The Workplace You Need Now

6A Resilient Workforce, Workplace, and Portfolio

“Resilience is based on compassion for ourselves as well as compassion for others.”

Sharon Salzberg, Author, Real Happiness, Co-founder, Insight Meditation Society and Barre Center for Buddhist Studies

Accepting that they may never operate again in the way they did before the pandemic, companies have recognized that the ability to continuously adapt to new and changing conditions is essential for success. This need also is not new. In fact, at least three “once in a lifetime” crises occurred just in the last two decades—the 9/11 attacks, the Great Financial Crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Each had different causes, and all forced unique business responses and adaptations, but all were unexpected and had real impacts on work, workers, and the workplace. Among the many lessons learned from these crises, and from the pandemic in particular, is that business resilience means far more than keeping the lights on and the data center functioning.

Instead, it means always-on transformation: a built-in agile operating philosophy encompassing a company’s chain of command, digital infrastructure, supply network, and the like, and, most critically, its workplaces and workforce. For C-suite teams, that means examining the priority areas of the business and reimagining them in the context of continuous transformation. C-suite teams who instill agility, responsiveness, corporate responsibility, and resiliency into their work, workforce, ...