Culture That Sustains Resilience
Creating a Culture of Resilience: Where It Starts and How to Grow It
Conversations around risk often focus on business resilience and the culture, tools and approaches that deliver this in an increasingly volatile world. But a central element in all this often takes a back seat - the resilience of the people who keep everything running.
Discussions around the mental wellbeing and resilience are growing in frequency and influence in the workplace, as if left unmanaged, these issues can have a huge impact on the performance of a business and the wider economy.
According to a study of employees in the UAE (opens a new window), conducted by healthcare provider Cigna:
99% had experienced at least one symptom of burnout over the course of the past year.
83% are likely to search for new job opportunities due to health and well-being concerns.
55% of employees report stress, with burnout being a significant challenge.
And 77% are looking to their employers to help them manage this.
The challenge facing employers - and the growing expectations placed on them - are clear and recently, Lockton brought together a round table of business and HR leaders, as well as specialists in employee wellbeing, to understand how businesses can tackle these issues and better support employee resilience in the short, and the long term.
Clear business benefits
Attendees agreed that employee resilience was vital to the long term health of any business and loosely defined it as an individual’s ability to cope with stress, adapt to change and maintain performance under pressure. What it isn’t is the ability to keep going under growing mental or physical pressure, and when businesses fail to manage it effectively, it results in a disengaged workforce and falling business performance.
But there are ways to manage it. According to one study, 94% of companies in the UAE (opens a new window) report that wellbeing programmes had a positive impact on employee performance and productivity while 93% of employees said they prioritised companies using such programmes when searching for a new job.
The business benefits are clear but how to instil that resilience across the workforce is less obvious. There are a host of tools, programmes and approaches designed to build resilience but as attendees at the round table pointed out, taking a tactical approach to the problem won’t result in long term benefits. To secure true resilience, it’s vital that support for employees’ mental wellbeing forms a core part of the business strategy and culture.
Feeling safe and confident
Changing the culture of a business is notoriously difficult but when it comes to resilience, there are some simple, but important steps, an organisation can take to make a real difference.
Employees need to feel safe enough at work to admit to themselves and their manager that they are struggling and need some support. Conversations about mental health and how to manage it should become part of normal business conversations while sharing experiences and coping strategies more often can help foster a culture of openness and mutual support, essential for building mental resilience.
In short, employees have to feel safe and confident – safe enough to speak up and confident that when they do, they will receive the support they need. And that sense of safety starts at the very top. If leaders can’t show the same vulnerability and be seen to ask for support when they need it, employees will follow that example and mental health will remain a taboo subject.
Businesses in the UAE have started embracing these concepts as the business case becomes clearer. According to Gallup, 8% of employees in the UAE are actively disengaged today (opens a new window), a significant improvement on 2019 when 12% said they were. Despite this improvement, this disengagement results in between $8.6 and $10.3 billion in annual losses to the UAE economy.
These losses can be reduced with an engaged workforce and an engaged workforce almost always exhibits higher levels of resilience, a resilience that results in better business performance.
The message is landing
Gallup found that disengaged employees are far more likely (44%) to be stressed and burned out than engaged employees (25%). Perhaps more alarming to businesses is that nearly half (46%) of disengaged employees show a strong willingness to change their employer, compared to just 13% of engaged employees.
As attendees at the round table pointed out, engagement and disengagement aren’t permanent states. They can be significantly influenced by the level of support that employers provide, and when that support is given, the business benefits directly through greater productivity, fewer absences and better employee retention.
This message seems to be landing. A survey of UAE business leaders, conducted by healthcare provider Bupa (opens a new window), found that 94% reported enhanced productivity as a direct result of wellbeing programmes and 88% were planning to increase investment in these programmes as a result.
Rather than being seen as another employee benefit, wellbeing programmes are increasingly viewed as a central element of any business strategy and the race is now on to help employees increase their resilience levels so those undeniable business benefits can be secured.
