How Businesses Can Create A More Compassionate COVID Environment
As the president of Conover Consulting, focused on compensation analysis/planning, leadership development, and cultural alignment, I have spoken much about how vital it is to create a healthy, positive business environment. Not only does this aid in keeping employees engaged, it leads to more productivity, benefitting people and organizations.
With ongoing COVID restrictions making everyone increasingly restless, frustrated, and irritable, such a focus on workplace values and policies is arguably more important than ever. This includes placing an emphasis on an often-ignored tool in the business leader’s toolbox: compassion.
Exactly what is compassion, and why is it critical in sustaining a growing business? Webster’s dictionary defines compassion as, “sympathetic consciousness of other’s distress together with a desire to alleviate it.” In other words, compassion has two parts.
The first concerns “sympathetic consciousness of other’s distress” or, in simpler terms, empathy. To practice compassion, one must first be able to recognize and vicariously experience the pain of another individual. (This is why high functioning sociopaths and narcissists – people who naturally focus only on themselves – can be expert tacticians, but rarely make good managers.)
The second part is “a desire to alleviate it.” In other words, compassion is not an emotion. It’s a behavior. It’s an action. Compassion is not something we simply feel, it is something we do. But practicing compassion is not just humane. It’s a smart business strategy. It helps promote employee retention, reduces stress, leads to fewer employee sick days, increases personal job satisfaction, and reenforces team unity.
In his related book Uncontainable, Kip Tindell, co-founder and chairman emeritus of The Container Store, discusses how he developed a business philosophy he calls Conscious Capitalism. In a nutshell, Conscious Capitalism is the idea that, to make a company great, employees must come first.
This is markedly different from the economic philosophy developed in the late 19th century by retail pioneers Marshall Field, Harry Gordon Selfridge and John Wanamaker whose dictum, “The customer is always right,” put customer happiness and satisfaction above all else. Why put employees first? Because they create the customer experience, whether through direct contact at the retail/service level or via the products/services they design and manufacture.
Happy, motivated employees are also the source of innovation and productivity. And practicing compassion helps make sure staffs stay happy and motivated. There are many situations that call for leaders to practice compassion. These include when:
Employees are upset by personal problems, such as marital strife, sick family members, the loss of a loved one — not to mention, the strain of COVID-19, whether it be suffering from the illness itself or the myriad ways the virus induces fear, uncertainty, and/or distress.
Employees experience professional frustrations, such as the inability to understand directives, solve a problem, meet a deadline, etc.
A disharmony in the workplace exists due to interpersonal conflicts, distrust, professional jealousies, etc.
As a leader intent on improving your company’s culture, there are many ways you can practice compassion daily to alleviate these problems and more. Here are some suggestions:
Be approachable. Employees should feel free to come to you with their issues without fear of judgment.
Be affirming. Compassionate leaders acknowledge problems and don’t demean or belittle their employees.
Be ethical. Have a strong moral code and practice it. (To be compassionate, you must be worthy of trust.)
Be solution-driven. As a compassionate leader, your aim is to find ways to solve problems, not assign blame.
Be encouraging. Whenever possible, you want to foster each employee’s sense of value and self-esteem. If you help them believe they can surmount their challenges and solve their problems, they probably can. (It’s important to be influential, not dictatorial.)
Be flexible. Progress is achieved through innovation, and this means being open to fresh ideas and new ways of doing things.
Be enthusiastic. A compassionate leader models a positive, “can-do” attitude.
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As a company culture consultant for many companies in numerous industries, I have helped my corporate clients develop a winning, compassionate culture. To learn about my philosophy and approach, please read my profile in Forbes. Ultimately, putting employees first is a policy that will yield major dividends, both during the current crisis and for years beyond. Want to know more? Contact me at laura@conoverconsulting.com. Let me know how I can help you.