How to help employees build resilience, and why this is important for the future

Employers have focused more on their employees’ wellbeing in the past year than ever before, with 82% of private sector businesses in the UK having some form of benefits or strategy for staff compared to just 25% in 2016, according to the REBA/AXA Health Employee Wellbeing Research. This is hugely encouraging to see. The next step is for employers to focus on mental resilience.

Resilience is important in helping us stay on top of our mental health. When we have resilience, it means we can maintain our performance and wellbeing when under pressure, we can recover, learn from, and move on from challenges we face and adapt to stressful situations without lasting effects.

This isn’t something people have or don’t have; we can all take steps to work towards being more resilient. As an employer, here’s why it’s important and how you can help.

Why is it important?

According to figures from the Health and Safety Executive, 17.9 million working days were lost due to stress, anxiety, or depression in 2019/20, which is up 5.1 million compared to 2018/19. Helping your employees develop their mental resilience can enable them to manage stress and prevent it from affecting their mental and physical health.

Here are four ways to help your people build resilience:

1. Encourage your employees to take care of themselves

We all know that exercise is important for our physical health, but did you know it can also help with managing stress? Getting active can help us manage stress and clear our thoughts. Encourage your employees to get some exercise, whether that’s a walk at lunchtime, an online fitness class or just a dance around the kitchen.

Sleep is also important for our mental health and resilience, if we’re not getting enough sleep then we are less able to deal with everyday stress. There are ways we can improve our sleep like sticking to a sleep schedule, unplugging from devices before bed and winding down at night.

2. Take time out

From a warm bath to some arts and crafts, there are many things we can do that will help us relax after a day at work, which is key to helping us manage our stress. It’s important to promote relaxation in your workplace, you could offer online meditation or yoga, or just ways your employees can make time for themselves. This includes ensuring they have a healthy work-life balance and encourage them make the most of their annual leave, even if they just take the day at home to do absolutely nothing.

3. Create a network to support your employees

There are many ways you can create a support network for your employees. This includes training line managers on spotting signs of stress, having mental health first aiders in your team or offering an employee assistance programme. It’s important these are all well signposted so if your people are struggling, they know who to talk to.

4. Don’t forget to reward your employees for a job well done

A thank you goes a long way to helping your employees feel valued for the work they do every day, and can help them stay positive even when facing challenges. There are many ways you can reward your staff, you could have your senior leaders write them a personalised thank you note (or email!), could send them vouchers, or send some chocolate in the post.

The author is Graham James, director of commercial development at Sodexo Engage.

This article is provided by Sodexo Engage.