Compassion is one of the things that are you are taught from the time you are a child. All religions, or your spiritual beliefs tell you that to be a consummate human being, you need to cultivate compassion within yourself.
The word compassion has its roots in Latin which means "co-suffering".
And, I understand that in psychological terms, it involves elements of empathy, love, and care.
Compassion has three main components. The first is understanding other people, and their problems. Next is the ability to care for others, and most importantly, to selflessly help people in need. And the final part of what compassion means is to give without any expectation, which is altruistic in its foundation.
The image of a compassionate organisation or person, is that of social workers seeing clients all day, or case managers dealing with home visits, and helping people.
In this context, many of you may well ask if this has anything to do with your day to day work-life.
While all the tasks in our respective organisations help to advance the aims and goals of our bosses and jobs, some of you might still be looking for ways to give back to your community.
People already volunteer their skills to various NGOs. Others may be giving to charity, or even contributing to their respective religious, or spiritual organisations.
The reality is that a significant number of studies show that volunteering and developing compassion at the workplace pointedly reduces stress and offers more job satisfaction for many employees.
For instance, researcher Stephen Fineman from the University of Bath in the UK discovered way back in the year 2000 that an emotionally intelligent organisation is one that encourages volunteerism and actively promotes compassion within their team. The same study indicates that workplace empathy invites more loyalty, dedication, and employee engagement.
In simple terms, you can cultivate compassion in your organisation by teaching your team to notice when their colleagues are undergoing some personal stressors, and as a consequence, make them feel secure and comfortable at work.
Leaders can also instill feelings of empathy by actually listening to others without judging them. And in my experience, many organisational leaders sorely lack this vital skill.
At your workplace too, if you can accept criticisms and at the same time give your opinions on under-performance in someone else, without hurting their feelings, you will foster a better work environment.
From a workplace perspective, if you freely offer to do something or show kindness as well as empathy; it can result in tremendous benefits for everyone.
I have noticed from working with millennials and also progressive organisations, that one of the significant results of creating an empathetic workplace is that employee relationships improve tremendously.
Many companies grapple with toxic people and terrible work culture. And, this tends to make valuable and decent people seek better places of work to ply their trade. Staff satisfaction and retention is an area that challenges most companies.
Large businesses with progressive leadership create all sorts of initiatives that keep their staff connected to each other, and the organisation's mission.
Any avenue to volunteer as a team, department, or even as a company-wide process, serves as an opportunity for the team to bond. Getting off-site from your office, and the daily rigmarole of work life, allows colleagues and co-workers to see each other in a new light. It also encourages cross-cell collaboration or inter-departmental relationships.
Having empathy creates an environment of active and sympathetic communication at the workplace. When you have a compassionate atmosphere at work, your team will be able to vent out their professional troubles and difficulties to each other without fear of been blackballed.
The opportunity to serve other people outside your organisation, in a voluntary capacity, humanises your entire organisation. When team members work with kind people, it balances out any trust deficiencies and they're able to use their emotional resources to combat potential work fatigue.
And the biggest benefit from your organisation spending a little time doing voluntary work and encouraging compassion, is that it helps to rebuild any disconnected interpersonal bonds that would have appeared by the ongoing isolation you all feel.
Leaders and managers who follow such compassionate approaches at the workplace, will notice that their employees will certainly reciprocate this by working even more dedicatedly for their company.
Making everybody feel that they are part of a team, and that an individual's difficulty is overcome through collective help, automatically makes people feel more positive about their work commitments.
Be compassionate now, and the results will come. Happier people, make for more productive employees.