Empathy at work: find out what it is and its advantages!

Tell us, do you know what it is? empathy at work? Do you practice? empathy? Do you think it's important? Good, despite the empathy be very related to each person's style and personality, and not their professional skills.

What is empathy at work?

Empathy in everyday work represents people's ability to understand and understand each other. Considering the differing opinions that each person has, the point of view, and the way each person acts.

It is also important to say that professional empathy has nothing to do with the feeling of compassion. It is characterized not by the pain of others, but by the professional side of understanding what your colleagues' motivations are and how this can affect or interfere in the company's day-to-day activities.

Empathy is essential to maintain a good relationship in the workplace, so that leaders and their subordinates can have a good relationship. Since this skill affects the emotional state of the team, it ensures a pleasant, less frustrating and unequal environment. With this, the chances of success for the company are always much greater.

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Empathy in everyday life

Before we talk about empathy at work, let’s first talk about what empathy is.

According to some studies, empathy is "a type of affective response to other people, that is, support or positive responses to other people and not to one's own situation. Empathy is often an act of trying to understand what the other person is going through or happening.

The definitions of empathy are not exact, because it can be considered a socio-emotional skills, because no one is able to feel exactly what the other feels or thinks.

Therefore, for everyone's understanding, we can define empathy as the ability of people to put themselves in each other's shoes, such as experiences, thoughts and emotions.

Still on empathy, let's understand a little more about some differences;

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Empathy vs. Sympathy: Understanding the Differences

Although the two are very similar, it is always important to make it clear that empathy and sympathy have their differences, understand a little more about them below:

Empathy: Well, empathy is something that almost everyone has heard of. Empathy is more related to something subjective between two people, as it is more of a feeling linked to experiences and thoughts. Basically, for better understanding, it means that when we are empathetic with another person, we put ourselves in their shoes.

Sympathy: It is the feeling we have towards others, that is, it is an external sensation. Which we normally demonstrate when we like or sympathize with something or someone.

It is possible to feel empathy and sympathy for the same person, and generally when this happens, it becomes much easier for us to get along with that person and with these types of feelings.

Why it’s important to have empathy in the workplace

Let's talk about the importance of having empathy in the workplace:

It is very important to determine the level of importance of empathy in the workplace.

In order for all company employees to understand that these characteristics and feelings, can reduce behavioral errors, disagreements, stress and possible conflicts in the workplace.

As we know, things and subjects such as religion, politics, gender and many other things can cause disagreements in the day-to-day work environment. These types of subjects can cause aggravation in the work environment, both in the professional and personal environment.

Empathy in the workplace is important, as it improves the coexistence and understanding of professionals with each other, and makes development and teams much smoother.

This type of behavior should be worked on and stipulated by people and team managers. It can enhance the results and development of employees, reflecting on the company's image.

The advantages of working in a more empathetic environment

The advantages of working in a more empathetic environment. This can greatly strengthen your business, from routine activities to creating new activities. It is essential that companies are aware of the advantages that this can bring to their company.

With this in mind, we have gathered together some of the most common advantages that companies with this type of empathetic environment tend to notice:

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Motivation and productivity

When empathy is encouraged and worked on in the workplace, giving a boost to the team becomes much easier. And the results and performances are noticed both individually and in the company's productivity as a whole.

This competitive advantage must always be healthy, so as not to exceed ethical limits. Furthermore, this competitiveness can be noticed both internally and externally, by evaluating the performance of teams, or in the company culture in general.

Being an important factor for motivation and business growth, it can bring teamwork even closer together.

Leveraged teamwork

Using empathy to improve teamwork can be an excellent way to boost team results and the collective as a whole.

This can be very relevant, as most people pressure for a pleasant environment and relationship. Based on listening, hearing ideas and opinions. Communication with these factors becomes much easier to execute, and generates decisions based on strengthening the team.

Furthermore, when all employees in the company are heard, they feel more useful and share their suggestions and insights about their roles and activities. In addition to making the company more empathetic, this also helps to achieve goals and results.

How to promote empathy in the workplace

With the various advantages shown above, it is still very important that professionals working in the area of team management, be well prepared to encourage empathetic behavior in your subordinates. And for this to happen well, they must possess some important and essential characteristics of empathetic leaders.

See some of the main features below:

Active listening

Active listening is a technique widely used in people management. And through this behavioral technique, professionals can have much more efficient conversations. Since the other person in the conversation will be showing interest in the subject, listening attentively, making the conversation flow, formulating a good dialogue.

People who have the habit of paying attention during a conversation tend to be considered very empathetic, because they show interest in the topic of the conversation and understand what the other person has to say.

All of this aside, active listening breaks a bad stereotype that leaders only know how to talk, give orders and not listen. It makes leaders more accessible and has good people management, more open to the opinions of those they lead.

Show interest in putting yourself in someone else’s shoes

Another form of empathy at work is to put yourself in someone else's shoes. By listening and putting yourself in someone else's shoes, without judgment, comments that affect you and unnecessary opinions, you can affect the person in some way.

Although this empathetic behavior seems to be something easy to put into practice, the reality is different, it is much easier to say you are and have empathy than to actually be.

Companies must promote empathy based on behavior, decisions and expressions, but remember, there is no point in encouraging this type of behavior if not everyone knows what it is.

It is very important to first make sure that employees understand the meaning and purpose of empathy for the company, so that they can encourage empathetic attitudes towards other employees and the company's operating system.

Conclusion

So, according to our studies, empathy is basically the act of understanding what others are going through, based on good active listening and attitudes of respect and understanding towards others.

Empathy at work ensures a better operating system and a more pleasant environment. This ensures that competition between teams is fair and respectful, always aiming for good behavior and the growth of the company.

Finally, empathy behavior at work must be well executed by managers and team leaders, always emphasizing that good professional performance is closely observed in order to differentiate professionals and the development of the team as a whole.

So, does your company practice professional ethics on a daily basis?

See also: 6 commented examples of empathy!

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[email protected] August 5, 2022

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