During a critical project, Beth Brown, a director specializing in health and well-being at a firm focused on employee mental health and absence management, encountered significant personal challenges. Her infant daughter contracted COVID-19, and shortly thereafter, Brown’s mother died. Facing these hardships, Brown informed the senior director from ComPsych, her project collaborator, that she needed to step away to care for her daughter and handle funeral arrangements.
Recalling her feelings at the time, Brown spoke of the guilt she experienced about leaving the project unattended. Rather than immediately discussing project details, the senior director reached out with compassion, inquiring about Brown’s well-being and reassuring her that her work responsibilities could wait. “In the bigger picture, this project isn’t urgent,” her colleague conveyed. “Everything will be here when you return, and I’ll be too.” These supportive words alleviated Brown’s distress substantially.
The principle of treating others with kindness is often instilled early in life, yet such empathy can diminish in professional settings marked by competitive pressures, deadlines, and financial insecurities, including fears of layoffs. Consequently, workplace expressions of genuine kindness become all the more significant and memorable for those receiving them.
Molly MacDermot, director of special initiatives at Girls Write Now, a nonprofit dedicated to mentorship and writing, credits her current manager's kindness during periods of personal loss as profoundly impactful. For MacDermot, whose father passed away eight years prior and mother six months ago, the grace extended by leadership underscored the importance of human connection amidst rapid technological changes influencing work pace.
MacDermot emphasized the necessity of workplaces allowing individuals to express humanity fully, enabling them to navigate life’s challenges while maintaining professional roles.
Kindness in the workplace can manifest in many ways, such as candid yet compassionate feedback, warmly welcoming new employees, or thoughtfully revising policies to accommodate personal circumstances. These actions offer practical avenues for cultivating goodwill and supportive environments.
Create Safe and Inclusive Spaces
Anna Malaika Tubbs, a sociologist and author, highlights that fostering warmth and consideration in a polarized political environment can create workplaces where employees feel seen and accepted. In a time when national divisions run deep, workplaces have the potential to level social playing fields by affirming belonging.
Methods to promote understanding include organizing inclusive staff retreats that welcome family participation, hosting guest speakers, initiating book clubs, and planning enjoyable off-site activities such as escape rooms to encourage dialogue through shared experiences. Such efforts facilitate empathy without erasing differences of opinion or political beliefs.
Tubbs advocates for shifting away from traditional competitive workplace behaviors toward collaborative and community-focused interactions. This cultural transformation aims to replace the common drive to dominate meetings with an emphasis on collective success.
Supporting this perspective, Girls Write Now founder Maya Nussbaum implements meeting routines that prioritize personal sharing, termed "heart warmers," to start sessions on a positive note and encourages active listening to diverse perspectives. She notes that when employees feel valued and heard, their motivation and dedication increase, improving organizational productivity.
Providing Constructive and Compassionate Feedback
Compassion in the workplace also involves delivering honest feedback tactfully. Presenting underperformance issues directly, with specific examples, may be challenging but serves a kind purpose by enabling improvement.
Chantel Cohen, founder and CEO of CWC Coaching and Therapy in Atlanta, stresses that kindness does not imply an absence of conflict but rather the possibility of repair and growth. Managers should balance critiques with recognition of accomplishments to avoid overwhelming employees.
Karla Cen, who experienced harsh criticism from a former manager, contrasts that with her current workplace environment at a Florida retirement community, where supportive gestures like receiving a potted plant on her first day and daily positive reinforcement uplift team morale and prepare staff for upcoming tasks.
Valuing Time and Flexible Approaches
Respecting employees' time can also exemplify kindness. Before scheduling meetings, leaders might consider whether objectives can be met through alternative methods, such as circulating agendas in advance and inviting written input.
Cohen suggests that occasional cancellation of meetings combined with clear communication allows employees to regain valuable time, which could be especially meaningful when time off is limited.
Nussbaum adds that maintaining well-structured, focused meetings contributes to preserving time and energy, enhancing overall workplace efficiency.
Adapting Policies to Support Personal Lives
Long-term couples working together may encounter institutional barriers. Meher Murshed and Anupa Kurian-Murshed, who began dating as colleagues at Gulf News in Dubai and wished to marry, faced a policy forbidding spouses from working in the same department.
By appealing to senior management, they arranged a compromise permitting their marriage and continued employment provided there was no direct supervisory relationship between them. Meher Murshed reflects that this accommodation positively altered their personal and professional trajectories.
Such flexibility underscores the importance of organizations being willing to adapt policies in response to employees' personal circumstances.
Overall, acts of genuine kindness within professional settings—ranging from empathetic communication during personal crises, fostering inclusive cultures, providing balanced feedback, respecting employees’ time, to reconsidering rigid policies—play a crucial role in strengthening workplace well-being, fostering collaboration, and enhancing productivity.