Three tips for building organisational resilience for HR professionals

Before you look at your organisational resilience, you need to consider the attributes for personal resilience of your employees. If you do not have that resilience at an individual level then ultimately it ends up as an organisation-wide issue.

Personal resilience isn’t just about “coping”

We regularly hear personal resilience referred to as ‘bouncing back’ or ‘coping’. But this sells resilience short. It is the ability to encounter setbacks, challenges and adversity, and be able to learn and grow from the experience.

You can have the best structures and strategies in place, but if your people aren’t resilient, your organisation won’t succeed.

Energy within an organisation is also contagious — test resilience by asking:

• Do your people have an optimistic outlook?
• Do they have the ability to boldly meet challenges rather than getting bogged down?

Steps to make your organisation more resilient

1. Create a resilience culture

This is not about one-off activities, such as a guest speaker, running clubs, or yoga and meditation classes. Resilience needs to be lived and incorporated into the organisation’s day to day operations.

2. Be conscious of language

Make sure that organisational use of language around change and challenges is framed as an opportunity, rather than a completely negative failure. This is especially important when things are not going to plan — these are valuable learning experiences, not disasters.

3. Support your people

Make sure that people feel that they are included and valued. Have open conversations about building resilience, particularly from a leadership perspective. Don’t wait for others to raise it at performance reviews or strategy meetings. Your people need to know they can speak out, without fear of reprisal, and have that safety net of support when they need it.

Hear Stacey in person at Governance and Risk Management Forum 2019

Stacey is a keynote speaker at the Governance Institute’s Governance and Risk Management Forum in Sydney, where she will be discussing how you can make yourself, and your organisation, more resilient in the face of your biggest workplace challenges.

This event is the essential risk management event of the year, and a number of resilience experts will be delivering similar sessions. Please join us at a forum near you — events take place throughout June in all the major cities.

Find out more about Governance and Risk Management Forum 2019

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With a membership of over 7,500 company secretaries, governance leaders and risk managers from some of Australia’s largest organisations, Governance Institute of Australia is the only fully independent professional association with a sole focus on governance excellence. For 110 years, our education, research, advocacy, and support networks have provided cutting edge governance and risk management advice to Australian business leaders from all walks of life. We celebrate Australia’s successes, and challenge it to be even better.Learn more