Empathy and Organizational Well-being
Indice
Why is it so important?
Organizational well-being is essential for the company’s economic growth: it creates a healthy and functional working climate, capable of enhancing the personal and professional growth of everyone, thus enriching the organization itself.
Research (Deloitte Insights, 2020), shows a strong correlation between human capital well-being and better company performance like:
- Less turnover of talent
- Greater employee efficiency
- More reliability within the team
- More commitment and motivation to work
- Increased productivity
That is why social and relational skills turn out to be the most important to cultivate in the company and their demand will continue to increase by 30% by 2030 (McKinsey,2018).
No wonder that a Businessolver research from 2018 showed that 90% of employees would leave a non-empathetic employer.
In particular this is true for:
– 81% of Millennials
– 76% of Gen X
– 78% of Baby Boomers
Empathy helps the development of prosocial behaviors, allows the success of professional relationships and promotes individual and organizational well-being.
How can you develop and show empathy?
Even if empathy in the workplace provides meaningful and concrete returns, learning empathy isn’t easy.
Here are some suggestions to practice this important skill and get closer to your coworkers.
1) Practice active listening: don’t just passively listen to your colleagues but attempt to understand their feelings and emotions; ask questions and be sure you understand what they are really saying and demonstrate that you understand what they are going through..
2) Encourage direct contact: technology is an amazing tool, but body languages and facial expressions are harder to notice in a video call especially in groups. Whenever possible, create empathy through face-to-face interaction.
3) Reward empathy: when someone does a good job of listening, is flexible and willing to listen to other people’s reasons, praise them in front of the team. This will be an incentive for the rest of the team to do the same.
4) Stay curious: we often forget that other people can teach us different things by taking us out of our comfort zone. A sincere interest in different views and opinions is a first step in building trust and empathy.
5) Request feedback: connecting “empathically” means giving importance to others. One way to work in this direction is to include others in the decision making process. Besides, it is a great way to involve them and learn something at the same time.
How would you rate organizational well-being in your company on a scale of 1 to 5? How do you create empathy with your team?
Subscribe to our Newsletter
By subscribing, you will receive one email per week with different content aimed at helping you get measurable results for your business.
Performance Technology Solutions S.r.l. – Via Valparaiso 10, 20144 Milano – P.IVA: 03417530965 Iscrizione Tribunale di Milano n° 03417530965 Rea n° 1673867