It’s no secret the modern workplace is under pressure. For UK SMEs especially, the last few years have been a rollercoaster of economic uncertainty, stretched resources and embracing new ways of working. In this climate, building workplace resilience isn’t just a a nice-to-have – it’s a survival skill.
That’s exactly what this quarter’s Dolphin Forum set out to address. The event took place on 22 July 2025 and was expertly facilitated by Sukhvinder Pabial, Senior Learning Strategist at Challenging Frontiers. We brought together L&D professionals to explore how workplace resilience can be cultivated at every level of an organisation – from leadership to line managers and individuals.
Here’s a summary of the workshop and some of its key takeaways.
Why do UK SMEs need to focus on building workplace resilience?
Resilience in the workplace is about having the ability to adapt, recover or thrive when faced with pressure or change. For small and medium-sized businesses in the UK, resilience is critical not only at an individual level, but also across the entire organisation.
- At an organisational level, resilience enables teams to remain productive through uncertainty and change, reducing the risk of burnout, disengagement and turnover.
- Leaders who role-model resilience set the tone for psychological safety, trust and open communication.
- Managers can create more resilient teams by helping individuals bounce back from setbacks and focus on what they can control.
- Teams that are resilient work better together, supporting each other through highs and lows.
- Individuals benefit from greater wellbeing, stronger relationships, and the ability to manage stress and remain effective under pressure.
Resilience isn’t about being “tough” – pushing through at all costs or expecting others to carry on regardless of their personal or professional needs – it’s about adapting, recovering and responding, with awareness and compassion.
Three Good Things
The forum kicked off by introducing a simple yet effective tool: Three Good Things. We were all asked to write down three good things that happened to us yesterday.
Why? Because our brains are wired to spot threats. And this is particularly evident in challenging times, when we focus far more on what’s going wrong than what’s going right. Three Good Things helps the brain notice what’s gone well: it shifts our thinking from deficit to possibility, encouraging gratitude, presence and positivity, even on the hardest days. When you do this regularly, you’ll even start rewiring your brain!
Why not try it as a daily practice or introduce it to your teams? It only takes a couple of minutes and can boost happiness, resilience and mental wellbeing.
Strengths-based resilience
Next, we explored how using your strengths at work can build engagement and resilience. In breakout rooms, small groups discussed what their individual strengths could be, and how they might use them in the workplace. We used the excellent VIA character strengths as a guide.
When people are encouraged to use their strengths in the workplace, they feel more energised, effective and connected to their work. This builds a sense of agency and helps them navigate tougher situations with increased confidence.
Understanding emotional agility
Resilience isn’t about suppressing emotions. In fact, ignoring difficult emotions often leaves them bubbling away under the surface… only to explode later!
That’s where emotional agility comes in. A concept developed by psychologist Dr Susan David, this is the ability to notice, name and work through emotions in a healthy, intentional way. Recognising and labelling emotions activates the brain’s prefrontal cortex (the rational, decision-making part of the brain) – helping us process them more rationally.
This is especially powerful in leadership and management roles, where role-modelling emotional intelligence can create more empathetic, psychologically safe workplaces. This kind of emotional agility is a growing focus in leadership training for UK managers and HR teams.
Recognising emotional triggers
We also explored emotional triggers, looking at the kinds of situations or behaviours that set off strong emotional reactions in us.
Understanding your emotional triggers is key to building workplace resilience. When a trigger activates the brain’s threat system, we’re more likely to react defensively or irrationally. But by pausing to notice what’s happening and why, we can respond in a more constructive way.
Bringing it back to business
In the Dolphin Forum, we like to ensure any new learnings are linked to real-life workplace scenarios. That’s why we have breakout rooms: to discuss current challenges in a supportive, confidential environment (while networking at the same time!). This helps embed new concepts so they become tools in all participants’ leadership toolkits.
Workplace resilience, as Sukhvinder reminded us, isn’t a fixed trait. It’s a set of skills we can all learn, practise and grow.
Need support building emotional intelligence and resilience across your teams?
The Staff Skills academy+ LMS for small businesses doesn’t just offer a wide range of compliance training. It also includes courses and resources on workplace performance, mental health and personal development, alongside affordable workplace wellbeing courses for UK SMEs. All designed to help HR teams and people managers create sustainable, human-centred workplaces.
And if you’d like to join the Dolphin Forum, we’d love to see you there! It’s a quarterly online event for Staff Skills academy+ customers, including a workshop designed for L&D professionals and an opportunity to network with like-minded people.
Please get in touch if you’d like to find out more.
