How to Build a Strategy for Emotional Resilience at Work

Simon Crew is a consultant at Xerox HR services. In a recent post he published on the CIPD website, he talks about his previous struggles with grief and depression, and how it affected him in his work life, family life and social life.

As the article progresses, Simon talks about how employers are not doing enough to support employees with mental illnesses, and then gives some great advice on building a more emotionally resilient workforce.

Steps for Building a Successful Strategy

According to Simon, building emotional resilience among the workforce is crucial for your employee mental wellbeing strategy. Here are some important steps you can take if you want to build a successful strategy:

1.Set Clear Objectives. Having clear short, medium and long-term goals will help give your strategy direction and traction. It will also give your employees a sense of direction and security.

2. Comfortable Physical Environment. You may not be able to radically renovate your office block, but you can make small changes – for example, make sure there is a quiet space set aside from the hustle and bustle of the main areas, and try to ensure as much daylight as possible.

3. Understand Cultural Challenges. On an individual level, you need to work hard at understanding that each employee is different. Once you recognise that everyone has different needs and motivations, you can go ahead and develop a strategy that supports the broadest range of employees.

4. Identify Available Resources. No business has an unlimited supply of resources, so you should identify which resources you have at your disposal, and think of ways to use them in a way that supports emotional resilience.

5. Communication. If you’re creating a scheme designed to support emotional resilience, it’s important you communicate this clearly to your employees. How do you expect them to buy into an initiative they don’t understand?

This is only a small snapshot of Simon’s very interesting article. We recommend you read the full piece on CIPD’s website here.