Managing employees through an ongoing crisis is challenging to say the least. Although frontline health workers continue to bear the brunt of fear and anxiety during this pandemic, we’re also seeing it impact employees in construction jobs, and many other professions too. From sleep difficulties to emotional overload, it’s important to promote strong coping strategies like resilience if you really want to prevent burnout in your hires. Here is how to foster resilience in your construction hires and build a culture of resilience in your construction firm.
Understand Why Resilience Makes a Difference
Resilience is a psychological trait that the business world has long considered something that is nice to have rather than a requirement. It’s a desirable quality because it can be leveraged to mitigate employee burnout and improve overall well-being. Strong construction leadership really stands out by effectively managing workplace stress. But building employee resilience is more important now than ever because of all the increased demands being placed on employees like wearing personal protective equipment, social-distancing from their colleagues, etc. Burnout was already an issue impacting our industry, and now with all of these new distractions, it could trigger additional labor shortages for construction jobs.
Measuring Resilience is Important
It’s not always easy to determine how resilient employees are, but there are a couple of different strategies you can use. For instance, there are self-assessments that can measure the key attributes of resilience, including the ability to thrive in uncertainty, the capacity for self-compassion and cognitive agility. The more of these skills that employees have, the better they will be able to respond to and overcome new challenges and stress in the workplace. It also enables you to discover any gaps and develop a training strategy to improve resilience going forward.
Building a Resilient Culture
Training construction leaders and managers to recognize when employees are overstressed is a good place to start. Since some employees might be inclined to hide signs that they are struggling with stress and anxiety out of fear of being viewed as weak, organizations really need to dig deeper and check in with team members on a regular basis. Here are some additional tips:
- Make the right organizational adjustments – Employers that prioritize the self-care of their workforce are more resilient than others. Send out a well-being survey and gather employee feedback to help develop specific initiatives that support the physical and mental wellness of your staff.
- Construction recruiters can help improve your workplace culture too – You really need to hire the right people in order to improve workplace culture. Partner with a recruiter to find candidates with higher levels of emotional intelligence, kindness, sensitivity, and openness.
Burnout is trending across many industries right now. Fortunately, it’s never too late to develop skills like resilience. Developing a resilient workplace culture is essential because it will help ensure you overcome challenges that you’re facing now and rebound even stronger than before.
How can we help you?
Searching for an opportunity in the construction industry? Contact The Birmingham Group’s team of seasoned commercial construction recruiters today to discuss your career path or browse our open positions.
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