The ultimate resilience resource, part three: people

Resilience is one of the key business buzzwords to arise from the COVID-19 pandemic, but it has always been essential to survival. Being a resilient business is about being able to adapt rapidly to changing environments. It’s having resilient systems and processes, which in turn help the business to continue operating smoothly in the face of a disruptive event.

COVID-19 is an extreme example of a disruptive event, but with everything changing faster and being more interconnected, a much smaller issue could still bring a business undone, whether that is a competitor, a weather event breaking your supply change, a hacked IT system or the sudden departure of key personnel.

In this four-part SmartCompany Plus series, we’ll dive into four key pillars of resilience — adaptability, digital agility, people and community. We’ll unpack what resilience looks like in these areas, and how they can help your business stand up to the toughest of tests.

Part three is people.

A people-first approach

Every small-to-medium enterprise relies on its people, so it makes sense that a good ‘people strategy’ is a key pillar of business resilience — its ability to keep running smoothly in times of disruption.

Harvard Business Review reports that resilient teams have four things in common: “They believe they can effectively complete tasks together, they share a common mental model of teamwork, they are able to improvise, and they trust one another and feel safe.”

When disruption strikes, whether it be severe like the COVID-19 pandemic or a more everyday event such as a technology failure, it makes sense that businesses with resilient teams will have an edge in finding solutions.

However, resilient teams don’t just appear — they are cultivated by leadership and the implementation of a clear ‘people strategy’. This strategy can include formal structures such as Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) measures or Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs), as well as putting in place good communication, agency, trust, mental health, upskilling and diversity.

A people-first strategy complements the other pillars of business resilience that we have explored so far in this series — Adaptability, and Digital Agility.

During the 2020 Smart Company Resilience Awards, these SMEs told SmartCompany that when COVID-19 struck, they leapt to look after their people first.

Owners rationalised that if their people were cared for, their businesses would be more resilient to the challenges ahead.

Reload Media communicate on strategy

Brisbane-based digital media agency Reload Media usually focuses on providing expert communication services for its clients. However, when COVID-19 came along, it turned its attention immediately to communicating with its employees.

“Our first priority was to ensure all staff received prompt communication and were reassured of Reload’s financial safety,” says chief executive Craig Somerville.

This was the start of a sustained communication approach designed to keep staff informed about the company’s strategy throughout the challenging period. Face-to-face calls between managers and their teams were held every second day, and weekly virtual team events such as ‘house tours’ and ‘bake-offs’ offered a more lighthearted time.

Going the extra mile to communicate during a difficult period kept staff feeling engaged, Somerville explains.

Craig Somerville, Reload Media. Source: Supplied

“According to results from a recently collected Officevibe (our internal employee engagement tool) survey, staff engagement is at an all-time high. Results have also increased across all key markers; relationships with peers and managers, staff recognition and feedback, personal growth, and overall satisfaction,” he says.

Now Finance and Employee Assistance Programs

Personal loan business Now Finance immediately put employee mental health first when the COVID-19 lockdowns began. It bought new technology to make sure everyone could work from home with ease, and support was increased for those managing changing circumstances such as home-schooling.

“We offered flexible start times, meeting schedules and tailored workloads to ensure they did not feel overwhelmed,” says chief executive Richard Blumberg.

Now Finance focused on building up its EAP to make sure ongoing support was in place, which provides one-on-one counselling to employees and their families in times of need. Blumberg says there was a 50% increase in counselling contact hours in the first half of 2020.

“Our EAP benefit has made a significant contribution to supporting employees’ mental health through difficult times,” he says.

The company offered wellbeing webinars and resource materials, leadership training, online yoga and meditation, as well as a fortnightly newsletter with health and wellbeing advice. It also offered two extra mental health days to help employees rest and recharge.

“Our employees have been grateful for this paid time away from work and recognise the business’s continued support to their mental wellbeing,” says Blumberg.

“Our staff continue to feel valued and we are proud of their resilience in navigating through extraordinary times.”

Richard Blumberg, Now Finance. Source: Supplied

Co-Ordinated Landscapes, health and safety for success

It makes sense that a healthy and safe business is a more resilient business, and this thinking was central to Co-Ordinated Landscapes’ strategy during the pandemic.

As an essential service, the commercial landscape construction business was able to keep operating during lockdowns. The first task was to implement updated NSW government WHS guidelines into its existing safety plans for each construction site and the head office.

