Organizational Resilience: The process of building resilience within your company

The topic of organizational resilience is timely. Thought leaders across the corporate and organizational sphere are discussing workplace well-being, burnout prevention, and fostering corporate culture in conferences — while HR teams are finalizing plans and budgets for 2025.

If you want to see the impact of organizational resilience in your company by 2025, acting now is critical.

After attending numerous conferences and meetings over the past three months, I’ve noticed one thing repeatedly missing — the How. Many corporate leaders understand the importance of organizational resilience and its urgency, but few are taking strategic action. Why is that? I’ve narrowed it down to three possible reasons: i) it’s not a priority; ii) it doesn’t fit in the budget; and iii) the company doesn’t know how.

In this second installment of our three-part blog series on organizational resilience, we’ll discuss these setbacks that are preventing action and a process for managing them while building resilience in your company.

Making organizational resilience a priority

Organizational resilience isn’t a priority for many companies because its cost is not fully appreciated. Companies often dismiss it as a well-being initiative or a nice-to-have without calculating the actual costs of non-implementation, a running expense that’s accumulating daily.

Organizational leaders should start by asking: “What are the outcomes we want from an organizational resilience initiative?” Most companies will mention retention, engagement, productivity, and margins — and while these are valid goals, they are short-sighted if they don’t consider what employees also need in order to achieve them.

Think of a sick goldfish in a bowl of dirty water. The fish is dying, so what do you do — give it medicine or change the water? If we compare this to a burned-out employee in a toxic work culture, we see that both actions are needed. A toxic work culture (dirty water) only worsens over time, and one burned-out employee (sick fish) can bring down a whole team.

“As leaders, we need to proactively anticipate challenges before they actually occur. I do this with my teams,” says Kristi Eckert, Global Consulting Partner at EY, adding that programs that overlook employee needs usually result in failure.

Often, employees don’t care about engagement or retention — they want real work-life balance, less stress, and the ability to cope with daily pressures. To make transformational progress, you need to address both sides of the equation. “Every employee has their own unique needs, and we need to be very mindful in the way we engage,” Eckert says.

Leaders should identify their companies’ goals, and then determine what their employees need to achieve those goals. Once leaders understand the full cost, they’ll want to prioritize organizational resilience immediately.

Finding a budget for organizational resilience

In the first installment of this series, you were challenged to identify a budget. While it sounds simple, I know finding money can be difficult, but here’s a key insight: Most companies have hiring budgets, but few have retention budgets. This demonstrates that many companies’ focus is on replacing lost talent rather than retaining existing talent.

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and other sources report that replacing a highly educated employee can cost 50% to 200% of their annual salary. Higher-level employees can cost even more. These expenses include advertising, recruiting, hiring, on-boarding, and training a new employee to full productivity.

If you’re looking for a resilience budget, then start with your hiring budget. What if you reallocated 10% of your hiring budget to retention? Let’s consider a hypothetical scenario: If you invested $100,000 in organizational resilience programs for all employees, that’s likely less than the cost of replacing even one employee. Therefore, a successful program might only need to retain one person to breakeven, and two to be a success.

Many company leaders think of wellness initiatives as a waste of money because they aren’t implemented with a return on investment (ROI) in mind. Yet even simple programs can significantly improve employee well-being and resilience when planned thoughtfully.

A process to kick-start organizational resilience

Now that you’ve committed to prioritizing and budgeting for organizational resilience, it’s time to determine the right approach. While no single method is inherently better than another, there are key decisions you must make when shaping your company’s resilience framework:

Go wide vs. Go deep

• • • Go wide — Implement broad solutions for the entire workforce, potentially including company-wide strategies that address common stressors.
    • Go deep — Target specific groups within the organization. For example, you may focus on improving retention at the manager level or helping entry-level employees set boundaries.

Top-down vs. Bottom-up

• • • Top-down — Start with leadership. Equip leaders with the tools to manage their stress, then teach them how to recognize and support burned-out employees.
    • Bottom-up — Start with employees. Provide resources, channels, and support that can be accessed throughout the company. Encourage employees to ask for help when needed.

Tactics vs. Mindset

• • • Tactics — Teach employees practical skills such as time management and stress reduction. While these are essential, these skills alone are usually not enough to drive lasting change.
    • Mindset — Help employees develop a resilient mindset that can handle change, challenges, and uncertainties. A strong mindset is key to fostering long-term resilience.

Regardless of the decisions you make, it’s crucial that company leadership sets the tone and that employees are fully engaged and understand that the company is genuinely committed to these efforts. Ultimately, it’s the organization’s responsibility to implement the plan and ensure its success. Indeed, there are four key steps that can help make that happen:

1. 1. 1. Implement the plan
      2. Regularly evaluate progress
      3. Make necessary adjustments, and
      4. Repeat

“You aren’t going to get it right 100% of the time,” explains EY’s Eckert. “But if a company has built the infrastructure and can demonstrate the ability to be agile and adaptable then it can start to create resiliency that leads to success.”

Solving for organizational resilience isn’t a quick fix, but there are tangible actions you can take to create lasting change. By following these four steps with consistent effort and commitment, you can help your company and its employees reach their long-term goals with greater odds of success.

Next steps

Building a resilient organization requires a thoughtful and sustainable approach — and we no longer can rely on old solutions to fix new problems. And now that we’ve addressed the problem, the solution, and the process, here’s what to do next:

1. 1. 1. Identify your goals — Consider both the company’s and its employees’ needs.
      2. Finalize your budget — Begin re-allocating from your hiring budget if necessary.
      3. Take action today — Now, is one of the best times to start.

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In the final installment of our 3-part Organizational Resilience series, we will examine the results you can expect once your organization achieves its resilience goals.