Employers look for resilient staff—then leave them to burn out

This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: "Resilience" is in danger of becoming a casualty of business buzzword bingo, but we know it matters. The World Economic Forum lists it as one of the most important skills for the future of work, and I've found it turns up on any list of key attributes, usually nestled under "attitude" or "personal effectiveness." Ask hiring managers which single quality determines success or failure among their new recruits, and many will cite resilience.

One research interviewee told me that a lack of it is "the number one reason why hires don't work in my team." Ask that same person how they build resilience in their group, and vagueness creeps in. "You pick it up in the interview," or it's a "cultural fit," they say. Most people don't actually know how, so they wait and see who survives when things go wrong.

That's where the trouble starts. Bosses select for a quality they have no plan to develop, then act surprised when people burn out under conditions they created. If resilience determines whether someone succeeds in a role, selecting for it while eroding it is close to self-sabotage.

The underlying practice treats adversity as the teacher. Wait for the crisis, watch who comes through it, call that resilience. That's a gamble, not a strategy.

You cannot build capacity for a crisis at the precise moment you're facing one. Asking someone already burned out to "build their resilience" is a bit like asking them to learn to deadlift while running a marathon. Resilience-building and burnout prevention get treated as interchangeable, and they aren't.

I learned this the hard way. A decade or so ago, after a period of personal difficulty, my boss told me I was the most resilient person he knew. "Yeah," I said, "like a little cockroach you can't get rid of." He gently called me out on it because it's not a nice comparison, but it summed up the very negative associations I had with resilience.