What is the impact of change on our resilience and mental health in the workplace?

Published by Jessica in resilience, stress, health, wellbeing · Tuesday 07 May 2019
Tags: resilience, change, mental, health, stress

What is the impact of change on our resilience and mental health in the workplace?

A lot of change is happening within the workplace today with many people on short-term contracts, self-employed and working in an environment which is growing or downsizing or closing down.

I was at a local store today which is in the process of closing and there was only one other customer in it plus myself. There were at least six members of staff who appeared to be upbeat. I spoke to one of the staff (John) and asked when the store was closing down. Instead of being downbeat about it he said they were still hoping there was a buyer who would be interested in buying it. However, he was also resilient about the fact that there may be no one who would buy it and that was “life nowadays”. I had to agree just from my experience going to various companies and organisations. He was a breath of fresh air as so often I find staff in shops are miserable and often ignore customers as they are too busy with their own conversations. I did say that I would be back in a few days to buy some items which were needed for my new office.

The main impact within the workplace can be too little to do or an excessive about of work, lack of communication and this was impacting on John (not his real name) as he did not know what was happening. He was waiting to be made redundant but had the positive approach knowing that he had many transferrable skills, and this was part of working life having to move on to something else and possibly better.

There was no management support but there was obviously good teamwork among John and his colleagues. It was a joy to be in a store and no staff talking over me or bumping into me.

Although this team did not have management support, they were supporting each other and waiting for the inevitable which would be coming sooner rather than later. Management possibly couldn’t support them as they were not aware of what was happening only that they were hoping a buyer could be found even at the last minute.

Individuals can be resilient, and it is best to be positive and look at the experience as a positive one as skills can be transferred and improved on.

I will see John in a couple of days and will continue to be amazed at the teamwork and the positive attitude.

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