From Culture to Data: Strategies and Tools for Embedding Resilience in the Workplace

   

In today’s complex and dynamic environment, workforce resilience has become a priority for organisations aiming to stay competitive and sustainable. For employers in Asia Pacific (APAC), where market volatility and technological transformation are reshaping industries at pace, resilience is now a key driver of performance, innovation and employee wellbeing.

“Resilience is more than a personal trait,” said Susan Fanning, Head of Wellbeing Solutions, APAC at Aon. “It’s a strategic imperative for individuals, teams and organisations alike.” This shift in thinking reflects a recognition by HR teams that thriving through uncertainty means embedding resilience into the culture and day-to-day employee experience.

Linking Resilience to Business Strategy

The connection between resilience and performance is clear in industries where innovation cycles are short and disruption is the norm. Maggie You, Head of Human Capital Advisory, APAC at Aon, highlights a case study from a global life sciences firm that reinvented its operating model to become a full-solution provider, enabled by technologies such as AI and blockchain.

“To support this transformation, the company needed to move from having a reactive, risk-averse culture to one that was more decisive, proactive and innovation-focused,” said You. “We worked with them to reposition the employer brand, reskill key talent and redesign cultural expectations at every level of the business.”

Aon’s methodology combined leadership interviews with a culture survey to identify and measure misalignments between current behaviours and future priorities. Traits such as resilience, agility, accountability, collaboration and professional challenge emerged as critical gaps. For example, while 94 percent of leaders viewed resilience as essential for the future, only 38 percent said it was currently present in the organisation. Similar gaps were revealed for agility (90 percent vs. 44 percent) and professional challenge (91 percent vs. 45 percent), offering clear direction for targeted cultural interventions.

By taking steps to embed these workforce capabilities into its transformation agenda, the organisation achieved a 20 percent increase in developing new solutions across the patient journey. “This wasn’t a culture initiative operating alongside the business strategy — it was central to enabling the strategy,” said You.

Aon’s Methodology: Defining Culture, Enabling Change

Aon’s culture framework focuses on direction, relationship and environment — three levers that shape how people work, interact and make decisions. These proprietary tools support organisations to identify gaps and track progress over time. In the case of the life sciences company, high alignment was revealed across four dimensions: work identity, professional challenge, resilience and work-life balance. This insight helped the business target interventions to close gaps across other priority dimensions.

“For example, we supported a shift toward viewing failure as an opportunity to learn,” said You. “This was particularly important in healthcare, where perfection has traditionally been the benchmark. Shifting to a more iterative process required both a mindset change and support from senior managers.”

Career Wellbeing as a Foundation for Resilience

Workforce resilience also hinges on how individuals are experiencing their work. “We call this career wellbeing and it comes from alignment — between a person’s job, their values, and their motivations,” said Wan Hua Cheng, Associate Partner and Organisational Psychologist, Talent Solutions, APAC at Aon.

 

This broader framing is supported by survey data, which showed high prioritisation and alignment across sub-dimensions such as work identity and professional challenge — reinforcing the importance of designing jobs that align with how individuals are wired to succeed and thrive.

To reveal insights that can help organisations improve this alignment, Aon uses its proprietary ADEPT-15 personality tool to assess work style, motivation, interpersonal preferences and adaptability. The tool provides insights at three levels:

• Individual: helping employees identify roles that match their strengths.
• Manager: enabling team leads to tailor development and succession strategies.
• HR: supporting reskilling and upskilling by identifying ‘potential movers’ — employees most open to change and learning.

For example, in one organisation, the ADEPT-15 data revealed an entire team with low ambition scores, prompting their manager to rethink leadership development plans. “Rather than forcing a promotion, they focused on designing roles that motivated the team,” said Cheng. “It shows how insights like these can unlock and sustain both performance and wellbeing.”

Supporting Managers to Lead Effectively

Managers play a pivotal role in embedding resilience day to day, but they are also facing competing demands and cognitive overload. “Under stress, we revert to default behaviours,” said Cheng. “Some managers may unintentionally neglect the emotional side of leadership.”

Aon offer a solution that equips managers with data and tools to better understand themselves and their teams. From coaching and feedback mechanisms to using AI ‘copilots’ to tone-check communications, small interventions can make a big difference. “It starts with self-awareness,” said said Cheng.

 

Informing Upskilling and Workforce Planning

Resilience and career wellbeing also inform reskilling and workforce strategy. With job disruption accelerating across sectors, HR leaders are under pressure to redeploy internal talent more effectively.

You described how Aon supported a global financial services organisation to transition mid-office roles displaced by automation into client-facing functions. “By using skills data and internal network analysis, we identified people with the right product knowledge, adaptability and tenure,” she said. “They performed significantly better than external hires.”

This data-led approach supports talent continuity and workforce morale — both key elements of a resilient workforce. Aon’s analytics help HR teams segment employees by learning receptiveness, enabling better targeting of reskilling investment. By identifying “potential movers” with strong growth mindsets and adaptability, organisations can develop transition paths for critical roles while supporting employees to find purpose-aligned career journeys.

Wellbeing as a Journey, Guided by Data

As organisations shift from reactive to proactive approaches, resilience is emerging as a measurable part of workforce strategy. “This is not a one-time initiative,” said Fanning.

 

From cultural diagnostics and personality insights to wellbeing indices and engagement surveys, tools and analytics from Aon offer HR leaders the visibility to act with precision and scale what works. The path to making progress on resilience is clear — empower individuals, support managers, and align culture with purpose. With this approach, organisations don’t just weather disruption, they thrive through it.