This paper aimed to examine how individuals deal with adversity/significant stress in order to develop a working model and training to enhance personal resilience in the workplace. Using a critical incident technique, interviews were conducted with seventy-six individuals, from seven organisations, which varied in size. From these interviews, eight hundred and twenty-two critical incidents were captured and categorised into three main domains (containing seven categories), which detailed the attributes and processes an individual uses to deal with adversity. From this model, a training framework was developed to create two resilience training programs, which twenty-six delegates participated in. Pre and post training self-report measures required delegates to evaluate their learning and overall resilience. These scores were found to increase for each of the constructs and their overall resilience following the resilience training program.

This report by the Chartered Management Institute, explores the experiences and insight of leaders to inform ways to build managers’ resilience, to prepare them to cope with the inevitable adversity and failure that they are likely to come across in their careers. One thousand, one hundred managers and leaders were interviewed and undertook a survey to give their experience on previous work crises and the effect this has on a leader. The report details several key findings from the data that was collected and makes six recommendations of lessons for managers; 1) Destigmatise failure for a resilient company culture by encouraging support, openness, transparency and inclusion, 2) Develop risk tolerance, 3) Accept, re-evaluate and face forward by acknowledging acceptance is key to recovery, 4) A balanced mindset and humility focusing on interpersonal skills/communication and strategic thinking to deal with crises, 5) Mentoring and 6) Building and using support networks.

This report aims to provide practitioners with a review of the research, evidence and tools available for developing resilience and gap within the current evidence base. Part one of the report explore the concept of resilience from both an individual and organisational level. This includes details on defining and conceptualising resilience and noting the limitations of the construct. The second part of this report includes a resilience grid, which consists of organisational and individual interventions from both practitioner and academic research. The grid allows the reader to review the current interventions which aim to build resilience, outline the evidence base on which such interventions are developed from and review useful information on the interventions, specifically for practitioners.

As part of Comcare’s wider research addressing failed return to work, long duration sickness claims and delays in claiming benefits, they found several key findings associated with resilience and its relationship to recovery and returning to work. The research report outlines their keys findings from several surveys with a specific focus on resilience and its effect on other return to work (RTW) outcomes. Generally, it appears that their findings reflect that individuals with lower resilience had more negative RTW outcomes (e.g. 45% of those who were not working and had never attempted to RTW had low resilience). This report highlights the importance of psychological resilience in the workplace and ways in which it could influence other organisational (sickness absence levels) and individual (ability to return to work/stay at work) outcomes.

This report details a review of the research evidence surrounding organisational resilience which includes one hundred and eighty-one academic articles and five case studies of organisations which have been identified as demonstrating best practice in organisational resilience. The report gives information into the evolution of organisational resilience, the organisational resilience tension quadrant (a resilience framework), using the framework to find fit, manage tensions and avoid erosion of resilience and a methodology which looks at organisational resilience through a leadership lens.

This CIPD rapid evidence assessment examines how resilience helps employees adapt, cope, gain resources, and respond positively to stressors in the workplace. The findings suggest that people managers and colleagues have a crucial role in building resilience. The evidence indicates that several key factors can protect and promote resilience. These are: 1) individuals’ psychological states and traits, including self-efficacy or confidence, positive affect or emotions, and   sense of coherence; 2) relationships, including supportive co-workers and managers and a high-quality leader–member exchange; 3) learning and development interventions, which can enhance employee resilience if they are designed and delivered appropriately.