Building Resilience into Your Business

Building Resilience into Your Business

When a crisis strikes, resilience is the quality that enables some businesses to adapt and thrive while others struggle to recover from the blow. Resilient teams are prepared to rise to any adverse occasion — from the loss of a consequential client to a global crisis — with confidence, agility, resourcefulness and commitment. This collective strength is essential to navigating unexpected challenges and charting a positive course forward.

How do you cultivate resilience within your company? Here are some actions you can take to prepare your team and business for whatever challenges come next.
 

Respect the individuality, cares and concerns of your employees

One of the silver linings of the COVID-19 pandemic was that business leaders and employees alike got to see one another as human beings, with all of the multiple facets and vulnerabilities inherent in that status. We started asking “How are you doing?” more often than “Have you completed that project?” as compassion and empathy commanded center stage.

What has grown from that experience is a broader understanding of the importance of creating safe spaces at work, where people can share ideas, concerns, frustrations and needs in a judgment-free environment, and of supporting work-life balance for all, through flexible work arrangements or other measures. When employees achieve a healthy balance, it’s good for everyone — and for the business. People who are well-balanced and happy bring positive attitudes, focus, productivity and resilience to the workplace.
 

Foster a culture of trust

When the ADP Research Institute surveyed more than 26,000 workers around the world for its Global Workplace Study 2020, trust emerged as the most powerful driver of professional engagement and resilience. According to this study, employees who completely trust their team leader are 14 times more likely than others to be fully engaged, and those who completely trust colleagues, their team leader and senior leaders were 42 times more likely to be highly resilient.

Building a culture of trust begins at the top, with leaders demonstrating stability, dependability, integrity and accountability. Trustworthy leaders clearly and frequently share the company vision and goals, seek and act upon employee feedback, follow through on their commitments, demonstrate appreciation, and place confidence in team members across the organization. Helping employees learn to trust their colleagues begins with safe-space conversations and collaborative efforts, such as cross-functional team projects that enable people to get to know and respect one another for their knowledge and capabilities.
 

Never stop upskilling

Business leaders around the world have seen all too clearly over the past two years how critical it is for employees to have at least a working knowledge of implementing technology. Those whose teams were tech-savvy transitioned from face-to-face to virtual communication seamlessly, while others struggled through crash courses and more than a little anxiety.

This example illustrates the need for business leaders to invest in continuing education — to help employees keep up with not only the quickly evolving technology that drives so many aspects of business operation, but also the emerging information and trends in their own disciplines. No matter what industry you are in, it is changing all the time. Keeping your teams sharp requires continual upskilling.

Elevated mindsets fuel resilience just as elevated skillsets do, and people are energized when they realize that their employer supports their career growth by providing development opportunities. As your teams and leaders become more competent and confident, they begin looking at situations with fresh perspective. They become better problem-solvers and innovators, making your business that much stronger when new challenges arise.
 

Seek diverse perspectives

Diversity of backgrounds, experiences, opinions and skillsets can give your business an extraordinary advantage in developing creative solutions in a crisis scenario as well as when you are in business-as-usual mode. Maybe it’s reimagining how you approach and appeal to new markets, how you build new efficiencies into your processes or how you more effectively mitigate risk across your operations. The point is that, no matter what the challenge, there are no bad ideas — just different ideas — and you never know who may come up with the winning formula for any particular challenge.

Perhaps too often, business leaders’ knee-jerk reaction to a crisis is to put the most senior people on it, trusting that their depth of experience will save the day. But when you also include junior and midlevel talent, you are adding fresh perspectives and enthusiasm that can supercharge your efforts. When everyone is given the opportunity to play a role in the resolution process, resilience cascades throughout the organization.

Adversity is a fact of life — and business. Resilience is essential to navigating those difficult times and coming out stronger for the experience. Think about how these ideas might help you prepare and strengthen your team for future challenges. Taking action now can help prepare your business for just about anything.



This article is for general information purposes only and is not intended to provide legal, tax, accounting or financial advice. Any reliance on the information herein is solely and exclusively at your own risk and you are urged to do your own independent research. To the extent information herein references an outside resource or Internet site, Dollar Bank is not responsible for information, products or services obtained from outside sources and Dollar Bank will not be liable for any damages that may result from your access to outside resources. As always, please consult your own counsel, accountant, or other advisor regarding your specific situation.