Employee resilience: An evidence review

Resilience helps employees adapt, cope, gain resources, and respond positively to stressors in the workplace. This evidence review, based on a rapid evidence assessment (REA), finds several key factors that protect or reinforce resilience.

Strong predictors that protect or reinforce resilience include:

• Individuals’ psychological states and traits, including self-efficacy or confidence, positive affect or emotions, and our sense of coherence.
• Our relationships, including supportive co-workers and managers and a high-quality leader-member exchange.
• In addition, learning and development interventions can also enhance employee resilience, if they are designed and delivered in the right way.

It is important to understand resilience as partly a semi-permanent psychological trait and partly a variable psychological state. Some people will naturally be more resilient than others but the onus must not simply be put on employees to ‘buck up’ and ‘be’ resilient. People managers and colleagues play critical roles in influencing how resilient employees are.

• See the practice summary for the main insights and practical recommendations for action. 
• See the scientific summary for our methodology and technical information on the research and study references.