Change is difficult, but there are ways to make it easier to overcome.
In a world where change is the only constant, the task of steering a team or business through new territories is an ongoing challenge. New technologies, shifting consumer preferences, and global events beyond our control can create an environment where keeping your team engaged, productive, and resilient is no easy feat.
As an HR professional or manager at a small to midsize business, you likely feel the strain of change fatigue on your workforce. Your employees may express frustration or cynicism about the latest new innovation. Productivity and morale may suffer as employees feel they can barely keep up. This change fatigue can take a toll on both employee well-being and your organization's bottom line.
The good news is that with the right focus and strategies, you can curb change fatigue and build your team's resilience in the face of constant change. Those strategies begin with fostering open communication and psychological safety, boosting individual self-efficacy and change readiness, and equipping your team with the mindset and tools to thrive through disruption.
Team resilience refers to the collective ability of a team to adapt, bounce back, and grow stronger in the face of challenges, setbacks, and change. A resilient team possesses the capacity to navigate uncertainties, embrace change, and maintain high levels of performance and well-being. It goes beyond surviving change; it's about thriving and seizing opportunities even in the midst of adversity.
The reality is that SMBs often face unique challenges, yet they tend to have more limited resources than large enterprises which makes it harder to absorb losses in productivity or morale when disruptive changes arise. At the same time, SMBs need to remain agile and flexible to stay competitive. Fostering resilience equips teams to roll with the punches and even capitalize on change, rather than being dragged down by it.
By cultivating team resilience, you can equip your organization to tackle these challenges head-on. Resilient teams are better prepared to handle unexpected disruptions, adapt to new market demands, and maintain a positive and productive work environment. This, in turn, leads to increased employee engagement, improved retention rates, and better business outcomes.
How to increase your team’s resilience
By improving change awareness, self-efficacy, and psychological safety, you can equip your team to adapt through disruptions without losing momentum. This resilience minimizes the drag that unwelcome or poorly managed change can have on engagement, productivity, and innovation.
In the sections below, we'll explore tactics to foster open dialogue, boost morale, and create an environment where people feel safe to engage creatively with change.[1] With the right mix of communication, encouragement, and trust-building, you can lead your team to embrace resilience as a priority.
Encourage your team’s change awareness
One of the most powerful ways to build resilience is to foster open, supportive dialogue about upcoming changes. Rather than just informing people of changes or putting a positive spin on them, have in-depth discussions in which team members can share concerns, assumptions, and suggestions.
When people understand the details and reasons behind a change, they gain more control over navigating the transition. Allowing employee concerns to be voiced prevents unaddressed fears from festering into cynicism and gives you invaluable input to make plans that ease the impact of change on your team.
For example, you could host recurring touch-base meetings focused specifically on an upcoming initiative. In these meetings, you can:
Encourage people to ask questions and voice worries without judgment
Brainstorm ways to adapt workflows or resources to smooth the transition
Assign “change ambassadors" to gather inputs and serve as liaisons
The goal is to shift the mindset from passive resistance to one of shared problem-solving. This builds confidence that your team can flexibly adapt together.
Psychological safety is key—people need to know their honest thoughts won't be held against them. With supportive dialogue, you empower employees to take an active role in building resilience.
Build your team members’ self-efficacy
Self-efficacy refers to someone's belief in their own ability to succeed. When people have high self-efficacy about a change, they are more likely to adopt it. As a leader, you can build your team's confidence in their own abilities to adapt by celebrating wins, encouraging growth, and highlighting role models.
When your team achieves milestones related to a change, make sure to recognize it publicly. Even small ones should be praised to reinforce the behaviors you want to see. You can also share positive feedback from customers or stakeholders benefiting from the change.
In your regular one-on-one meetings, spend time identifying how employees have grown in their skills or mindsets and connect their development directly to the change initiative. Recognize the progress and express your confidence in their continued success.
Finally, identify change champions on your team who have readily embraced the transitions. Sharing their stories encourages others to learn from them. When employees see their peers mastering change, it builds their belief that they can succeed too.
