1.1 Definition of adaptability
- 8 min reading
- 14 min activity
Example: Samira, 21, from Sudan, starts as a kitchen helper in a hotel in Crete. In her first week the menu changes every day, colleagues talk fast in Greek, and the shift plan arrives late on WhatsApp. She feels lost. Six weeks later she has a notebook of kitchen words, she knows who to ask, and she checks the shift plan every evening. She is still Samira. She has learned to adjust.
- Explain in your own words what adaptability is.
- See the three parts of adapting: thinking, doing and feeling.
- Recognise eight kinds of adaptability that jobs often ask for.
- Say clearly what adaptation is not.
What adaptability means
Life and work keep changing: a new job, a new team leader, a new app, a new language, a new set of rules. Adaptability is your ability to adjust when something is new, changing or uncertain, so that you can keep going and do well.
Researchers describe adaptability as adjusting three things at the same time: your thinking, your actions and your feelings (Martin and colleagues, 2012). You do not need to be perfect in all three. Most people are stronger in one part and still learning in another.
Samira stops thinking "this kitchen is chaos". She starts thinking "this kitchen has a system I do not know yet".
She writes new words down, checks the shift plan every evening and asks one colleague when she is unsure.
On hard days she feels tired and homesick. She takes a short walk after work and calls her sister. The feeling stays, but it does not decide for her.
The European Union has eight key competences for lifelong learning. One of them, the "personal, social and learning to learn" competence, describes skills for adapting. It says people should "remain resilient" and be able "to cope with uncertainty and complexity", and also "seek support when appropriate" (Council of the EU, 2018). So asking for help is part of adapting, not the opposite of it.
Quick check: what is adaptability?
Why it matters at work
Employers notice adaptability. In a World Economic Forum survey of more than 1,000 employers worldwide, published in 2025, "resilience, flexibility and agility" was the second most common core skill. 67% of employers named it.
Researchers collected more than 1,000 real stories of workers adapting, from 21 different jobs. They found eight kinds of adaptability that come back again and again (Pulakos and colleagues, 2000). Here they are in simple words:
| Kind of adaptability | What it can look like in a first job |
|---|---|
| Handling emergencies | The fire alarm rings in the hotel. You stay calm and follow the evacuation plan. |
| Handling work stress | Friday night in a busy restaurant. You stay focused on one order at a time. |
| Solving problems creatively | A road is closed on your delivery route. You find another way and tell the customer. |
| Dealing with uncertainty | The shift plan changes every week. You check it early and plan around it. |
| Learning new tasks and tools | The warehouse starts using a new hand scanner. You practise until you are fast. |
| Adapting to people | A new team leader likes short updates. You change how you report. |
| Adapting to other cultures | Your team has people from five countries. You learn how each one likes to work. |
| Adapting to physical conditions | You work in a cold store or in a greenhouse in summer, with the right breaks and protection. |
Look at the list again. Many young newcomers already do several of these every week, often in a language they are still learning. That is real experience. You can talk about it in a job interview.
Eight kinds of adaptability at work
Match each work situation with the kind of adaptability it asks for.
What adaptation is not
Adapting is a skill. It is not a promise to accept anything. The European Commission describes integration as a two-way process: newcomers make an effort, and the host society "should create the opportunities" for them to take part fully (European Commission, 2020).
- Learning the rules and routines of a new place.
- Changing how you do things to reach your goals.
- Asking questions and trying again after a mistake.
- Keeping your values while you learn new ways.
- Staying silent about unsafe or unfair treatment.
- Giving up your goals, your language or your faith.
- Pretending you never feel tired, sad or angry.
- A job that only the newcomer has to do.
Lesson 1.4 looks more closely at these misunderstandings, and Lesson 2.5 at the fair conditions that employers must offer.
Your own experience counts
You have probably adapted to many small changes already: a new phone, a new school, a new bus route, a new food shop. Each one used the same three parts: thinking, doing and feeling. Noticing this helps you trust yourself in the next change.
A change I already handled
Think of a small change in the last year: a new route, a new app, a new task, a new teacher or a new shop. You do not need to write about difficult memories. Your answers are saved in your account. Other learners cannot see them.
"I am new to this system. Can you show me how you do it here?" "I learned to use a new scanner in two weeks at my last job."
Notice one change at work, in your course or at home. Write three short lines: what I thought, what I did, how I felt. Look at your lines again at the end of the week.
- Adaptability
- Your ability to adjust your thinking, actions and feelings when something is new, changing or uncertain.
- Uncertainty
- When you do not know yet what will happen.
- Resilient
- Able to recover and continue after something difficult.
- Two-way process
- Both sides take part: the newcomer and the people and institutions around them.
In short
- Adaptability means adjusting how you think, act and feel when things change.
- Jobs ask for many kinds of adaptability, from learning new tools to working with people from other cultures.
- Asking for support is part of adapting.
- Adapting does not mean accepting unfair treatment or giving up who you are.
Sources
- Martin, A. J., Nejad, H., Colmar, S., and Liem, G. A. D. (2012). Adaptability: Conceptual and empirical perspectives on responses to change, novelty and uncertainty. Australian Journal of Guidance and Counselling, 22(1), 58-81.
- Pulakos, E. D., Arad, S., Donovan, M. A., and Plamondon, K. E. (2000). Adaptability in the workplace: Development of a taxonomy of adaptive performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(4), 612-624.
- World Economic Forum (2025). The Future of Jobs Report 2025, Figure 3.3 "Core skills in 2025".
- Council of the European Union (2018). Council Recommendation of 22 May 2018 on key competences for lifelong learning (2018/C 189/01), Annex, competence 5.
- European Commission (2020). Action plan on integration and inclusion 2021-2027, COM(2020) 758 final.