BUSINESS RESEARCH

Building Workforce Resilience to Support Innovation

Organisations depend on their workers to generate new knowledge and ideas that will lead to profitable innovations. But as the business environment grows ever-more complex and competitive, and as organisations and workplace demands change continuously, workers are under increasing pressure to perform at their best.

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June 2015

Such pressures present a significant threat to the health and well-being of workers, and their ability to engage productively in innovation pursuits. Organisational psychologists recognise the importance of resilience as a core capability in managing work pressures, setbacks and failures (common features of innovation environments). A recent survey of 835 British workers found that the biggest drains on their resilience reserves were: (1) Difficult relationships/politics (2) Volume or pace of work, and (3) Personal criticism.

Building resilience is not easy, as every person will have a different starting point and perspective:

  1. Understand the response to pressure: Unreasonable beliefs about the self, others, and the future are quite common. These are normal and may not reflect a defect in personal character.
  2. Reduce Anxiety: Use techniques to control intrusive thoughts and images.
  3. Engage in constructive self-disclosure: Holding on to problems can lead to a worsening of physical and psychological outcomes. Learn to share problems and stories with trusted others (social support).
  4. Create narratives in which problems are seen as a “fork in the road”: Use narratives to specify what personal strengths you drew upon during a problem, how some relationships improved, what lessons you learned to help appreciate life more, or what new doors opened.
  5. Articulate life principles: These encompass new ways to be altruistic, craft a new identity, and build practical life philosophies that you can apply, refer to and share with others everyday.

Sources: Ovans, A. (2015) What Resilience Means, and Why It Matters, HBR, Jan; McEwen, K. (2011) Building Resilience at Work, Australian Academic Press.

Referenced techniques

Technique

Empowering Employees

Over 70% of organisations now use empowerment initiatives. This concept explores how and why companies apply them. Empowerment is a key driver of motivation, autonomy, and innovation. Edmondson (2018) and Parker (1998) show it thrives in safe cultures and well-designed roles.

Technique

Human Capital

The view of human resources as a form of capital is not new, but only recently practitioners and academics have turned their attention to the benefits of the efficient employee management. The concept describes these benefits and reviews the success factors and implementation information that will help you improve your HR strategies.

Technique

Mentoring

The concept explains the value of introducing formal mentoring schemes within organisations. It also explains the typical characteristics of a formally-structured mentoring programme, together with the most common implementation steps and objectives which are normally agreed by the mentor and their protégé.

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