This mix of celebrating victories, encouraging growth, and promoting role models will help you build the self-efficacy that leads to full adoption of change and will help employees gain the confidence to flexibly persist through challenges in their path.
Cultivate psychological safety
For teams to build resilience during change, employees need to feel safe speaking up, asking questions, and giving feedback. As a leader, you play a role in fostering an environment where people are comfortable being vulnerable. A psychologically safe environment for employees can result in up to a 54% reduction in change fatigue.[1]
Make it clear that all perspectives are valued, even critical ones. Respond to dissenting opinions or tough questions with curiosity rather than defensiveness and reward the courage it takes to challenge the status quo, even if the idea doesn't work out.
As a leader, you can model this openness yourself by admitting when you make a mistake or don't have an answer. Share your own worries and uncertainties about change and employees will feel they have the permission to do the same.
Another option is to use anonymous surveys that will allow you to gather uncensored input about your change initiatives. Or you can have regular touchpoints where people are encouraged to share concerns without judgment.
You want to shift team mindsets from self-protection to intellectual curiosity and collaboration. This will empower your team to flexibly engage with change rather than withdrawing out of fear. With psychological safety, your team can build resilience through candid yet constructive dialogue.
What kind of business should consider building resilience?
Building resilience is beneficial for businesses across various industries and sectors. While every business can benefit from cultivating resilience, there are certain types of businesses that should particularly consider prioritizing resilience-building efforts. These include:
Growing SMBs: Rapid growth inevitably brings workflow, policy, and culture changes. Without resilience, morale and cohesion can erode.
Startups: By nature, startups deal with constant pivoting. Resilience prevents frustration from derailing innovation.
Merging companies: Navigating mergers requires resilience during transition periods. Change fatigue can otherwise hamper integration.
Customer-centric businesses: Keeping up with shifting consumer expectations and new technologies demands flexibility. Resilience sustains engagement.
Project-based industries: Project work involves frequent adaptation. Teams with resilience adapt smoothly instead of resisting new requirements.
Highly-regulated sectors: Regular compliance changes can overwhelm employees. Resilience reduces cynicism and disengagement.
Prepare your team to build resilience with the right tools
Building resilience is not only a matter of mindset and culture but also of tools and resources. SMBs need to equip their teams with the right tools to support them in their resilience journey. Here are some steps leaders can take to set their workforce up for success:
Assess change readiness: You can use surveys, interviews, focus groups, or other methods to collect feedback from your team members and understand their needs, challenges, and expectations. You can also use change management software to measure and monitor your team's readiness, engagement, and adoption of change initiatives.
Define resilience goals: Communicate clearly and consistently with your team about the purpose, benefits, and outcomes of building resilience. You should also involve your team in the planning and decision-making process and solicit their input and feedback. Employee engagement software can help you to communicate with your team, collect feedback, and recognize and reward their efforts.
Provide training, coaching, and mentoring: Customize learning interventions to your team's specific needs, preferences, and learning styles and create opportunities for them to practice and apply their learning in real situations. You can use diversity, equity, and inclusion software to create inclusive and personalized learning experiences for your team.
Support your team with the right tools: Make sure that your team members have access to the information and platforms they need to complete their projects and provide them with the flexibility and autonomy they need to work in ways that fit them best. Project management software can help your team manage workloads and deliverables more effectively.
Evaluate your team's progress: Measure how well your team is adapting to change, celebrate their achievements and successes, and acknowledge their challenges and failures. Implement performance management software to review their performance, set goals, and provide feedback.
Start building team resilience today
The rapid pace of change today makes change fatigue and plummeting engagement feel inevitable. But with the strategies explored in this article, you can take control of actively building your team's capacity for resilience in the face of ongoing change.
Building resilience is not a quick fix or a one-off project—it's a long-term commitment and a continuous journey. But you can get started today with the following steps:
Assess your team's current level of resilience.
Identify areas where your team needs to build resilience.
Implement the strategies in this article.
Provide your team with the right tools and resources to support them while they become more resilient.
To learn more about building a more effective, resilient, and engaged team, check out these resources:
