A recent survey found that 25% of people say that work is the biggest stressor in their life.
The next few months will see teams returning to work following one of the most disruptive periods in most of their lives. It’s natural that those usual ‘workplace stresses’ may be amplified.
So how can you improve mental resilience among your staff as they return to the office post-COVID?
What is mental resilience?
Resilience refers to the ability to maintain balance, to handle failure and strong emotions, and to ‘bounce back’ from negative experiences. In the workplace, a healthy level of mental resilience will mean staff are able to learn from mistakes, handle conflict well, and not fall apart under strain.
Resilient teams work better together and experience less anxiety, distrust and passive-aggressiveness. And the good news is that resilience techniques can be learned and taught.
Check in and listen
The foundation of helping your employees to become mentally resilient is to create space to check in and listen. Give your staff the chance to process and verbalise how they’re doing (for many, putting their thoughts and feelings into words will be a vital step towards self-understanding).
You aren’t required to be a therapist, but creating intentional spaces in which to hear your team’s concerns and provide encouragement and direction can go a very long way.
Lead from the front
You can’t lead others where you haven’t been. Beginning with your leaders is the only way to achieve meaningful change. Make sure that you and your key leaders are taking on activities to help boost resilience — like checking in honestly, creating a healthy work/life balance, and implementing simple mindfulness techniques.
Equip your leaders
Want a less anxious, more focused and more collaborative team? Then invest in training which will equip your leaders to promote and improve resilience in the workplace.
A key leader with access to some simple and effective methods for assessing and boosting employees’ mental resilience can save in time and resources in the long run.
Encourage positive rhythms
The human brain is amazing, but it just isn’t capable of being ‘always on’.
Help your employees to ‘compartmentalise’ tasks, so they aren’t constantly switching and reacting. This simple organisational tool is proven to reduce mental stress and boost productivity.
Similarly, short periods of rest have been proven to increase mental focus and energy, and prevent burnout in the long run. It may work for your office to introduce regimented breaks, or to help employees think through their ‘focus cycles’, and plan their workday around positive rhythms of focused work and short breaks.
Create a culture of compassion
Compassion — for oneself and others — is foundational to mental resilience. Is your office a place where people are permitted to learn from failure, where encouragement comes easily, and where people are honest with one another?
Creating a culture that embraces compassion is definitely not a quick fix, but it’s worth considering in your discussions around company culture.
Do you want to boost mental resilience in your workplace?
With staff set to return, now is the perfect time to get equipped. We offer the training to help your leaders boost mental resilience, focus and productivity in the office.
Get in touch with us to see how we can help you.
