An empathetic workplace prioritizes employee well-being over profit alone. Companies with empathetic cultures are thriving. True empathy means allowing vulnerability and acknowledging employees' feelings without fear of reprisal. It can be as simple as a manager asking an employee if they are okay when their performance declines, rather than just focusing on numbers. Empathy is building relationships based on understanding different viewpoints, not just a business tactic. While difficult, creating an empathetic culture through hiring, training and leadership may determine a business' long term success over solely focusing on short term metrics.

1. What 'Having Empathy' Looks Like
When Companies Get it Right

2. • While most organizations have a
range of goals, businesses largely
focus on one: maximizing profit.
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3. • The focus on profit has led to
economic growth, accumulation of
personal wealth – and the challenges
of the modern workforce... the most
depressed, flighty, anxious, stressed
workforce in history.
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4. For many businesses, an
empathy-first approach is
changing this paradigm.
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5. • We’re beginning to prioritize roles
where we feel valued, where
colleagues and leaders want the best
for us personally, where the
company’s goals include profit and
employee wellbeing.
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6. • Surprise: Businesses with this
approach are booming!
• So, what are they doing differently,
and why isn’t everyone doing it?
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7. What is empathy in the workplace?

8. • Empathy means encouraging people
to acknowledge, share, and discuss
their feelings.
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• This includes the freedom to
unburden themselves and feel
comfortable and safe at work —
without fear of reprisal.

10. “Feelings” might include:
• Feeling unfairly pressured to deliver
• Feeling lonely at work or home
• Feeling demotivated
• Anger at how someone is being treated
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11. What it means to be an empathetic company

12. • It can be as simple as this: allow your
staff to be vulnerable at work.
• How many of us can truly say we
have that luxury?
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13. How many of us feel comfortable:
• freely admitting to huge mistakes,
• confessing our uncertainty about a project
• sharing that we’re struggling to concentrate
at work because of lingering relationship
problems at home
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14. • If a company’s culture doesn’t permit
feelings in the first place, being an
“empathetic company” is impossible.
• But YOU can still help others feel
comfortable at work.
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15. • Even if some don’t recognize the
effort you’re making, it could be life
changing for those affected—even if
they never mention it.
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16. For example:
A typical manager enters an employee's office.
• “Hey, your numbers are down for the third quarter
in a row. We’ve talked about this before — if you
can’t get your numbers back up, I can’t guarantee
what’ll happen.”
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For example:
An empathetic manager enters the same office.
• “Hey, your numbers are down for the third quarter in
a row. We’ve talked about this before — are you
okay? I’m worried about you. What’s going on?”

18. “Empathy is being concerned about the
human being, not just their output.”
– Simon Sinek
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19. Why is empathy so important?

20. • Empathy is crucial because, without it,
we’re building a world of employees
who feel anxious, conflicted,
unconfident, and alone at work.
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21. • We are seeing a generation of
workers demanding to be treated
as more than an expendable
commodity.
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22. • For a business to thrive in 2021 and
beyond, it must meet employees
where they are, provide support, be
less judgmental, and ensure two-way
communication.
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23. What empathy is not

24. • One article called empathy “a
customer-service clincher, a killer
sales technique, a talent magnet and
a make-or-break crisis management
tool” — missing the point entirely.
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25. • Empathy helps the business, but it’s
not a metric or a hack.
• Empathy is a step in the right
direction toward dealing with
situations in which employees are too
concerned to even share their
concerns.
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26. Companies practicing empathy don’t
have this problem.
• They promote people to leadership roles and
teach them how to lead. They allow
employees to voice concerns without fear of
redundancy and guide them closer to their
natural potential.
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27. Will you put in the effort?

28. • If you’re trying to “instill empathy” to
reap profit, revenue, or growth
“benefits,” you’re looking at it from
the wrong angle.
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29. • Creating an empathetic workplace
might mean changing your hiring
priorities, your training, or firing toxic
staff even if their numbers are good.
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30. • Note: Nobody says it'll be easy.
• You need to take in feelings you don’t
like or want, in order to acknowledge
and understand them.
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31. • Meeting people where they are can
be an exhausting, uncomfortable
experience.
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32. • Sometimes, even when you think
you’re right, the empathetic approach
is learning to understand, respect and
implement another individual’s point
of view rather than forcing your own.
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33. Final Thoughts

34. • Building good, open, vulnerable,
transparent relationships where
people actually get to understand
each other and their viewpoints —
that is foundational to building a
long lasting business with high-
performing employees who actually
want to work for you.
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35. • Still not interested? If you stay off the
employee experience wagon much
longer, you’ll find your best
employees onboard with another
company.
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36. If empathy sounds too
complicated for you, then
remember what we’re really
talking about is relationships.

37. Want more?
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38. Have we met socially?

39. Thank you!