“Combining strengths and wellbeing at work is potentially the most transformational treatment yet in the urgent pursuit of resiliency, mental health, and ultimately, net thriving.” — Dr. Jim Harter, the Chief Scientist of Workplace Management at Gallup.
No other quote could better illustrate the interdependence between employee wellness, resilience, and success (net thriving) than this one from Gallup’s book, Wellbeing at Work.
Indeed, if you want a team that always stays resilient and productive (and the business that not only survives but thrives!), this is your shortcut: corporate wellness. Although not actually short, it’s the most optimal route to people excellence and organizational growth.
But first, let’s review several major obstacles standing in your way. Then, scroll down to the best practices for growing resilience through employee wellbeing initiatives.
Table of Contents
- Understanding Workforce Resilience and Roadblocks on Its Way
- Expert Tips on Building a Resilient Team with Corporate Wellbeing Initiatives
- Promote Wellness, Stay Resilient, and Thrive as a Team
- Author Bio
Understanding Workforce Resilience and Roadblocks on Its Way
In simple words, workforce resiliency is your team’s ability to adapt to changes and keep performing productively and efficiently no matter what or how hard the challenging “wind” is blowing.
Yet, resilience isn’t about enduring something with gnashed teeth. It’s rather about growing a sort of “elastic, self-recovering bones” to adapt to changes and tackle workplace challenges, bouncing back whenever needed. Your employees should be prepared for even the most unexpected and uncertain times, individually and as a team.
Speaking about obstacles and uncertainties (and suggestions to overcome them).
Stress and Burnout
The global workforce is facing a burnout crisis that is escalating day to day. It jumped by 25% between 2022 and 2024. In fact, every third of employees is burned out at work, while managers experience the highest levels of psychological pressure and stress.
Now, think about it: how can your team members stay resilient and bounce back when they are already flat on the mat, pressed by deadline anxiety or even depression?
Physical + emotional wellness solutions:
- Monitor employees’ workloads.
- Improve work-life balance.
- Schedule time for emotional and physical recovery: daily breaks, “No Meeting” days (meetings wear out employees greatly), corporate retreats, etc.
- Provide mental health support for leaders and frontline workers alike.
Disengagement
Low employee engagement is yet another “pandemic” striking modern employers and preventing them from building stronger teams.
Mind: It is literally contagious—it catches on from employee to employee and creates a culture of indifference in the workplace. Disengaged workers often feel indifferent and pessimistic when facing challenges and are demotivated to contribute to the team’s success.
Employee wellness solutions:
- Develop an engagement action plan.
- Recognize even the smallest achievements.
- Engage them in decision-making via employee-led initiatives.
- Gamify: daily challenges, leaderboards, points, levels, prizes/awards.
Loneliness (Especially in Hybrid/Remote Teams)
Gallup found that 20% of employees (every fifth!) feel lonely in the workplace. Notably, employee loneliness grows higher in hybrid work environments and hits remote teams the hardest.
Why does it matter for workforce resilience?
Isolation deteriorates emotional stability and evokes despair: “I’m left alone!” Isolated workers also feel unsafe to communicate and share openly. That’s when team cohesion suffers a breakdown, too. As a result, you can’t build a strong team with weak collaboration.
Social wellness solutions:
- Use remote work tools for inclusive communication.
- Allocate time for socialization through virtual and hybrid team building.
- Introduce a buddy/peer support system in the workplace.
- Create employee resource groups (ERGs).
Economic Instability
“What if inflation keeps rising? What if I lose my job? What if…”
Tons of other similar what-ifs are bothering employees these days. In fact, 92% worry about economic recession, and 81% fear layoffs.
Jeffrey Zhou, CEO and Founder of Fig Loans, says, “Worried about financial instability and job loss, people start feeling more nervous and panicky in the workplace. They also tend to rely on themselves rather than stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their colleagues during tough times.”
Financial wellness solutions:
- Inform your staffers about the company’s financial health and overall direction (regularly!): Is the business growing financially? What is the outlook for the next year?
- Invest in professional development for future-proof skills.
- Add more financial perks to your employee benefits packages: paid days off, student loan pay-downs, retirement plans, emergency savings accounts, etc.
Expert Tips on Building a Resilient Team with Corporate Wellbeing Initiatives
Prioritize Psychological Wellness and Ease Emotional Tension Through Play
Working for an employer who values their emotional health and psychological wellbeing is crucial for 92% of employees.
If you develop a holistic wellness program for employees, give mental health a front-row seat. If not, bring it to the spotlight with a separate block of initiatives. These may include mental health awareness workshops, digital detoxes, on-demand therapy sessions, and other relevant activities.
For example:
The Royal Canadian Mint created a psychological wellbeing program with quarterly guest speakers on emotional wellness topics, mental health coverage ($5,000/year), weekly meditations (led by employees), and many more.
At this point, Nicolas Breedlove, CEO at PlaygroundEquipment.com, also highlights the importance of play for reducing emotional pressure in the workplace. “I’m genuinely shocked that some employers still think play is only for kids, not workers. We all have the inner child that tightly holds on to emotions. And thanks to office-appropriate games, we can lower stress levels and boost mental resilience. Not to mention that they also promote team communication and collaboration, some of the most essential skills for socio-emotional wellness.”
