Team resilience is the capacity of a group of people to respond to change and disruption in a flexible and innovative manner. In the face of adversity, resilient teams maintain their work productivity while minimizing the emotional toll on team members. A team’s resilience can vary depending on how well resilience is fostered within the group and the amount of stress, change, and trauma the team is experiencing at any given time.
Teams with high resilience are more innovative, proactive, and collaborative. They are excellent problem solvers and work through conflict. Teams with low resilience struggle to achieve their goals. To get a sense of your team’s resilience, look at the following factors:
- Sick leave: How much sick leave are team members taking? Are most employees exhausting their sick leave? High rates of minor illness may indicate low resilience.
- Interoffice conflict: How well do employees collaborate? Are there simmering feuds among staff? Do employees avoid each other? How much do employees interact in staff meetings? Constant unresolved conflict between staff members may be a sign of low resilience.
- Planning: Do employees plan for the future? Are they proactive, anticipating issues, or are they reactive, only responding to daily taskings? Lack of future planning is common when there is low resilience.
- Staff turnover: Is there high turnover among staff? Would employees take a new job even without a promotion or salary increase? High turnover is a red flag for low resilience.
- Productivity: Is productivity low? While it can be hard to tell whether productivity is suffering due to lack of staff and resources or low resilience, compare productivity with previous time periods. If productivity is lower than it has been in the past despite no change in staff and resources, it may be caused by low resilience.
- Problem-solving: Are team members overwhelmed by simple problems? Do they get stuck once they hit a barrier? How much innovation do you see among the staff? Teams with low resilience struggle to problem solve.
- Morale: Are people generally happy in their jobs? How do they feel at the end of the day? Do they look forward to coming to work? Low morale may be a sign of low resilience.
- Reckless behavior: Are staff members not following the rules or being insubordinate? Is their behavior reckless, with little regard for the impact on themselves or others? Reckless behavior may increase if there is low resilience.
What helps you identify whether your team has low resilience?