Resilience must be one of the most misunderstood issues affecting businesses right now. It is used whenever people are struggling, and almost always aimed at the individual – be tougher, manage your stress, build a bit more grit. During countless conversations with leaders and teams over the last few years, it has become apparent that such advice can do real damage to people who are trying hard to do their best. When tiredness is no longer fixed by a weekend, when feedback lands as a threat, and when change is met with a sigh, these reactions are often recorded under “poor personal resilience,” effectively telling people the problem lies with them. However, a closer examination suggests we may be looking in the wrong place.
The Pervasive Impact of Mental Ill-Health in the Workforce
Recent data underscores the profound impact of mental ill-health on the modern workforce. In the year leading up to March 2025, mental ill-health accounted for a staggering 47.1 percent of long-term sickness absence across the UK Civil Service. This figure positions it as the single largest cause of absence by a significant margin. What is particularly astonishing about this statistic is not just its magnitude, but its widespread distribution. This issue does not appear to be confined to a specific age group, job grade, or type of role. When a workforce as large and structured as the UK Civil Service exhibits such a uniform pattern, the narrative that a generation has simply become less resilient begins to crumble. This widespread trend points towards systemic issues rather than individual shortcomings.
Evolving Work Environments and the Erosion of Traditional Structures
The fundamental nature of work has shifted dramatically, leaving many traditional organizational structures ill-equipped to handle the demands of the contemporary professional landscape. For much of the 20th century, the workplace could operate under the assumption of steady attention spans, predictable routines, clear hierarchical structures, and a sense of personal identity that was built gradually within the organization. Today, these assumptions are largely obsolete.
Attention has become highly fragmented, with myriad information sources constantly vying for our focus. The boundary between professional and personal life has not merely blurred; it has effectively dissolved for many. Furthermore, contemporary roles increasingly demand judgment, interpretation, and emotional regulation, often on par with technical skills. Employees now arrive at work shaped by a world that is inherently stimulating, fast-paced, socially conscious, and heavily influenced by personal branding. In many instances, the traditional world of work is failing to adapt to these deep-rooted societal and technological changes.
The Nuanced Impact of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is undoubtedly a significant factor contributing to workplace strain, though its impact is often misunderstood. For many, the primary stress associated with AI stems less from current workloads and more from a pervasive awareness of impending, transformative change. Those who grasp the profound implications of AI understand that roles will evolve, skills will be re-evaluated, and established hierarchies of status may be subject to renegotiation. This generates anxiety about an unavoidable future, rather than immediate task-related pressure.
For individuals who recognize the importance of AI but lack confidence in their understanding, a different form of unease emerges: the feeling of being left behind and unsure how to bridge the knowledge gap. Both scenarios, though distinct in their presentation, are rooted in a fundamental uncertainty that many employees have not been adequately supported to process. The questions arising from these shifts are often far more personal than organizational leaders are willing to acknowledge. When a machine can perform tasks that were once the cornerstone of an individual’s professional value, the philosophical question of "What am I here for?" transforms into a pressing identity crisis. Unresolved threats to personal identity, regardless of their origin, can manifest as behaviors such as avoidance, rigidity, self-protection, anxiety, and profound exhaustion.
Understanding the Human Response to Pressure
It is crucial to understand how individuals naturally process pressure. Ambiguity, criticism, and social uncertainty can all trigger the brain’s threat response. However, when individuals are provided with adequate time, context, and a degree of self-awareness, they can begin to interpret these signals differently. This allows them to perceive pressure as a challenge, recover effectively, and transform the experience into a learning opportunity. This adaptive loop is fundamental to human progress.
The challenge in the modern workplace is that many environments actively strip away the very conditions that facilitate this crucial adaptive loop. Working memory, a finite and often cumbersome cognitive tool, is quickly depleted by constant task switching and vague instructions. This leaves insufficient capacity for the nuanced judgment and recovery processes required to build resilience. When informal cues—such as casual hallway conversations or the ability to read subtle facial expressions—are also removed, employees are left to interpret silence and contend with a persistent, low-level background hum of anxiety that never fully dissipates. In such environments, stress ceases to be an isolated event and instead becomes the prevailing atmosphere. Consequently, attention is diverted towards more stimulating and comforting distractions.
Resilience Through Design: Lessons from High-Pressure Environments
This does not imply that pressure itself is inherently detrimental; in fact, the right amount, managed effectively, is a powerful catalyst for engagement and learning. Certain workplace systems, often by design or through organic evolution, foster resilience almost by accident. Consider the example of a high-performing hospitality team. These environments often feature continuous micro-stressors and micro-recoveries, immediate and actionable feedback, the real-time resolution of pressing issues, abundant human interaction, and small, tangible wins that allow individuals to reset before the next challenge arises.
Conversely, many corporate environments, despite well-intentioned efforts, have inadvertently engineered these very mechanisms out of existence. Informal conversations have been replaced by rigidly scheduled calls, genuine breaks have been substituted with perfunctory "quick check-ins," and the learning opportunity inherent in examining mistakes has been supplanted by annual reviews that often leave participants surprised and unprepared. In an effort to streamline operations, organizations have inadvertently removed the friction points that, paradoxically, were the very moments where resilience was being actively cultivated.
Identifying the Signs of Systemic Strain
The indicators of a workplace system under strain are often plainly visible. These can include an abundance of meetings convened solely to prepare for other meetings, decisions that are repeatedly re-opened rather than finalized, and new employees who take an extended period to feel integrated and valued. Change initiatives are frequently met with a weary, resigned sentiment of "here we go again." Individually, each of these might be dismissed as a localized irritation. However, when viewed collectively, they serve as a clear message: the system is no longer adequately supporting the interpretation, recovery, and adaptation processes that individuals need to sustain or build their resilience.
Reframing Resilience: A Design Flaw, Not a Personal Failing
Viewing low employee resilience as a workplace design flaw necessitates a fundamental shift in our approach. Instead of implementing yet another well-being initiative as an add-on to a fundamentally flawed system, we should treat resilience as something that can be actively cultivated by redesigning elements of our workplaces, rather than something that is simply demanded from individuals.
This requires asking different questions than those traditionally posed. Do the inherent rhythms of work allow sufficient opportunity for recovery? Are expectations communicated with sufficient clarity to minimize ambiguity and cognitive load? Are managers adequately equipped to handle the emotional weight that their roles now entail, or are they merely expected to absorb it? Are the technologies in place genuinely serving the needs of the people using them? Addressing these questions systematically can lead to improvements in resilience, irrespective of an individual’s personality type, age, role, or social background.
The critical question for every organization is not whether its employees are resilient enough, but rather: what is our workplace actively doing to wear down resilience? And, crucially, what fundamental changes must we implement to rebuild it?
Carl Lyon is a co-founder of the Fellowship of Responsible Business and a facilitator and executive coach. For over twenty years, he has worked on customer, employee, and digital experience with more than 200 organizations. His background in engineering has informed his transition into people-focused leadership and coaching. He is recognized for his ability to make complex problems appear manageable and for his skill in asking the right questions.
