Encouraging people to voice their ideas helps meet each of these needs.

Creating a culture of appreciation where staff regularly praise and thank one another, creating ‘prisms of praise’, as Shawn Achor describes in his book Big Potential (2018, USA: Penguin Random House) is vital for motivating staff and building strong team dynamics. When people are thanked for their work, it not only lifts their resilience but also their performance, because people do more of what they’re praised for.

Leaders can foster a culture of appreciation, for example, thanking three people every day or giving a hand-written note of appreciation to a different person each week. They can also cultivate this culture among staff, for example, by having ‘highfive moments’ in team meetings where colleagues are invited to publicly thank one another.

5. Regularly monitor wellbeing

It isn’t easy to lead well without up-to-date data. Leaders need to monitor the wellbeing of staff, both formally and informally, to stay ahead of challenges.

Regular, concise check-in surveys can be helpful if they are done well. Most importantly, the information needs to be acted on (and clearly seen to be acted on by staff) to avoid demoralisation.

Leaders should be highly trained in effective one on ones to proactively keep track of how their direct reports are going. These can be done extremely well or extremely poorly, so developing leadership capability at coaching is critical. Some organisations develop a culture of deferring or skipping scheduled one on ones due to time pressures. Leaders need to become skilled at short, effective meetings using key focusing questions and prioritising these. Ten minutes, once a fortnight, is better than two hours, every six months.

It’s also worthwhile training a team of people at all levels throughout the organisation to be what I call ‘wellbeing champions’. These are workplace superheroes who have the skills to spot signs of mental distress and come alongside colleagues to listen non-judgementally and refer people to appropriate support. It’s essential to provide training and support to do this effectively, and the tools to look after their own wellbeing. Once your network of wellbeing champions is set up, they form a great informal way to keep track of your wider team’s resilience and wellbeing.

Take a moment to pause, reflect, and choose which of these five strategies you might start with to boost your team’s resilience and ability to go the distance.

Find out more

For more support and ideas, register for HRNZ’s upcoming Virtual Course, Leading So People Thrive: How to Drive Workplace Wellbeing, held over two mornings, either

24 and 31 May 2022 or 20 and 27 Oct 2022

https://hrnz.org.nz/events/ single/leading-so-peoplethrive-how-to-drive-workplacewellbeing-virtual

Lauren Parsons is an award-winning wellbeing specialist who helps leaders boost staff wellbeing and productivity. With over 20 years of experience in the health and wellbeing profession, she is a sought-after speaker, coach and consultant. TEDx speaker, author of Real Food Less Fuss, founder of the Snack on Exercise movement and host of the Thrive TV show, Lauren helps busy people rediscover how to feel vibrant, confident and energised. Based in the Manawatu, she travels regularly and specialises in helping organisations create a high-energy, peak-performance team culture, where people thrive. Get your complimentary copy of Lauren’s e-book 5 Keys to a Positive, Energised, High-Performance