Resilience is the process of adapting well in the face of adversity. It means 'bouncing back' from difficult experiences (American Psychology Association, 2018). The appeal of resilience as a concept has grown with an expansion of its meaning beyond the capacity to recover from adversity to include 'toughening up'. In this definition, resilient people have the capacity to endure demands. They feel so little distress that they have no need of recovery. They empathise with their clients' distress or aspirations without getting caught up in the moment. They juggle the intensity of multiple, sometimes contradictory, demands without breaking a literal or figurative sweat.
It is hard to argue against resilience. Bouncing back from adversity is a very fine thing. Work life is tough; the prospects look even tougher. Whatever your profession, you need to be capable of thriving despite potential hard times, adversity and setbacks. These are qualities worth having. They will help to maintain a fulfilling engagement with work.
Resilience, however, has its limits when it comes to preventing burnout – a syndrome characterised by chronic exhaustion, cynicism and inefficacy. Simply put, improving resilience is helpful but not sufficient to address factors that are integral to aggravating and sustaining burnout.
Burnout includes both an energy process and a values process. The energy process occurs as demands overwhelm available resources: employees lack the time, materials, physical energy, or support staff needed to serve the customers, write the reports or cook the omelettes. When this imbalance occurs occasionally, it is a peak-load management challenge. When such imbalances become a continual part of work life, they leave people chronically overextended. Research shows that when people experience exhaustion but not the other two aspects of burnout – cynicism and inefficacy – their sole concern is unmanageable workload (Leiter & Maslach, 2016).
Recovery is that point at which resilience makes a serious contribution. The capacity to recover from the physical, mental, or emotional demands of the job matters. Some recovery occurs at work, but the large part of recovery occurs away from work while resting, having fun and sleeping. The capacity to recover more thoroughly or more readily makes a difference when tackling a challenging work life.
From a job demands-and-resources perspective, people address job demands with a combination of personal resources – skills, relationships, perspectives and physical strength – and job resources, like equipment, support staff and networks. Increasing resilience translates into strengthening personal resources. It does not address job demands or job resources, so they are apt to remain as they were.
Key limitations
There are a number of limitations to the resilience-building strategy.
- Jobs can just be tougher. As people demonstrate a greater capacity to address today's job demands, jobs can demand a bit more from everyone. Lacking an objective standard, workload is often defined as whatever the employee will bear. As employees develop the capacity to bear a bit more, the crank can turn another notch, undoing the benefits of additional toughness.
Because resilience building does not address job demands, it may leave employees in unsustainable situations. Resilience means the capacity to bounce back. It does not mean that people stop experiencing distress, fatigue, or frustration. Resilience means they can bounce back from these experiences more readily. But doesn't this capacity have a limited appeal if employees are sent once more into the fray?
- Resilience may increase personal resources without increasing job resources. Research has established that job resources have specific relevance to burnout. Job resources operate on a bigger scale than do personal resources (Maslach, Schaufeli, & Leiter, 2001). One of the attractive qualities of employment is that jobs provide access to resources – equipment, expertise, networks – that far exceed what individuals can cobble together on their own. An enhancement of job resources may greatly extend the impact of employees' work. In contrast, an increment in mindful concentration is a fine thing, but occurs on a modest scale in contrast to things like unfettered access to journal publications, the latest imagery equipment, or an experienced editor. An increase in personal resources gives individuals something they can take with them, but increasing job resources can improve things for the whole workgroup. A better resourced team in turn establishes mutually enhancing exchanges among people.
- Resilience has a reactive quality in that it is the capacity to recover from adversity and withstand hardship. Its reactive quality neglects the aspirational motives and values people bring to their work. Resilience implies the challenge for employees is to tolerate the demands put upon them. It does not in itself inspire action to improve the work context.
- There are some things people should not tolerate. For example, workplace incivility and disrespect are a major source of distress for people at work. A greater capacity to tolerate such behaviour may serve an individual in a moment, but fails to address serious ongoing problems for the group. Disrespect is not a problem from which one should merely recover, but a problem that should prompt corrective action from individuals and the organisation. Although developing the capacity to tolerate exceptional work demands has definite benefits, the capacity to tolerate persistent frustration of core motives or ideals has a definite downside.
Add organisational change
As mentioned, burnout entails a values process in addition to the energy process that leads to exhaustion. When the energy process dominates, people become overextended. It is the values process, driven by thwarted ideals and frustrated aspirations, that turn exhaustion into burnout. Preventing burnout requires more than sustaining energy; it also requires a responsive and fulfilling workplace.
One may counter that greater resilience bestows the capacity to work effectively towards fulfilling such aspirations. Resilience does more than improve employees' capacity to meet work demands. It improves as well their capacity to address management or design shortcomings at work. However, resilience-building on its own does not prepare individuals to become organisational change agents nor does it prepare organisations for employees to behave in this way.
Returning to the primary theme of this article, greater resilience has value but it is not enough. To turn frustration into effective action people need insight into organisational dynamics and management systems. They need to work with other people to identify the policies and procedures that would make a difference and to develop the means through which change can come about. Resilience on its own does not convey these insights.
And even if employees stumbled upon effective strategies for effecting organisational change, they need a receptive field to put these strategies into action. Some organisations discourage employees from pushing back against existing policies. Organisational leaders who take the initiative to address excessive demands or to enhance job resources establish an environment receptive to employees' initiatives towards change. Without receptive leadership, even modest job-crafting initiatives can be problematic.
Preventing burnout is a management responsibility in contemporary work life. The intensity of work demands on top of the aspirations people bring to their careers compound into something intense. In this context, resilience has a clear appeal. But on its own, resilience building leaves employees vulnerable to increasing demands and frustrated values. It absolves management of responsibility to assure a fulfilling work life with reasonable, sustainable demands. As great as it is, resilience is not enough.
Professor Michael Leiter will provide a key note address at the 2018 APS Congress. For more information visit apscongress.com.au