Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Bouncing Back

The pandemic may have changed our way of living and working, but millions of workers across the globe are proving just how resilient they can be

Guide Magazine

Resilience can be defined as the ability to recover or pivot quickly in the face of obstacles. In the workplace, this may mean an employee’s productivity or work ethic is not greatly impacted due to outside factors.

With all the challenges COVID-19 has thrown at workers across the globe, it can be easy to assume that the international workforce is submitting to defeat. But recent surveys show that workers are displaying a surprising amount of resilience, despite lockdowns and growing uncertainty.

Research from ADP Research Institute found that fewer than one in five workers had the capacity to weather a crisis the size of the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, people from across the globe are showing that, no matter their personal experience with COVID-19, many are withstanding hardships better than they, or researchers, anticipated.

Analysts from ADP noted that even if a country experiences a high rate of COVID cases, it doesn’t necessarily translate to its workers’ resilience. The researchers pointed to Taiwan, which had low overall case counts. Despite this fact, only eight percent of its surveyed citizens could be considered highly resilient.

Compare that to India, a country with nearly 13 million documented COVID cases. Almost one-third of the country’s workers have exhibited high levels of resilience since the onset of the pandemic. Around 40 percent of those who responded to ADP’s survey had personally encountered COVID-19 (i.e., either they or a family member had been diagnosed). But researchers were surprised that those who had experiences with the virus still demonstrated high levels of resilience in the workplace.

In another surprising turn, analysts found that those who had experienced the most pandemic-related challenges felt more resilient than those who had experienced fewer difficulties. Though nearly all (97 percent) respondents said they had been subject to layoffs, pay cuts, or work-from-home mandates, workers who saw five or more changes at work were 13.2 times more likely to be highly resilient.

When looking at employment optimism, the numbers surprisingly didn’t change much. Before COVID-19, 86 percent of those surveyed said that they were optimistic about the next five years in their workplace, compared to 84 percent of those polled today. In addition, 75 percent said they are confident in the state of their workplace in the coming year.

Though COVID-19 has certainly impacted the mental health of Canadians, over the course of the pandemic only small changes could be seen in the levels of anxiety among workers. The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health reported that in May 2020, 33.7 percent of Canadians who had lost their jobs experienced moderate to severe anxiety. Six months later, in November 2020, that number had increased to 36.4 percent.

For those who were working from home, fewer people experienced the same level of anxiety. In May 2020, 28.2 percent of those polled reported moderate to severe anxiety, while in November 2020 that number rose to 30.2 percent.

Canadians who remained at work as normal reported the least amount of anxiety. Nearly 22 percent said they were experiencing anxiety in May. That number dropped to 20.5 percent in November.

Sources: camh.ca, hcamag.com, nytimes.com

Bouncing Back

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