Are you looking to build resilience in the workplace? Here are some tips and statistics on how you can take advantage of 2022's most hireable skill. As organizations are building workplaces that will be relevant during and after the pandemic, focusing on resilience has become essential for employers.
Resilience in the workplace isn't easy to create, especially since so many organizations and employees have been dealing with outside forces that are hard to ignore at work. For example, employees have dealt with caregiving for kids/adults, sickness and remote work arrangements. Public sector agencies have had to deal with employee turnover and increased government regulations.
As we look at how to build resilience at work, it's worth noting all the challenges these past few years have brought and how public sector agencies are getting over them.
According to the American Psychological Association, resilience is: "the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress."
As employees have been dealing with the impact of a global pandemic, resiliency has become more important. These past two years have exposed employees to a lot of turmoil, tragedy and adversity, after all.
So, how do employees deal with resilience at work? After all, according to professional services firm Aon, 70% of employees "consistently struggle with resiliency." Aon shares that organizations who can help their employees balance finance, physical, social, emotional and career needs can create a more resilient workplace.
While it's necessary for your employees to have some knowledge-based skills for public sector work in fields like education, firefighting and law enforcement, many organizations are requesting human skills. Human skills, or soft skills as they are commonly referred to, can make a significant impact at work. Organizations are even using their upskilling budget to invest in soft skills for current employees.
Many employees come to work with the knowledge-based skills they need to do their job because they have to go to school or an academy to learn proper techniques. Human skills have a huge impact at work, but it's often easy to go through school without knowing much about skills like resiliency or compassion.
These human skills are increasingly valued in the public sector because they make you better at your job. Having compassion for your students as an educator will help you put yourself in their shoes and teach more relevant lessons. In addition, being an empathetic law enforcement officer can help you form deeper relationships with the citizens you work with.
Public sector managers have begun to understand why they need to search for these types of skills in 2022 in beyond.
Some public sector employees are struggling more than others. For example, teachers are hard hit during the great resignation. MIT Sloan has noted that employees in the education sector are among the least resilient workers, due to "inherently stressful work and comparatively lower wages."
As we emphasize resilience in the workplace, this should positively impact the public sector. If the public sector is willing to notice the issues their employees have with resilience and do something to step in and fix it, public sector work can become a better place to work.
It can be challenging to hire resilient candidates because fake scenarios often cannot tell an organization how resilient its team members will be. So, what can organizations do?
Focus on resilience training in the public sector. Training current and future workers on resilience is your best bet to creating the team that you need in the future. The Mayo Clinic shares that "resilience training focuses on four areas, including emotional, cognitive and mental, physical, and spiritual resilience."
Focusing on things like mental and physical health/wellbeing can do wonders for building resilience at work. Here are some ways that your organization can provide this:
One of the biggest takeaways your organization can use to build resilience is focusing on offering training and benefits that support a resilient workforce. It can be challenging to find employees who are resilient from day one. Since anything could make work challenging for the most strong-willed workers, it's the role of performance management to teach important coping mechanisms and make meaningful changes at work.
CPS HR Consulting is a self-supporting public agency providing a full range of integrated HR solutions to government and nonprofit clients across the country. Our strategic approach to increasing the effectiveness of human resources results in improved organizational performance for our clients. We have a deep expertise and unmatched perspective in guiding our clients in the areas of organizational strategy, recruitment and selection, classification and compensation, and training and development.
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