To Care for the Workforce, HR Needs to First Focus on Self-Care

You can’t pour from an empty cup, but that’s exactly what many HR leaders try to do every day. Charged with guiding employees through stress, disruption, and uncertainty, HR leaders often neglect their own well-being in the process, said Randy Anderson, co-founder of E3 Professional Trainers, during his presentation on resilience and self-care at SHRM25 in San Diego. 

“How can you help your employees the most? You’ve got to begin by saying self-care is the start,” Anderson said. “Because if your reserve tank goes empty, everybody who is depending on you to lead them through this has lost their leader. And that’s when it really gets hard.” 

Examine What Currently Fuels You

HR leaders should regularly check in on their internal systems to see if they’re trending toward the crispy side of burnout and stress, Anderson urged. The first step is to review what you’re consuming, which includes your:    

• Your physical diet. Evaluate everything from the food you eat to your sleep regimen to your exercise plan. Are you just getting by on caffeine and adrenaline, or are you fueling your body in a way that sustains energy and sharpens your thinking? 

• Your mental diet. What are you filling your brain with, both in the real world and online? Are you surrounding yourself with people who drain you or who you learn from?

• Your emotional diet. Are you taking in encouragement, healthy relationships, and moments of joy? Or are you absorbing constant negativity, toxic interactions, and emotional noise that drains your resilience?

“It’s really important to look at what you’re feeding yourself,” Anderson said. “Because that’s going to go a long way toward your ability to stay resilient and emotionally available for your employees.” 

Strategies to Center Yourself 

Staying grounded starts with self-awareness. In high-pressure roles, it’s easy to disconnect from what you need to function at your best. These simple, intentional practices can help you recenter — mentally, physically, and emotionally — before stress takes the wheel:

• Know when and how to unplug. That means setting boundaries not just in your work/life integration, but also with the demands of your personal life. This can include carving out time for self-care, staying off social media, or getting outdoors.

• Know your strengths and weaknesses. “It’s important to know what you can do for a long time on your own but also know [what] you need to ask other people for help with,” Anderson said. 

• Know your limits. “Know that you can only spend two hours on this or 30 minutes on that. And you may literally need to set a timer,” Anderson said. “You want to be aware of your limits so you don’t constantly go past them.”  

• Know your triggers (both positive and negative). Pay attention to the people, situations, or environments that consistently drain or energize you. Being aware of these patterns can help you better manage your reactions and protect your well-being.

Resilience: A Muscle That Can Be Strengthened 

Self-care strategies are important to retain energy for your job and life. But everyone encounters difficult circumstances, and that’s where the need for resilience comes into play. “A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships,” Anderson said, quoting Helen Keller.

Helping employees build that muscle of resilience is an important role for HR leaders, as increased resilience can lead to better productivity. The SHRM study The Price of Success: Navigating the Trade-Offs that Shape Career Growth found that employees who feel supported by their direct supervisor or senior leadership are significantly more likely to feel strongly motivated to push forward in the face of career adversity.  

“Everybody goes through hard things, and it’s important to realize that your employees are going through that all the time,” Anderson said. 

Anderson suggested these steps to boost the resilience level in your workplace:

Encourage employees to embrace change. Make it clear that growth doesn’t come from the status quo — in our workplaces or in ourselves. Encourage employees to embrace new projects and processes, and to pursue professional development. Emphasize that change is part of your culture and is a required skill.

“I’ve said to people in the past: ‘You can stay and change, or you can stay the same and leave. But you can’t stay here if you’re going to stay the same,’ ” Anderson said. 

Highlight the value of “bend, don’t break.” Flexibility and compromise are critical in the workplace, and employees benefit by leaning into that.

“At some point, rigidity is going to lead to a break. Somebody is going to snap, whether they leave or they crash, or whether they explode all over somebody else,” Anderson said. “We’ve got to learn how to bend and stretch — but not on principles or ethics.”

Increase productivity to decrease stress. When employees feel equipped to manage their workload efficiently, they build a greater sense of control and confidence, which are key foundations for long-term resilience. Provide the cross-skilling and upskilling employees need to be successful in their jobs today and in the future.

“Much of the stress we experience doesn’t come from having too much to do. It comes from not having finished what we’ve already started,” Anderson said. “So if we can help employees be more productive, we can reduce their stress and build their resiliency.”  

Embed Resilience from Day One 

The best time to instill resilience is well before a crisis forms. When teams are being formed or new functions launched, leaders have an opportunity to build a mindset that anticipates change and adapts quickly.

Robert Drew, director of compensation and recruiting at the University of Mississippi, who attended the session, has seen in previous roles how a lack of resilience can impact a workforce.

“In teams I’ve had previously, I’ve identified a gap of people trying to find reasons why they can’t, instead of trying to figure out ways that they can,” said Drew, who is leading a new function that bridges every department in the university.  

“I’m building up a brand-new team, so we have no structure and no practices yet,” he said. “I want to make sure I’m setting the culture with this new group that they’re going to come in with a resilient mindset because it’s a totally new function. I need people who are going to come in and be resilient.”