Why Team Resilience Is The New Employee Engagement

The Society For Human Resources Management Annual Conference is the world’s largest human resources event, and their exposition hall is one of my favorite conference experiences. The attendees are festive, the drinks are flowing, the swag is plentiful, and there are hundreds of vendors representing every aspect of the employee experience ready to chat your ear off.

In the mix are representatives of dozens of companies who claim to have the key to fixing all of your employee engagement problems through the latest piece of software. I have an annual ritual with this group – I go up to as many of them as possible and ask one simple question: What does employee engagement mean? Without fail, I get a different answer from each and every person I ask.

In this simple exercise, we discover why fixing the “employee engagement” problem is so hard. No one – not even the experts – can agree upon what it means! Thus, it ends up being like the junk drawer of the modern workplace – a category to use for every employee-related strategy that doesn’t fit neatly somewhere else.

It’s time to get pragmatic and admit that, while “employee engagement” is a great buzzword, it misses the mark when it comes to application and impact. When something is not easy to define, easy to communicate and easy to measure, then your chances of successfully influencing it are slim to none.

Why team resilience is the new employee engagement.

The general idea behind an employee engagement strategy is that when employees feel good, it will result in higher profits through increased productivity, and save money in the form of reduced healthcare costs and sick days and less employee turnover. The potential for return on investment is enormous. However, it’s difficult to make a case for ROI without measurement, and every organization that is measuring employee engagement is doing it based on their unique definition of it.

Enter team resilience. Resilience is, essentially, being able to get back up whenever you’re knocked down. It’s having the intrinsic drive, motivation, and wherewithal to achieve your goals in the face of adversity. The definition is clear and lacks the warm-fuzzy feel that can plague the employee engagement discussion and turn decision-makers off from addressing existing problems.

When you apply this concept to the workplace, a team that demonstrates resilience will produce better results over an extended period than a group that is not resilient because they are invested in the mission of the organization, able to adapt in the face of a challenge and support each other to achieve their mutual success.

This is something we can measure and track over time by looking at the following dimensions:

• Direction: Resilient teams have a clarity of purpose that is shared among all of its members. They are all moving in the same direction as a collective unit.
• Connection: Those on resilient teams know that they can do more together than they can on their own. They trust one another, have psychological safety, and are open to productive conflict.
• Alignment: Resilient teams are aligned with the needs of their internal and external stakeholders, and with the big-picture strategy of the organization. They are able to adapt to meet changing needs without drama.
• Attitude: Reilisent team members bring an optimistic, “can do” attitude to work, and don’t let obstacles or setbacks get in their way.
• Performance: Finally, resilient teams get things done! They deliver results, meeting and exceeding their goals and objectives.

Now, you might notice that this idea hits on many of the same qualities one would think of when it comes to “employee engagement.” In fact, you could argue the attitude and connection dimensions are specifically related to it! We haven’t thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Focusing on team resilience is about pivoting to a concept that is more specific, relatable and will be perceived to have business value by executives and decision-makers.

Specific measurement leads to committed action.

But wait, there’s more! If your organization is like most, the results of your annual employee engagement survey lead to the nebulous question of “what do we need to do to improve” that does not have a clear-cut answer. Everyone will have ideas, and improvements might be made here and there, but often it is the best guess of what will produce results.

Team resilience is different because you measure a particular list of attributes that provide clear direction for improvement. For example, a team might find that they are over-performing in the attitude and direction dimensions, doing well in the connection and performance dimensions, but are underperforming in the alignment area. This provides a clear goal – if alignment goes up then overall team resilience will go up. Then, a leader can choose to focus their energy on the things that enhance team alignment, and measure periodically through pulse surveys to see if the needle is being moved. When the target is clear, people are more likely to take action that will lead to progress.

It will lead to a better employee experience.

There’s nothing like coming into work every day to spend time with a group of trusted colleagues unapologetically focused on making things happen, and are driving business results in a very tangible way through their efforts. That is what developing resilient teams allows you to achieve.

At the end of the day, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with an employee engagement strategy, or with all the fancy software that exists to support the idea through perks and recognition. However, we live in a world where resources are limited and there are never enough hours in the day. That requires choosing to focus on the things that matter most. A pivot towards team resilience does just. It provides a clear roadmap to fix the things that matter most in the employee experience, will bolster the bottom line and will have the most overall impact.