Bouncing back - building resilience and adaptability

It would be fair to say that 2020 was a year full of change with many ups and downs. No matter where you were, COVID-19 affected you in some way, whether for health reasons, cancelling travel plans, adapting to working from home and managing home schooling or working in isolation, and, in many cases, businesses being closed with individuals needing to reskill and look for new employment. 

Throughout these challenges, two key themes struck me as essential for the new post COVID-19 era: resilience and adaptability. Resilience is the ability to ‘bounce back’ in the face of adversity (Windle et al 2011) and adaptability is the ability to quickly respond to changing trends and innovations (Willkomm 2019). As many people adapted to home working, many of us experienced the benefits (productivity, flexibility, empowerment) and challenges (burnout, digital-stress) that remote working can bring at an accelerated pace. 

Emerging research published by Dr Christine Grant and Carl Clarke (2020) outlined the core competencies needed to build digital resilience (meaning the specific knowledge skills, attitudes and behaviours (‘competencies’) that need to be acquired, built and protected to counteract the negative effects of digital-stress). By building digital resilience, individuals are better placed to negotiate, adapt and manage the negative psychological effects of digital-stressors, in turn, improving well-being and workplace outcomes.

Embracing the shift to a new virtual and hybrid-working environment, Vodafone Czech Republic launched a new ‘Future Ready Leaders’ programme to equip its people leaders with the knowledge and skills to lead in a post-COVID era. The expectation was that employees will spend around 70% of their time working away from a Vodafone location post-COVID. The programme, built in partnership with ATAIRU and humancraft, focused on building resilience, adaptability, a growth mind-set and creating a culture of experimentation and learning, whilst providing leaders with the tools to lead remote and hybrid teams.

A key theme highlighted in the Grant and Clarke (2020) research was the need to build social and relationship skills, with these skills providing the resilience to buffer against digital and workplace stressors.

Here are five practical ways that programme participants found to develop social and relationship skills and behaviours:

1.Be aware of spending too much time on 'task'

Employees repeatedly tell us that remote working has many benefits, and in many cases, productivity has increased. However, a decline in social interactions, combined with Zoom and online fatigue, has led to meetings being more compressed and more focused. That’s great for productivity, but not for building relationships. Indeed, home offices can feel like a new ‘delivery unit’ with individuals plugging into a corporate network in the morning, in a similar way to how ‘humans were plugged into the matrix’ in the 1999 film. Setting time aside at the start or end of calls to ‘check-in’ or ask ‘feeling’ questions, as opposed to ‘task’ questions, has the potential to enhance relationships as well as providing more insights into what an individual may be experiencing.

2. Map your network

Remote and hybrid working can lead to a reduction in the number of people we connect with on a day-to-day basis, with connections typically focused on an immediate team or project. Mapping our relationships helps to shine a light on the parts of our network that may need re-energising. It is also a useful way to map our support network (personal and professional), identifying those individuals we could turn to for help if the need arose.

3. Understand individual preferences

Understanding our own and the team’s preferred communication styles helps to clarify how often and through what means engagement should take place. Some digital-stressors occur due to confusion over channels, while other forms occur when individual needs are not met. Team personality profiles help others understand how best to engage with us and where support is needed. Setting up a team contract is also a useful way to codify team routines that can be as simple as agreeing how different communication channels should be used and how often the team will meet in person.

4. Invest in new relationships

The opportunity to ‘bump’ into a colleague has rapidly disappeared and new ways to recreate these opportunities are needed. Techniques such as ‘virtual espresso’ meetings or ‘speed dating’ with colleagues not seen on a day-to-day basis are a good way to recreate these moments. Shorter meetings also require less planning and preparation, further recreating the vibe of gathering around the coffee machine.

5. Get to know people

Video calls allow us a glimpse into someone’s home surroundings and their non-work persona. Asking questions or opening up about our working environment is often revealing and provides the foundation for getting to know someone better. This should be approached with caution, however, with recognition that not everyone will be comfortable with sharing their new home environment on screen. Being guided by individual preferences (and using digital tools like virtual backgrounds) becomes key to developing respectful and inclusive remote-working relationships. 

How are you building and sustaining a diverse set of relationships in a virtual and hybrid way of working? It would be great to hear from you.

References

• Clarke, C., & Grant, C. (2020). Digital resilience: A competency framework for agile workers. In Grant, C., & Russell, E. (Eds.), Agile working and wellbeing in the digital age. London: Palgrave Macmillan
• Willkomm, A. (2019). Four ways to boost your adaptability skills. https://drexel.edu/goodwin/professional-studies-blog/overview/2019/September/4-ways-to-boost-your-adaptability-skills/. Accessed 4 January 2021
• Windle, G., Bennett, K., & Noyes, J. (2011). A methodological review of resilience measurement scales. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, 9 (1), 1–18