What is organisational resilience?

In this unpredictable world of natural disasters, covid like pandemics, cyberattacks and growing terrorism, business organisations are focusing on building resilience for long-term success. Though compounding disruptions has made it difficult to develop pragmatic plans for resilience, business leaders are prioritising fostering it in their organisation.

What is organisational resilience?

Organisational resilience definition is explained as an organisation’s ability to anticipate, act, respond and adapt to sudden adverse situations and incremental changes. With resilience, organisations build their capacity to absorb shocks and negative times and prosper through adaptive strategies and robust systems. While resilient culture helps an organisation navigate through tough times, organisations maintain their integrity, fundamental values and purposes even in a resilient culture.

To build organisational resilience, it is essential to emphasise business culture, leadership, preparedness and the ability to innovate during a change.

Why does an organisation need to be resilient?

Organisational resilience helps an organisation survive in challenging environments and serves multiple benefits including:

Better risk management:

With resilient strategies, an organisation learns to anticipate, identify and mitigate any potential risks and put measures timely, reducing the possibility of business disruptions.

Enhanced business continuity:

Companies become more capable of handling disruptive events, thus enabling continuity in the business, reducing downtime, and protecting revenue streams.

Finding opportunities during negative times:

Resilient organisation gradually develops the capability of turning adverse situations into opportunities, thus minimising negative impacts and offering new options for the business.

Higher innovation:

Resilient organisation tends to experiment with new ideas, products, services and business models. As resilience makes an organisation more agile, accountable and adaptable, it learns to handle challenges and opportunities in a better way. Trying new ideas leads to increased innovation.

Higher employee engagement:

Fostering an environment of trust, confidence and preparedness, resilient organisation boosts their employee’s morale and motivates them for better performance, increased engagement and retention.

What makes some organisations more resilient than others?

While there are many reasons an organisation can develop a resilient culture and stay ahead, here are some reasons which make them more resilient than others.

• Some organisations remain prepared for adverse situations but also remain flexible when facing any crisis. In general, they are always ready to learn, act and investigate new things while remaining prepared for difficult situations.
• Another reason that makes an organisation more resilient than others is their habit of taking mistakes as learning opportunities, rather than blaming staff for their mistakes, they learn from them and build resilience.
• Having reliability and efficiency in business procedures and practices also makes an organisation more resilient than others. Such organisations are known as HROs or high-reliability organisations. Some examples include oil and gas companies, nuclear facilities and airline services.

How to foster organisational resilience?

Building resilience in an organisation requires business leaders to take some proactive steps that help them to endure adversity and bounce back from disruptions. It requires involving people, fostering resilient culture, being agile, and adapting to new technology.

Here are some ways through which organisations can foster resilience in their culture.

Involve and invest in people:

An organisation is built by the people who work there. So, the first step to resilience is to ensure the well-being of employees by training, motivating, mentoring and promoting holistic health. For a resilient organisation, it must have an engaged, motivated and empowered workforce.

Maintaining a supportive, positive and healthy work environment also fosters resilience.

Create organisational culture:

A resilient culture in an organisation allows employees to work together and inspire productivity. Creating an environment where employees feel motivated and encouraged, they are honoured for their achievements and they have work flexibility is a great way to start a resilient culture.

By building such a resilient culture, organisations develop a sense of belongingness so that employees feel connected and committed to the organisation.

Developing an agile attitude:

You cannot develop a resilient culture in an organisation without embracing an agile mindset. Being agile means having the capability to create and deal with uncertain and negative environments with success. With agility, you learn to develop processes for problem solutions and decision-making, take leadership when required, and adapt to new challenges.

By developing an agile attitude, organisations remain adaptable and be better prepared to face challenges in the future.

Embracing new technology:

Incorporating the right and latest technology is a critical factor for building a resilient organisation. With technology, the organisation becomes efficient and grows forward to meet every increasing organisational need.

Using the latest and most reliable technology in risk management, disaster recovery and business continuity is its best use. When you have the right resources in the form of the right technology, the organisation becomes confident, efficient, prepared for risks and adapts for market conditions.

Setting goals and adopting easy rules:

For a resilient organisation, it is essential to have the right values and purpose that align with the vision and mission of the organisation. Also, implementing simple rules help you make an organisation where employees feel good and motivated to work. Your goals should focus on employee well-being and crisis management with realistic expectations and clear direction.

All this assists in building trust and stability in the organisation, making it more resilient.

Be proactive and not reactive:

A resilient organisation needs to be prepared for risk management and business continuity. For this, the leaders need to keep a proactive approach to anticipate any threats and risks before they actually occur. Anticipating threats beforehand help organisations to plan measures ahead and mitigate the impact of disruptions.

On the contrary, keeping a reactionary approach during risks and disaster management takes more time and money to resolve issues. Keeping tested plans and solutions for crises lets you receive setbacks quickly and seamlessly.

Conclusion:

It is clear that resilience is an important characteristic of an organisation as it helps it to deal with sudden disruptions through dynamic planning, preparedness and agile behaviour. Further, it is also important for the employee’s safety and well-being.

Once you start your journey for organisational resilience, it is equally important to measure the level of preparation and seek areas of improvement. Prioritise your resilience efforts and make your organisation ready for the unexpected.