Increasing the resilience of employees
In the modern working world, company employees must be able to tackle new tasks with courage and deal with stressful situations in a reasonably relaxed manner. Otherwise, being challenged often turns into being overwhelmed.
In everyday working life, you often notice that people react very differently to the same challenges and stresses. For example, while one employee immediately says "I can't do that" when faced with new tasks, another thinks "Wow, I can finally prove myself" and confidently sets off in search of suitable solutions to problems.
While one employee, for example, suffers burnout and falls ill for a longer period of time due to the "stressful working conditions", another occasionally complains "It's stressful", but then gets down to work full of enthusiasm and systematically completes the tasks at hand.
Resilience research is looking into why this is the case and has come to the conclusion that some people are more "resilient" than others. They have a "thicker skin", so to speak, when it comes to dealing with challenging situations. This is why stress seems to roll off them, while for others it leads to excessive demands
The eight characteristics of resilient employees
Resilience research shows that people with a high level of resilience generally have the following characteristics and personality traits:
- Positive thinking: Resilient people do not panic when faced with new challenges. Instead, they think: I'll manage somehow - even if I don't yet know how.
- Self-esteem: They believe in themselves and in what they can and do.
- Problem-solving ability: They think in a solution-oriented way and plan their future. They are not worried about the future.
- Personal responsibility: They take their lives and destiny into their own hands and do not allow themselves to be forced into a victim role.
- Self-efficacy: They initially accept (negative) things and circumstances as they are. But they don't leave them as they are: they change them.
- Social competence: They remain in dialog with their environment in times of stress. If necessary, they ask for support or organize it themselves.
- Mindfulness: They have a sense of themselves. They know what is (not) good for them and can sense when they are reaching their limits.
- Stress management strategies: They have developed strategies to ensure the necessary relaxation even in times of stress and, as far as possible, to maintain balance in their lives.
Becoming a resilient personality
Resilience research also shows that the skills and characteristics mentioned lie dormant in almost all people. However, without external support, they often find it difficult to activate them. This is because it requires awareness: How do I regularly react in certain situations? For example, when faced with new challenges? Or when important decisions need to be made? Or when the volume of work increases? Also: Why do I react this way and not differently?
Anyone can ask themselves these questions. But in fact, many do not. And if they do? Then they often don't find the right answers. For example, because they don't realize that they always react in a similar way in comparable situations. Or because their behavior seems so natural to them that they can't imagine reacting differently.
Recognize impending excessive demands at an early stage
This is why companies that want to support their employees in increasing their resilience often offer them appropriate seminars. They also often provide them with a coach in their day-to-day work to help them recognize and, if necessary, change their typical patterns of thought, behaviour and reaction to certain external stimuli.
Another aim of this support is to increase employees' self-awareness - in other words, their sensitivity to when they are about to find themselves in a situation that threatens to overtax them, for example. This is because they can usually take countermeasures and organize help, for example, to avoid "burning out" and thus burnout.
To the author:
Nikola Doll works as a management trainer and consultant with her husband Klaus Doll for the Doll Organizational Consulting. In addition, the qualified sociologist and social pedagogue accompanies highly committed people in their careers as a Coach in their personal development.
