As we embrace Mental Health Awareness Month, May 2023, the world of work is entering a new paradigm in how employers think about and support employee wellbeing. The conversation around mental health at work has entered a new era and, arguably for the first time in the history of the workplace, an open and inclusive one. A 2022 Lyra Health survey of employee benefits found leaders highlighted that organizations are well aware of the greater need for workforce mental health and prioritizing it more than ever. In fact, 92% state that providing mental health support for employees became a higher priority than ever before in 2022 and expect it to stay that way over the next three years.
One potential silver lining in the nuanced pursuit of better mental health awareness in the workplace is the shift in taboos surrounding it. A problem to be ‘left at the door’ of the workplace has undergone a complete transformation, whereby there is no longer any scope for dissociation between professional and personal wellbeing. There is a sense of shared responsibility in solving the psychological struggle of employees. A word often at the center of this debate is empathy.
Seen as a vital leadership competency, workplace empathy means colleagues can establish true and authentic connections with one another that enhance relationships and performance. Once an overlooked soft skill, it has quickly become a beacon of positive culture and a necessity in creating work environments built on curiosity, respect, and kindness.
However, as we witness commentary awash in taglines and leadership rhetoric on the significance empathy brings, there is an alarming level of assumption that empathy exists organically which is not always the case. Instead, organizational behavioral data show that the basis of empathy is emotional self-awareness, which isn’t a skill naturally cultivated today’s achievement-driven culture. The onus is on organizations, their leaders, and broad society to invest in building this skill and its demonstration amongst its workforces. Mental health is no longer looked at from the perspective of isolated individual incidents but a systemic problem that has critical implications for the workplace.
Increasingly governments also recognize the broad-reaching impacts of supporting organizations in promoting positive mental health. The recent public endorsement by the Irish government of Mental Health Ireland, which coproduced a new Workplace Framework to help guide and equip employers and staff with the tools to understand and manage mental health challenges in the workplace, is a testament to the rising importance of addressing this issue through shared ownership.
In a quest for a healthier and happier future, organizations must teach empathy skills through coaching, training, developmental opportunities, and initiatives. At its basic form, empathy can be taught through three methods of deliberate self-reflection.
Self-awareness
By definition, empathy is a social practice; it’s a sense that people can genuinely relate to the challenges and feelings of others and share that sense through their interactions. However, studies from the American Association of Psychology show that empathetic people aren’t just skilled at navigating other people’s emotions, and their own. To truly understand others, you need first to understand yourself and your relatability to their circumstance.
Otherwise, there is a risk that an attempt to be empathetic can have disingenuous consequences and reverse effects. Internal mechanisms like 360 feedback, personality testing, and informal coaching can encourage employees to become aware of who they are as people and the impact they have on others. Empathy can be one of many positive outputs of self-introspection.
Self-regulation
How individuals understand and respond to others' emotions is fundamentally based on the regulatory processes used to shape their own. To truly empathize with others, it is necessary to try and embrace their circumstances and feelings without any judgment or personal bias. Empathy and emotion regulation are interconnected in that those who can emotionally self-regulate can express feelings in a way that is appropriate for the context and situation. However, the ability to see past one’s feelings and triggers in response to others is not a default process.
David Sauvage, advisor to corporations on the power of empathy, says, "There is no healthy balance between the negation of people’s feelings and the acceptance of people’s feelings. The only way to cope is to disassociate." Instead, it is essential that to be an empathetic colleague; people need to acknowledge their triggers to manage how they influence their behaviors in the workplace. Trainings focusing on self-regulation skills and unconscious bias are core components in building empathetic workforces.
Active listening
To understand and relate to the employee experience and challenges, individuals need to feel heard. True empathic listening is listening in its most active form. That involves going beyond the person’s words to grasp their emotions fully. It requires a suspension of biases and ego and listening to understand rather than reply. We cannot underestimate the importance of this in fostering empathy. From someone telling essential truths about how they feel or sharing experiences, there is nothing more important than one to be heard. To listen and communicate empathically, there needs to be a level of vulnerability for both the speaker and the listener.
Lisa Schmidt from The World of Work Project summarizes that while "vulnerability can be hard in all parts of our lives, it is particularly onerous in our professional lives where expectations to keep a friendly but cool professional distance with our colleagues, and project confidence and infallibility are deeply entrenched." To foster empathy within workforces, organizations must also embrace vulnerability and create safe spaces for meaningful communication.
Empathy, although often the exemplar of positive organizational culture, is not a human condition but a practice that should be deliberately fostered. The power to impact organizational cultures to be empathetic and inclusive starts with self-aware individuals who can self-regulate and actively listen. By promoting these core values within our workplaces, organizations, leaders, and key decision-makers, we can help combat the stigma surrounding mental health and create an organic solution to a systemic problem through human interaction that is, at its core, authentic and meaningful connection.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
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Gemma Allen
Gemma Allen is the vice president of B2C technology at IDA Ireland, the agency responsible for the attraction and retention of inward foreign direct investment into Ireland. In her current role with IDA Ireland, she is responsible for building relations with business leaders, political stakeholders and key industry players furthering foreign direct investment into Ireland. Allen is based in New York City and has over 15 years’ experience working with the world’s largest technology companies in the U.S. and Europe.
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