“The construction teams did a COVID-19 safety procedure each day, and COVID-19 safety posters were put up at each site,” says general manager Carl Small.

“The construction team looked out for one another as well as subbies. Stringent timekeeping, social distancing, hand washing/sanitising and cleaning of tools and machinery was well received.”

It wasn’t all smooth sailing, however, with personal protective equipment hard to come by at a reasonable cost. Fortunately, the company wasn’t starting from scratch.

“Due to management having trained the business with current policies and procedures, it was common for the team to follow safety plans, and the new COVID guidelines were well received and implemented,” Small says.

Carl Small, Co-Ordinated Landscapes. Source: Supplied

Building a people strategy

Building a resilient team that works well together, can improvise, and has plenty of trust takes a multifaceted approach. In addition to the examples above of WHS, EAPs and communication, factors such as agency, trust, mental health, upskilling and diversity are key ingredients. Here are some things to consider:

Agency: Giving staff ‘agency’ or ‘control’ means they can make decisions and manage their workload in a way that works for them. Headspace writes that control helps to prevent employees feeling ‘burned out’, which benefits both people and business resilience.

Trust: Trust means knowing that your team will do their job — especially without micromanaging them. For Sydney-based HR outsourcing business Perform HR, trust helped them navigate through COVID-19. “At every step of the way, we asked for our team’s counsel, advice and input,” says general manager Kirbie McWhirter. “From the ‘what-if’ convos, to the ‘what-can-you-do’ convos, we trusted that we have hired really smart people, nurtured their potential and built a culture that brings out the best in each of our humanity.”

Mental health: Every Australian workplace is obliged to protect its workers against risks to their physical and mental health. However, going above the baseline is worth the effort. Heads Up says a mentally healthy business has a positive and supportive culture; stress and workloads are well managed; people with any mental health conditions are supported; and there is zero-tolerance towards discrimination. The wellbeing organisation says workplace mental health can be boosted with training, a nice work environment (such as with light, plants and space), flexible work hours, and pay-for-leave swap policies.

Upskilling: If a team is highly skilled and a step ahead of new technologies and industry trends, there’s a good chance that business will have more resilience. McKinsey reports that, “This dynamic is about more than remote working — or the role of automation and AI. It’s about how leaders can reskill and upskill the workforce to deliver new business models in the post-pandemic era.” The firm says to be really clear on the skills that your business relies on and how these are changing, and then to make sure aligned training is provided.

Diversity: Diversity in the workplace means having staff of different ages, cultures, genders and experiences. A journal article in Business Research by Stephanie Duchek, Sebastian Raetze and Ianina Scheuch says that diversity “can support the development of collective capabilities that underlie an organisation’s resilience”. The authors write that diversity can help prevent ‘groupthink’ in the face of challenges. It can also enhance a business’s ability to ‘cope’ during a crisis, to learn from the experience, and do better in the future.

Ongoing people power

When a business has a clear ‘people strategy’ — covering everything from WHS to EAPs, communication, agency, trust, mental health, upskilling and diversity — there are clear benefits for both people and the business.

Particular Audience sums this up well. The e-commerce personalisation business put people-first measures in place during COVID-19, including giving staff more autonomy and opportunities for growth and learning.

“The team has never been stronger, everyone is thinking and acting like an owner,” says owner James Taylor.

Even better, if a business takes people as seriously as operational factors such as adaptability and digital agility, when big challenges strike, it will sail more smoothly than competitors.

Three further readings on resilience and people

1. Developing a workplace mental health strategy, A how-to guide for organisations from Heads Up looks holistically at how to develop a mental health and wellbeing strategy. “As the drivers of workplace culture, senior leaders must be active participants in creating a mentally healthy workplace,” it says.

   On a similar theme — but tailored specifically to COVID-19 issues — is this e-book from the National Mental Health Commission, Mentally Healthy Workplaces during COVID-19: Small Business. “Investing time in supporting your people will help bring out the best in them and the business,” it says.

2. To find out more about upskilling people, this piece from McKinsey outlines six steps to follow. “Now is the time for companies to double down on their learning budgets and commit to reskilling,” it says.

3. The role of diversity in organizational resilience: a theoretical framework is an academic piece referred to in this article. It explores the connection between workplace diversity and business resilience, looking at evidence from how businesses coped during the global financial crisis.

4. Look out for part 4 in our Resilience series — a deep dive into Community.