Why is Resilience so important?

Resilience enables “bouncing back” after stressful organisational and life events such as significant change, stress, adversity and hardship, and incorporates the concept of emerging from the adversity stronger and more resourceful. At work, resilience is the ability to remain task focussed and productive whilst experiencing tough times.

Resilience is the process that enables turning adversity into a growth experience, and leveraging it into new ways of working and living. Resilience is thus the life force to overcome adversity, heal and strive towards self actualisation and flourishing. It is particularly needed for teams who are weary and disillusioned, or alternatively have seen their colleagues retrenched and are suffering from classic "survivor syndrome":  feeling threatened, guilty and have their trust in their employer broken. (Click here to go to the Resources page to download the original article on the South African research into the unintended effects of the retrenchment on the staff who remain in the organisation – called the Survivor Syndrome) 

What is the training based on?

We recently undertook research into resilience in the South African workplace to understand what South Africans actually do to cope with adversity. It identified seven building blocks, which have been used as the foundation to assist people build their resilience and to create a high commitment work place. This training workshop uses the resilience research as the basis and incorporates positive psychology concepts of what makes life most worth living, and work satisfying and engaging. It is also inked to positive organizational scholarship which has a strong link to enhanced productivity and employee retention. The outcome is a high commitment workplace.

The workshop combines building resilience with strategies to create meaning in and at work. It helps people uncover their own answers to the questions we all have about work and life:

• How can I best deal with negative people, situations and adversity?
• How can I create real engagement and joy in my work?
• How can I reconcile the competing demands on my time and energy in work and beyond work domains?
• How can I live the best possible life for myself?

What are the contents of the workshop?

• Getting more of what you want at work and in life beyond work
• Identifying and using personal strengths at work and beyond work
• Dealing effectively with negative events and situations
• Identifying core capabilities of the team
• Enhancing engagement in and at work
• Establishing high-quality interpersonal interactions
• Creating positivity in work teams and in the work place

What are the outcomes

• Enhanced resilience: greater ability to recover from adversity, remain task focused and emerge even stronger
• Greater balance: between work and beyond work domains
• Enhanced commitment: openness to challenge and willingness to make extra efforts to achieve work goals
• Enhanced hope: commitment to goals and the strategy to attain them
• Enhanced optimism: more able to create and build on favourable  circumstances
• More productive individuals and more focused teams
• "Survivor syndrome" is addressed

Who would benefit from this workshop?

• New teams who need to quickly bond and establish effective ways of interacting
• Teams which have lost their spark and need to become re-energised and re-engaged
• Teams which are fuctioning well and would like to take their engagement and effectiveness to the next level
• Top tems which need to set the example of positive interaction and high performance to the rest of the organisation
• Retrenchement survivors who have had their trust in the organisation broken and have become dispirited and disengaged

Why choose "Building Resilience: Ignite the Energy Within"?

• Based on research: foundations in recent research on resilience with South Africans in the work place, and integrated with best practice Positive Psychology interventions
• Accredited: Building Resilience: Strenght for Life is SAQA accredited with Services SETA
• Cost effective: can be presented to large groups and also by specially trained in-company facilitators