Through the Change: Cultivate Resilience in a Changing Workplace
Thank you for reaching out. This question often plagues leaders when it comes to challenges in the changing workplace, especially during a retrenchment exercise. Other than addressing the concerns of team members, it also crucial to ensure that team members receive sufficient support and the resources they need to navigate the crisis, engage in personal growth, and have better teamwork as well as organizational success. The objective here is to cultivate team resilience in a changing workplace.
A resilient team doesn’t just bounce back from crisis or change, they bounce forward. Resilient team members are not only able to be mindful and respond adequately to changes, but they are also able to look at change as the only constant, thus turning crises into opportunities for learning and growth. Cultivating team resilience is not an easy task to implement, yet it deserves your time and energy in order to build a sustainable team capacity that performs well across changes.
OPEN COMMUNICATION
One of the most essential things a leader can do is to communicate transparently and openly with their teammates about organizational changes, for instance the retrenchment exercise, and what could be the possible changes that it brings to the team. Open communication can help an employee feel a sense of control over what’s going to happen.
ACTIVE LISTENING
Listening to team members’ challenges and needs can not only help a team leader to build rapport and trust in the team, but also give the team leader a chance to address and work together with team members on their issues. Team members could feel valued and supported this way, which is crucial to foster resilience.
PRIORITY SETTING
One of the essential roles of a leader is to help their team members prioritise. Team members experience stress when they’re overwhelmed with increased workloads during a change. In this case, a team leader could support in reprioritising
deadlines, delegating tasks based on individual capacity, as well as reducing non-essential workloads at the moment.
FEEDBACK & RECOGNITION
It’s necessary to recognise team members’ contributions, either individually or as a group, especially during a time of change. When team members feel recognised, they are willing to strive and improve themselves towards personal as well as business goals.
TRAINING & SUPPORT
While delegating new responsibilities to team members, it’s also important to check in with their capabilities in carrying out the task. This includes on-job training, peer mentoring, coaching as well as a regular follow-up meetings, depending on the situation.
