Do you want to create a resilient workforce? You have two levers:
- The qualities of people you let in through the front door
- The quality of the leadership they receive once they are in
If you recruit the right people – cheerful, positive people with an energetic and optimistic perspective on life – you will end up with higher levels of engagement (e.g. Albrecht and Marty 2017). These are the characteristics of personal resilience.
If once you hire these people you lead them in a way which maximises engagement:
- Empower them
- Provide an environment in which they can learn and develop
- Support them to pursue both their career aspirations and to pursue fulfilment in their life outside work
You will gain the benefits of both personal resilience and high levels of engagement. Simons and Buitendach (2013) found very high correlations between resilience and engagement. In fact I think that engagement can be defined as resilience at a workgroup level.
In any event, both resilience and engagement are well worth prioritising because they can both be demonstrated to cause higher levels of wellbeing and productivity. A payoff both morally and in productivity.
I have a workshop coming up on the link between resilience and engagement. Click here to find out more.
Our Psychometric Testing can help to understand how to assess the likelihood of your next employee being both resilient and highly engaged.
Albrecht, S. L., & Marty, A. (2017). Personality, self-efficacy and job resources and their associations with employee engagement, affective commitment and turnover intentions. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 1-25.
Simons, J. C., & Buitendach, J. H. (2013). Psychological capital, work engagement and organisational commitment amongst call centre employees in South Africa. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology, 39(2), 1-12.
