Building Resilient Employees

Why high education and income do not guarantee resilience

Too often, we take our greatest assets for granted. For example, it’s easy to assume that our high performers are resilient and thriving. Unfortunately, it isn’t necessarily the case. Nearly half of those we consider “high potential” have been found, in a recent study, to have low levels of resilience. This low resilience makes them less open to change, and less able to cope with stress than their highly resilient peers.

 

In fact, some of our hardest working most committed and ambitious employees may be at the highest risk because they are so focused on career success that setbacks hit them harder than less-invested employees. If we want committed engagement to be an asset and not a potential liability, we need to shore up these hard-working employees with the skills they need to manage the inevitable setbacks, changes of plans, and disappointments that come with the business.
 
It may surprise you to learn who among your employees will weather the storm and who won’t. The Chief Technology Officer? Or the lead on the innovation project? Your top analyst? While some corporate leaders understandably assume that their highest earning, most highly educated employees are all highly resilient, they may need to think again.
 
Those who achieve high education and high income are not insulated from depression and burnout, but rather are more prone to it without the protective power of resilience. However, when educated and high achieving employees are highly resilient, their efforts are amplified, their outcomes are boosted, and their happiness paves the way for continued committed contributions to success.
 
The study, conducted by meQuilibrium, the only clinically validated resilience-building program on the market today, shows that a large salary and a college degree do not guarantee high resilience. In fact, resilience, defined as the ability to bounce back from adversity, is independent of income and education, as well as other personal attributes, including age and gender. The study found that nearly half of respondents with high levels of education and income scored low in resilience.
 
This means that about half of your highest paid, highest educated employees are at risk for burn out, sleep issues, increased absences, and decreased productivity. Study participants with low resilience scores had three times the depression risk and twice the rate of absence and intent to quit than those who scored high in resilience.
 
Why aren’t these educated, successful employees better able to withstand stress and disruption than their less accomplished counterparts? For many, it may be because their career-focused approach to life means that problems in the work realm shake their confidence and self-image more so that is the case for less work-centered individuals. 
 
The study provided detailed insight into the impact of salary and education on resilience level:

 This pair of findings should give employers pause. Think of all the employees you have that make more than $75,000 standing in a room together. Now imagine almost a quarter of them walking out the door for another job. 
 
In addition, college-educated workers seem to be more at risk than their high school-educated colleagues. Many people with a bachelor’s degree or higher scored low in
resilience and are at risk for depression. Here are the numbers:

Resilience is a unique attribute with a benefit that’s independent of a person’s income or education. Because you can’t know which of your employees are at the highest risk, be they high-paid executives or high-school graduates on the front lines of your organization, building resilience skills at all levels can give an organization the edge it needs to adjust to change.
 
Resilience can be learned. Everyone can improve the way they respond to stressful situations, to reframe the way they think about stressful events to minimize the impact. By practicing and reinforcing resilience skills on a regular basis, a person can develop new strategies to deal with, not just the ups and downs of work, but of life as well.
 
Interactive Whitepaper: Education, Income, and Resilience