organisational-versus-individual-resilience-

1. Leadership: Organisational versus
Individual Resilience
Dee Arp
NEBOSH Chief Operating Officer

2. - Organisational resilience - an organisation’s ability to recover
and thrive after a shock
- Personal resilience - an individual’s capacity to do the same
- Organisational and personal resilience have mostly been studied
and discussed separately
- Consequently, their interdependence is not widely understood,
let alone operationalized
- Individual resilience drives organizational resilience
Individual versus Organisational
resilience

3. - Oxford English Dictionary ‘able to withstand or recover quickly from
difficult conditions’
- The American Psychological Association defines resilience as ‘the
process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or
even significant sources of stress’
- ‘a protective factor inoculating against the detrimental effect of future
challenge’ (Rutter, 1987)
- The ability to bend but not break, bounce back, and perhaps even grow in
the face of adverse experiences; or
- “the ability to take a licking and keep on ticking” Timex
Definition of resilience on an
individual level

4. Skills-based model of personal
resilience. The British
Psychological Society
Personal resilience model

5. Capacity to absorb
stress, recover critical
functionality, and thrive
in altered circumstances
after a crisis
Definition of resilience on an
organisational level

6. - The Farmer and Stevenson review (2017) highlighted the need for
employers to actively engage with the mental health of their employees by
providing more supportive workplaces
- The review also reported strong evidence that when workers are supported
to manage pressures and workplace demands, it produces benefits at
multiple levels – work, home and to an organisation itself
- Some 17.9 million working days lost (19/20 GB) due to work related stress,
depression or anxiety
- Impact of the pandemic
So why is the focus on resilience
so prevalent?

7. Challenges for employers
- Managing and understanding:
- stress in the workplace
- mental health and wellbeing in the workplace
- The disruption to business operations caused by sickness absence
and self-isolation
- Increase in presenteeism and leaveism
- Providing effective and appropriate support for employees:
- Change fatigue – unprecedented upheaval and organisational change
- Anxiety returning to offices
- New working practices and technology

8. - Individual and organisational resilience each depend on, and reinforce
each other
- Each is less effective without the other
- Anticipation advantage: the ability to recognize potential threats and
prepare for them in advance
- Cushioning advantage: the ability to withstand the initial shock
- Adaptation advantage: the ability to quickly identify the actions
needed to restore operations and implement them swiftly
- Shaping advantage: the ability to shape and exploit the dynamics of
the industry in the post-shock environment
Multilevel resilience

9. Organisational
resilience
Individual
resilience
Trust
Management
of stress
Emotionally
intelligent
leaders
Health
and
wellbeing
strategy
Multilevel Resilience
Psychological
Safety

10. - Emphasise the role of the individual in organisational resilience
- Develop a culture that encourages change and welcomes
experimentation, failure, and learning
- Invest in individuals who demonstrate personal resilience
- Find the right balance of adversity and stability
- Balance change and reflection.
- Build the individual capabilities that drive personal resilience
How Leaders Can Build Resilience
at Multiple Levels

11. The important
of emotional
intelligence
The difference
that makes the
difference

12. - Developing personal resilience - employees must
experience and overcome adversity or change
- The adversity or change can’t be so overwhelming that it
leads to breakdown instead of learning and growth
- Personal resilience is best developed in an environment
with the optimal level of stress
The Optimal Level and Approach to Stress

13. Stress at work
- The main work factors cited as causing work-related
stress, depression or anxiety are:
- workload pressures
- tight deadlines
- too much responsibility
- lack of managerial support
- bullying, violence or threats
- change

14. - The interplay between personal and organisational resilience is
fundamental to understanding how organisations can deal with stressors
- Humans have great capacity to learn and grow from adversity – but this
does not necessarily develop social change
- Organisations are different – being able to put in place mechanisms so
that personal and organisational resilience are not in conflict as they
work to achieve resilience of the organisation as a whole
Understanding how organisations
can deal with stressors

15. - Develop a strategic and holistic approach
- Provide training and guidance for line managers and leaders
- Promote and embed hybrid and agile working models where possible
- Ensure line managers are checking in regularly with people and listening
- Develop support for key life-stage and other health and wellbeing issues
- Maximise opportunities, such as national wellbeing calendar events and
campaigns, to promote wellbeing activities and communications
- Ensure you have a policy and/or guidance to help managers and individuals
agree supportive workplace adjustments
- Create an open culture around health and wellbeing
Managing & understanding mental health &
wellbeing in the workplace

16. Psychological safety
- A critical factor for high performing teams
- Teams feel empowered
- Individuals feel respected, valued and
accepted for who they are
- Opinions are shared leading to
innovative and effective solutions
- A key component of diversity. Equity
and inclusion

17. Creating Psychological Safety
- Promote self awareness
- Demonstrate concern for team members as people
- Actively solicit questions
- Provide multiple ways for employees to share their thoughts
- Show value and appreciation for ideas
- Promote positive dialogue and discussion
- Be precise with information, expectations and commitments
- Explain reasons for change
- Own up to mistakes

18. Building a resilient health and safety culture
A three-aspect approach to safety culture
Safety Culture
Psychological Aspects
‘How people feel’
Can be described as the ‘safety
climate’ of the organisation,
which is concerned with
individual and group values,
attitudes and perceptions.
Safety Culture
Psychological Aspects Behavioural Aspects Situational Aspects
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‘What people do’
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organisational structures, and
the management systems
“The product of individual and group values, attitudes, perceptions, competencies and patterns of
behaviour that can determine the commitment to, and the style and proficiency of an
organisation’s health and safety management system”.
ACSNI Human Factors Study Group, HSC (1993)

19. Building resilience
Health and safety vision
- Vision - where you want to get to
- Builds on current successes
- Successful visions should be simple, succinct
and non-ambiguous (easily understood by
workers and stakeholders)
- Vision should be shared; everyone
in the organisation should be able
to contribute
- Should be recognised as a long
term process

20. Building resilience
Being considerate and responsive
- People respond well when they have been
shown empathy and consideration
- Leaders should:
- listen and respond appropriately
- responding to workers needs eg, providing
training if required
- provide coaching when required

21. Building resilience
Providing support and recognition
- People recognise and respond positively
when they are valued
- Training and development contributes to this
- Leaders should:
- recognise and reward safe behaviours
- understand what will motivate the
workforce
- ensure appropriate resources are
available at all times

22. Building resilience
Promoting fairness and trust in
relationships with others
- Leaders must visibly demonstrate fairness,
honesty and integrity to earn trust
- Difficult to build relationships without this
demonstration
- Leaders must ‘talk-the-talk’ AND
‘walk-the-walk’
- Sharing responsibility and delegation are key
tools for a health and safety leader

23. Building resilience
Encouraging improvement,
innovation and learning
- Listening to the workforce can encourage
improvement and innovation
- Organisations that listen also learn
- All workers should be allowed a voice
- Feedback to workers
- Development opportunities for workers
who want to learn or do more

25. Any Questions?