Resilience training has become a far more common feature of workplace learning in recent years. What was once seen as something specialist is now being built into everyday development programmes.
In fact, according to Corndel, around half of UK employers now offer some form of resilience training as part of their learning and development or wellbeing provision. This movement reflects a broader change in how organisations think about performance and the support employees need to sustain it.
What Is Driving the Demand?
It’s easy to frame this as a generational issue, with younger employees often labelled as less resilient. But in reality, the nature of work has changed significantly.
Work-related stress, anxiety and burnout are more visible and more openly discussed than they were in the past. The boundaries between work and home have also become less defined, and there is more pressure to be available and responsive outside of core working hours. In addition to this, many employees are working in environments that feel more uncertain, whether that’s due to economic volatility, geopolitical instability or weaker job security.
It’s important to remember that while Gen Z may be less tolerant of outdated workplace norms, they are also entering work at a uniquely demanding moment.
A Skill That Can Be Developed
There is a growing recognition that resilience is not something people either have or do not have, but rather something which can be built and strengthened over time.
Resilience training takes many forms, but often focuses on practical areas such as managing feedback, handling difficult conversations and staying focused under pressure. In some organisations, this is built into early career development. For example, trainees are exposed to potentially fraught meetings alongside senior colleagues to learn conflict-resolution skills.
Effective training tends to also combine prevention with practical tools, from sleep and exercise to techniques such as breathing, grounding, and challenging unhelpful thought patterns.
When done well, this kind of training does wonders for helping people feel more confident in their roles and better equipped to deal with the realities of work.
Where It Can Fall Short
There is, however, a risk that resilience training becomes a surface-level solution. A single workshop or webinar is very unlikely to have a lasting impact if the wider working environment does not support it.
Similarly, if long hours, constant availability or unrealistic expectations remain in place, employees might begin to feel that the responsibility is being placed solely on them to cope, rather than on the organisation to improve working conditions.
For resilience training to be effective, it needs to sit alongside a broader approach to how work is managed.
A More Balanced View
It’s really important to move away from the idea that this is about one generation struggling more than another. Every workforce faces its own pressures, shaped by the time it operates in. What is different now is the willingness to recognise those pressures and respond to them more directly.
Handled properly, resilience training can be a useful part of that. Not as a quick fix, but as one element of a wider effort to create working environments where people can perform well and sustain that performance over time.
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