You may have encountered a few people who consider their jobs their main stressors. Well, this is probably because they work in highly demanding jobs where burnout and stress are widespread. The good thing is that you can change how your team perceives work culture and how they react to changes by boosting workforce resilience.
Workforce resilience equips your team with the skills to adapt to job uncertainties, unexpected changes, setbacks, and workplace pressure without losing motivation. A resilient team will always find solutions to challenges, as the members are innovative and a great asset to the business.
If you’re wondering how to boost workforce resilience, here are a few pointers:
1. Create A Healthy Working Environment
The first step to building workforce resilience is creating a healthy working environment. A healthy workplace supports your team’s well-being, physically and mentally, enabling the members to tackle daily challenges and stressors.
A healthy working environment also encompasses developing flexible working schedules for your team to have a work-life balance. This means allowing your team some time off work to attend to personal matters. It may be best to consider incorporating a hybrid office where your team can work remotely. A change in environment is also suitable for boosting morale, flexibility, and productivity.
You can also build workplace programs to help your team develop positive behaviors and habits, cope with stress, and prevent illness. These programs may be wellness programs, mental health support, occupational health and safety, and health education.
For instance, you can create a workplace flu vaccination program for your team to receive onsite flu vaccines before the flu season starts. It’s one of the most contagious illnesses that can spread throughout your workforce in no time and keep half of your team at home.
This means reduced productivity and a more significant workload for the remaining team members. Starting health programs that help them fight such inconveniences is the best way to ensure your team’s safety, health, and continuous productivity.
2. Equip Your Team With Problem-Solving Capabilities
Problem-solving ability means the skill to identify and find solutions to complex issues. Equipping your team with such capabilities will allow them to respond to challenges more efficiently, with confidence and agility. They will also be able to identify improvement areas and develop creative ways of achieving them.
You can offer training sessions where your team will learn various problem-solving techniques, including critical thinking, root cause analysis, and brainstorming new ideas. Providing your team with adequate training about their roles and what the organization expects from them allows them to be quick on their feet and respond positively to challenges.
You can also encourage them to work as a team instead of trying to find solutions to problems individually. Everyone can learn something from someone; collaboration and teamwork will help expand their horizons. You can even offer them incentives or publicly recognize their efforts to harness the power of workplace appreciation and create a more positive workplace.
3. Compartmentalize Workplace Cognitive Load
You may be unable to reduce your team’s workload and the information they receive daily, but you can teach them how to manage and prioritize them. This will ensure they don’t feel overwhelmed or stressed over their work.
It also eliminates the need for multitasking. When the team focuses their attention and energy on one task at a time, they can achieve quality outcomes and higher productivity.
Moreover, it helps them separate different information, allowing them to make better decisions at each step of the way. Your team can think creatively and generate new ideas to navigate challenging and complex situations.
4. Encourage Open Communication
Open communication allows team members to share ideas, concerns, and thoughts openly without fearing criticism or discrimination from other members. It builds trust and reduces workplace stress as team members can openly discuss their issues or come to you for help.
This promotes collaboration and lets you identify problematic areas affecting your team’s productivity before it gets out of hand. Also, you can make better and more informed decisions based on the different team insights.
When you communicate openly with your team, you can also give clear expectations and feedback. It helps you outline goals and objectives clearly and promotes accountability. Your team will be able to understand, focus, and prioritize tasks depending on your expectations and urgency. Moreover, your team members will feel responsible, more empowered, and accountable for their productivity.
5. Lead By Example
As a leader, your work doesn’t start or end with equipping or boosting your team’s resilience; it begins with you. You must also emulate resiliency as the business owner or leader because your team will always look up to you and seek your guidance. You’ll also set the right tone for your teams and make them quickly develop a resilient culture.
Conclusion
Boosting workplace resilience is not challenging; you just need to follow the tips discussed for a complete transformation. Start by creating a healthy working environment where your team feels valued, respected, and appreciated.
Provide growth opportunities, start wellness programs, and teach them task prioritization to build a resilience taskforce that can adapt to changes and overcome setbacks. However, it can only be effective when management and team members cooperate and put in the effort.