Is investing in a staff well-being program worth the cost?
If you want to decrease turnover, burnout and low morale;
and if you want to increase productivity, staff satisfaction and the bottom line, YES.
The path to professional success isn’t what it used to be. Fifty years ago, you got hired, and you stayed put. Today, very few of us enjoy such a static and linear career path. I worked for four large organizations and sat on the board of directors for several others, before starting my own consulting and training firm.
The economy, technology, and the way people want to live and work are changing the way work gets done. I have consulted with organizations who are doing a good job adapting to the changing needs of their staff. I have worked with many more organizations who are having great difficulties.
Along with the magnificent benefits of technological growth and scientific discoveries, comes the stress of managing it all. The level of stress our current workforce faces daily is often beyond their capacity to manage.
Which is why an employee well-being program is so important; and even more important that it focuses on the development of resilience through emotional regulation in the workplace.
Resilience is a person’s ability to bounce back from and grow and thrive during a challenge, change, and adversity. It’s not enough to just bounce back; employees today must develop a thicker coat of armor so that future stressors don’t have as much of an impact.
Since starting my consulting firm 15 years ago, I have had the privilege of teaching and training well-being, resilience and emotional regulatory healing to thousands of professionals and parents. Over these years I have discovered that there are a few things that regulated and resilient people do well.
Here are five key things resilient employees do differently:
1: They develop high-quality connections. A main building block of resilience is connection. High quality, low-stress relationships are critical to resilience.
2: They manage their stress regularly and they know the signs of burnout, AND do something about it. Burning out during the last year of my last c-suite job was my resilience low point. Since then, I’ve made it my mission to educate professionals and parents about Emotional Regulatory Healing and how to develop a resilience practice to maintain it.
3: They choose work that supports their real selves. Resilience is about being authentic. Resilient employees work in accordance with their values and strengths. I spent so much of my career acting as I thought I should act. As I tried to do my work the way others taught but did not resonate with my very spirit, my authenticity faded away. And I burnt out.
A bunch of kids in a residential treatment center helped to change that. I knew that what we were doing was wrong, even harmful, yet, it was ‘the program’ and I was determined the be the best employee that I could be, and, that meant following the program, instead of my heart. I began to connect with those kids in a very different, very meaningful way. I listened to them, I ‘felt’ them and I knew with everything in me that I could no longer ‘treat’ them the way that I was told. It was then, in my authentic self, that I decided to work in a way that I knew, with no doubt, was more effective for any stressed person, and better for me. 15 years later the growth of our firm and my level of authentic joy is indication enough…..
4: They are inspired because they chose work that has meaning for them. Meaning matters a whole lot at work. Meaning also builds your resilience and your engagement. The most successful and resilient people I have worked with are there for more than a paycheck because they see how their work has value and impact. Losing that motivation, energy, and vitality is a recipe for burnout and makes work feel a whole lot more like a chore.
5: They manage change and setback. Resilience allows us to anticipate and manage risk, deal with setbacks more appropriately, and stay engaged during times of challenge. When we are more emotionally regulated we manage stress in the workplace more effectively.
Creating a practice of resilience has impacted my life in so many wonderful ways. Resilience has helped me become a better version of myself, and I’ve seen that happen over and over again with the many people I have taught and trained.
Stress in the workplace is not a problem. As a matter of fact, stress in the workplace has become the norm.
It is how we respond to the stress, how we as the leaders of our organizations create the space in the workplace for employee well-being, developing resilience, increasing emotional regulation and sending a clear message to our staff that they are the most vital asset we have. And, we are willing to invest in them so that in turn they stay and invest in us.
It is time to adopt an effective employee well-being program that includes developing resilience through emotional regulation. If you are ready, contact us.
It is no longer enough to know this information; we must know how. It is up to us as the leaders to create well-being programs that teach our staff how to stay, and how to stay healthy. In the end, we all win.
Can Leaders Build Resilience?
Yes, when the normative climate of an organization is resilient and regulated, through interpersonal and workplace structure, resilience grows. Staff can only be as resilient as the organization they work in. It starts at the top.
Performance at any cost, in the long run, benefits nobody.
The more skills, like meditation, yoga, restorative breathing, and emotional regulation that we can teach staff, the more we can help them lower their stress and increase their resilience. In this space, we all have the capacity to focus on what really matters – serving clients and feeling better doing it!
As leaders, the more we are able to regulate our own emotions, stay calm and centered, the more we will elevate confidence in those around us and the more clarity we will have to move our organizations forward.
For more information or to set up a no-cost organizational consult, connect with us here.
