Employee resilience

New research claims that resilient employees are more productive than individuals who lack resilience.

Resilient workers are also three times more likely to ask for help and three times more likely to take part in problem-solving solutions. Outside of work, 80 per cent of resilient employees say they have support networks to help their mental health and, additionally, are much more likely than their peers to get enough sleep and exercise.*

According to the Center for Workplace Mental Health in the US, resilience is defined as “when a person can bounce back and thrive from major challenges”.

“As employers build and improve workplace culture and resilience, they also seek ways to address workplace stress and mental health. When addressed, employers build a resilient workforce, employees handle work stress better, and develop protective factors against stress,” says the Center for Workplace Mental Health.

It lists these benefits:

  • Resilience is associated with greater job satisfaction, work happiness, organisational commitment and employee engagement.
  • Raising resilience contributes to improved self-esteem, sense of control over life events, sense of purpose in life and improved employee interpersonal relationships.

Amit Ghose has a rare genetic condition called neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) which has caused a tumour to grow on his face. Until a year ago, Amit never fully accepted his appearance until his wife gave him the confidence to share his full self with the world. After posting on social media about his condition just 12 months ago he is now so busy with public speaking engagements, he has left his job in sales and marketing to instead share his experience of why resilience is one of our most important assets.

“My ambition is to create positive impact in society and the world by sharing my challenges and my story and how I overcame them. I hope by doing this I can inspire organisations and individuals,” says Amit, who will be recommending his best-practice advice for building a resilient workforce at Diversity Network’s INCLUSION conference.

“There are four pillars you can use to overcome challenges both in your professional and private life: embrace your personality, accept yourself, believe in yourself and celebrate each of those differences,” says Amit, who here tells his own experience of feeling excluded at school:

“When I was younger, I feared rejection because people didn’t want to hang out with me because of the way I looked.

“I loved cricket but no one would play with me and I never had the courage to play on my own in front of the other children. So I played at home, practising all the time. One day I mustered up the courage to play at lunchtime – the other children were bullying me and laughing at me but I came in running, bowling a ball at the batsman and he missed.

“The whole playground just stopped.

“I bowled another ball and got the batsman out again.

“The PE teacher was watching and said I should play for the school. So I did, and became one of the highest wicket-takers the school had recorded.

“I went from being Amit, the guy with the funny face, to be Amit who plays cricket. It was a different identity.

“When people first meet me, they notice my face. But after talking with me, my face isn’t the thing that people think about anymore. The face fades away and people concentrate more on my personality and what I am saying.

“It’s all about embracing who you are and learning to validate yourself and then everything else falls into place.

“Self-acceptance is very important.

“Last year, no matter how much I smiled, I always regretted how I looked. I felt sad about how I looked. But I realised that regret is far worse than rejection. Regret will linger because you haven’t taken the leap and tried.

“Once I accepted myself, I don’t care about how I look or about what someone thinks of me, because I know what I think about myself.”

Amit shared his strategies for employee resilience at Diversity Network’s online INCLUSION Festival. You can access his session on-demand to learn about:

  • Exploring effective methods for building and enhancing employee resilience in the workplace
  • Discussing the importance of resilience in navigating challenges and fostering wellbeing among employees
  • Sharing practical strategies and initiatives to support and strengthen employee resilience within organisations

Amit’s presentation is part of our enormous library of more than 400 hours of cultural workplace change content. To register to become a member of Diversity Network, see here: https://diversity-network.com/inclusion-registration/

Further links:

https://www.Amitghose.co.uk

Center for Workplace Mental Health

*Research carried out by Barnett Waddingham.

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