Dr. Marie-Hélène Pelletier shares practical strategies to manage pressure, tap into opportunity, and strengthen resilience. Don’t miss her keynote, Resilience and High-Stakes: Harnessing the Opportunity of the Moment at CPABC’s Infinite Conference (Nov. 26-27).
Constant change, increasing workloads, and economic uncertainty have made resilience a critical skill in the workplace. But according to executive coach and work psychologist Dr. Marie-Hélène Pelletier, resilience isn’t simply about how individuals manage their stress and workload – it’s something organizations can actively build and support. Below, she shares some practical, systematic ways that organizations and individuals can build resilience.
An opportunity that organizations are missing
In the past, resilience was often viewed as optional wellness that organizations could focus on if there was time. However, today’s complex environment requires a different approach. “Change is happening constantly and faster than ever,” Pelletier says. “As a result, the demands we face are increasing. In this context, resilience becomes part of the infrastructure needed to meet these demands.”
According to research published in the National Library of Medicine, resilience is needed to maintain job satisfaction and productivity. “Not only that,” say Pelletier, “resilience affects our ability to make decisions, have good judgment, and maintain ethical decision-making.”
At the organizational level, resilience enables businesses to better anticipate, respond to, and recover from disruption. Overall, she says, it would be a miss if organizations continue thinking about resilience the way they did 10 or 20 years ago or continue to disregard it.
Resilience isn’t a personality trait
When it comes to supporting resilience, Pelletier says that businesses first need to shift from viewing it as an individual trait to understanding it as a concept that involves the entire organization. “In the workplace, we have three levels – the organization, team, and individual. However, for many years the thinking and research around resilience focused on individuals.”
Pelletier says resilience is not a fixed personality trait. Instead, it can be strengthened over time through individual habits, team support, and organizational practices.
“Resilience is something that we want to nourish with a wider, systematic perspective,” she notes. This means supporting resilience at all three levels, through organizational processes, strategies, and frameworks. “When we focus on the organization and teams, as well as individuals, this allows us to take practical steps and actions to support resilience at a larger scale.”
Addressing burnout
Defending against burnout is key to supporting resilience, says Pelletier. She emphasizes that burnout should not be viewed solely as an individual issue, since it is a product of a problem in the relationship between the individual and their workplace.
“One major contributor to burnout is workload. However, instead of focusing on the individual, try having an open conversation with their entire team to identify friction points or parts of processes or projects that generate significant stress or demands. You can then better document, supported, or improve that area,” notes Pelletier.
Rather than asking employees to simply manage stress better, organizations should examine whether workloads, processes, or unclear expectations are contributing to the problem.
Building learning agility and mental agility
Pelletier also points to learning agility and mental agility as skills that can be developed to support resilience. “In the past, professionals could spend years developing expertise and eventually reach a point where they knew almost everything about their particular area,” she says. “But today, knowledge evolves too quickly and constantly to achieve that state.”
Learning agility is a mindset and set of practices that allow individuals to continually develop and adapt. It involves recognizing our existing expertise, while continuing to develop new skills and knowledge. Stretch assignments, cross-training, skill gap assessments, and professional development programs are some strategies that organizations use to support learning agility.
Mental agility, which includes the ability to adapt, stay focused, and manage stress effectively, is another trait that supports resilience. “One simple practice to strengthen mental agility is affect labeling – naming how you’re feeling in the moment,” says Pelletier.
“For example, you might say, ‘I’m feeling anxious about these changes.’ Next, validate your emotions by saying, ‘Yes, and these feelings are valid.’ This is the definition of self-compassion, which research shows increases feelings of happiness, curiosity, and connectedness. Being self-critical and saying, ‘I’m feeling anxious and I shouldn’t’ is not going to help because you’re still going to feel anxious as well as experience other negative consequences.”
Aligning mental health and resilience with business strategy
More employers are looking for ways to support employee well-being by developing a mental health strategy that is integrated with their existing business strategy.
“This can be done internally and is feasible for small organizations as well as large corporations,” Pelletier says. “The key is alignment. Look at your business strategy, then build a mental health strategy that supports it. Mental health should be part of your organization’s business goals, not sit separately from them.”
“For example, take a business that is planning significant growth in the coming year. Leadership knows this growth will be exciting but also demanding on the workforce,” she says. “They could start building their mental health strategy by asking, ‘What are three key pillars to invest in to sustain the best possible mental health for our people during this growth?’”
In this scenario, she says, “One pillar could be increased communication about existing supports, such as an employee and family assistance program, counselling programs, and mental wellness benefits. Another pillar could be increased involvement, such as involving employees in planning or decision-making related to the growth. A third pillar could be training managers on how to lead with empathy and monitor for signs of burnout.”
For each pillar, she recommends defining two to three concrete actions to support it that will be implemented in the next year. For example, increased communication about existing mental health supports could include discussing supports at town hall meetings, adding a mental health section to the company intranet, and sending quarterly emails highlighting specific benefits.
Ultimately, resilience is not something individuals are expected to build on their own. By aligning workplace practices, team support, and personal development, organizations can create environments where people are better equipped to adapt and fulfil their responsibilities amidst ongoing change.
Leah Giesbrecht is a communications specialist at CPABC.
