Understanding resilience at work

Resiliency can be good for business

There is no single agreed definition of what resilience is or how to build it. Generally, resilience involves being able to cope with the ups and downs that each individual experiences at work and in life. In a workplace, resilience can mean being able to manage a busy peak period, navigate a difficult client or a frustrating colleague, or negotiate a new arrangement with a supplier. 

Individuals, teams and organisations that are more resilient can cope under pressure, adapt to new and different situations, find new opportunities and reach out for help when it is needed. As change and disruption become more common, it may become more important to build resilience.

Individual resilience

Individual resilience can be supported in many ways, including:

• building social support to help buffer the impacts of negative events
• building coping strategies that allow people to manage stressful events or activities
• emotion-based approaches that help people tolerate difficult emotional responses
• education about psychology and mental health to help people understand their experience.

While there is some research evidence for specific resilience strategies, these may not work for everyone all the time. As a result, resilience strategies must match the individual context and need.

Team resilience

In addition to focusing on individual resilience, workplaces can also focus on team resilience. Similar to individual resilience, there are many ways of thinking about team resilience.

Team resilience can be thought of as an outcome or a state that is demonstrated when teams effectively bounce back, recover and navigate challenges together.

Examples of things that may build team resilience include:

• a sense of strong team identity and cohesion
• having the right mix of knowledge, skills and abilities to complete the work
• strong team leadership
• positive group norms or culture that is shared by the team
• strong team communication
• psychological safety which allows people to speak up or challenge ideas
• the ability for team members to regulate their behaviour, emotions and thinking both as individuals and as team members.

Team resilience can also be supported through operating process or systems such as:

• processes for planning, reflection and learning that support continual improvement
• shared team processes, resources and work allocation that support working together
• shared ways of working
• plans for managing adverse events, such as business continuity plans
• processes for anticipating challenges and risks to plan for these early
• processes for defining expectations.

Need to address root causes

Importantly, initiatives that build resilience often do not fix the root cause of stressful situations. Instead, they help people and teams cope during periods of stress. 

It is more effective to address the causes of stress, rather than build resilience to handle stressful situations. It may also be part of your work health and safety obligations. For example, your workplace has an obligation to identify and manage psychosocial hazards such as long work hours, team conflict or poorly managed organisation change. Resilience initiatives do not replace this obligation.

Initiatives that build resilience help individuals, team and organisations manage the everyday ups and down of working life. But remember, building resilience does not replace obligations to manage psychosocial hazards in the workplace.