So, press play and fight stress with one of the fun team-building activities or engaging games for teams.
Make Self-Care Trendy in Your Team
Self-Care Habits
In the words of Adrian Iorga, Founder & President of 617 Boston Movers, “If you’re a leader, it’s you who should carry the self-care banner and inspire your crew to follow you. Transform personal care into a trendy workplace habit. Importantly, it doesn’t have to be extremely complicated—a stretch here, a deep breath there—just add ‘Me Time’ to your daily schedules.”
For example:
Adrian Iorga is known for propagating a healthy lifestyle among movers. When it comes to physical health, in particular, his passion for fitness and athletics was caught on by many of his team members.
Consider other daily self-care habits in the workplace:
- Self-gratitude journaling
- Hydration timers and healthy snacks
- One-tab policy to avoid mental overload
- Short laptop shutdowns to take a break from the screen
- Deskercises (quick exercises at a desk)
Self-Care Days
Only 15% of workers say their employers offer mental health days on the company-wide level.
If you still don’t do this, encourage your workers to take more time off for relaxation or schedule special days for personal care.
For example:
At Teradata, employees enjoy quarterly wellness days and choose any activities they prefer for their wellbeing, from reading books to spending quality time with family and pets.
Self-Care Apps
Pick one of these:
- Moodfit (or Mood Tracker)
- Yerbo
- Headspace (or Calm)
- Reflectly
- Shine
- MyLife, etc.
Alternatively, invest in developing your internal application to promote employee wellbeing and resilience.
For example:
PepsiCo developed a unique wellness app, Evernorth, with employee rewards for self-care.
Give More Clarity and Mobility for Professional Advancement
How can you make career prospects clearer?
Use career-pathing software like TalentGuard or GrowthSpace to let employees visualize their growth trajectories and individual development plans in your company.
Then, based on the chosen career paths, create employee training programs with learning and development (L&D) opportunities like these:
- Mentoring/coaching
- Job shadowing
- Certifications
- Cross-functional projects
- Upskilling workshops, etc.
For example:
Coca-Cola created an “Opportunity Marketplace,” a career development platform for employees to engage in short-term projects per their ambitions and skill sets.
Now, how can you make it mobile?
For Morgan Taylor, Co-Founder of Jolly SEO, employee growth and resilience are also about high internal mobility. “Your team members should be able to grow both vertically (promotions) and horizontally (lateral moves) inside the company. To make such mobility easier, I’d recommend posting job vacancies internally first before seeking external candidates and reskilling employees whenever necessary to give them more room to grow and build a thriving workforce, resilient to any changes.”
For example:
The Jolly SEO specialists can easily move between departments and try a new job role (marketer, content writer, SEO analyst, etc.) as long as it matches their inner career aspirations.
Grow Friendship Bonds Through Shared Values
In fact, when employees have the best friends at work, they are seven times more likely to be engaged. Yet, only 20% strongly agree that they have grown friendships in the workplace.
So, there’s much to be done here. And you can start forging these friendly, powerful connections with common values as follows:
- Honesty
- Courage
- Sustainability (aka “greenness”)
- Pet-friendliness
- Diversity and inclusion
- Human-to-human empathy and kindness (via corporate social responsibility)
For example:
Pfizer’s employees participate in athletic fundraising events (running or cycling marathons) and philanthropic activities, such as Random Acts of Kindness or Charity Bike Buildathon, prepared by Outback. This way, they not only contribute to community volunteerism but also deepen relationships (from colleagues to kind co-hearts) and become healthier physically, mentally, and socially as a team.
Engage Employees in Resiliency Training
Let’s be realistic—you can’t expect your employees to become resilient if you don’t train them and practice this competency. They should master the art of bouncing back and maybe even forward amid special corporate training.
For example:
The Sanofi team engaged in a full-day resilience training workshop to learn how to cope with pressing deadlines and large task piles yet return home happy and stress-free.
With Outback, you can likewise arrange a “Developing Our Resiliency” training program for the whole day (6–8 hours) or half a day (4 hours) for your team members virtually or in person.
Stanislav Khilobochenko, VP of Customer Services at Clario, also remarks, “Due to the growing number of social engineering and phishing attacks on businesses, cyber-resiliency is particularly vital for corporate wellness these days. I believe every modern employer must hold at least one cyber-resilience training session every six months, especially in the most vulnerable business categories, like financial or governmental IT services. Those often make the highest-value targets for cyber-attackers.”
Promote Wellness, Stay Resilient, and Thrive as a Team
Not sure where to start?
Contact Outback and plan the right activity for your workforce resiliency, whether it’s a team-building game or employee training. Because when your team is resilient, they can blaze the most challenging trails hand in hand and climb the highest peaks (both literally and metaphorically).
So, go ahead—lift your team (and your business!) to greatness.
Author Bio
Catherine Schwartz is an author who specializes in employee well-being and engagement.
