A recent joint study by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and Gap International examined the importance of organizational resilience during difficult times. A shared characteristic among them? Inclusiveness.
In the report, researchers surveyed:
- 620 senior leaders—including 220 executives, 86 vice presidents and 314 directors—in organizations with at least 50 employees to gauge their characterizations of their organizations’ performance and employee well-being factors from pre-pandemic to now.
- 1,007 full-time employees about their resilient behaviors and work environment to ascertain what made the difference for enabling employee resilience.
"At the organizational level, we found inclusive cultural norms were greater for resilient organizations in comparison to non-resilient organizations. At the employee level, we found that inclusive leadership, inclusive workgroups and inclusive organizational norms all related to higher levels of employee resilience."
The results indicated that inclusive practices like implementing fair treatment, celebrating differences, and allowing employees to have a say in decisions were significantly greater among organizations in “the resilience trajectories compared to the non-resilient trajectory.”
It’s also important to note that employees with the most resilient tendencies reported having supervisors who “displayed empathy and inclusive leadership behaviors.” At Kantola, we know that managers are critical to DEI success, and empowering them with the knowledge and tools they need can enable them to be a positive force.
According to SHRM, examples of inclusive leadership included:
- Supporting employees’ needs.
- Ensuring organizational equity.
- Facilitating shared decision-making.
- Encouraging diverse contributions.
- Helping employees fully contribute.
SHRM ultimately found that leader empathy is associated with high levels of employee resilience. In fact, supervisor empathy scores were over 1.4 times higher for those with high (versus low) resilience.
