How to Implement Empathy Training in the Workplace

Empathy training in the workplace can lead to powerful results for your team and customers. What do we mean by empathy? Empathy is the ability to understand other people and walk a mile in their shoes, as well as the ability to put that understanding into intentional practice through care, concern, active listening, and leaving your assumptions at the door.

In the past, this skill was often overlooked by workplaces. But isn’t understanding the needs and wants of your customers, clients, and stakeholders at the core of succeeding as a business? If you are unable to understand your customer’s feelings, needs, and desires, how can you expect to serve them effectively?

Continue reading to learn how to improve empathy at work using various forms of empathy training.

Benefits of Empathy in the Workplace

The benefits of empathy are far-reaching for individuals, businesses, and the people your business serves.?

By leading with empathy, you can strive to meet your customer’s needs throughout the entire customer journey, including acknowledging what they’ve been through in the past, any pain points they might be facing currently, and their dreams and desires for the future.

But the power of empathy doesn’t stop there. Building your empathy skills as a team increases trust across your organization, which means your team can work efficiently and effectively, anticipating each other's needs. Empathy helps team members see beyond their own tendencies and communication preferences to meet each other halfway. This trust also leads to faster, more effective decision making—another win for productivity.

A team that leads with empathy will build long-lasting bonds. When the people around you are kind, good listeners, and always aiming to understand your perspective, you’ll feel at ease. Comfortable teams are more willing to participate in all aspects of the business and speak freely about new ideas, which leads to increased?creativity?and innovation.?

Learn more about the power of this important skill and why it’s one of today’s most sought-after attributes. In a previous article, we discussed the importance of empathy in the workplace, including empathy in the workplace examples for teams, your clients, and your community:?Cultivating Empathy in the Workplace—Today’s #1 Skill.

The Data Around Empathy in the Workplace

Not convinced? The data says it all.

A recent?report from Catalyst, a global nonprofit helping to build workplaces that work for women, highlighted the data-baked power of empathy in the workplace. The survey collected data from a diverse group of 889 US employees.

For example, 76% of people surveyed who reported highly empathic leaders said they were often or always engaged. In comparison, only 32% of people surveyed who reported less empathic leaders said they were often or always engaged.

The report is filled with valuable insights, including key findings that conclude:?“Empathy boosts productivity. Employees with empathic managers and leaders are more innovative and engaged in their work than are employees with less empathic managers and leaders.”

Overall, the findings indicate that empathy from leaders in an organization boosts innovation and engagement, decreases employee burnout, supports work/life balance, fosters inclusive employee experiences, and predicts lower intent to leave the organization.

?? Learn more from the report:?The Power of Empathy in Times of Crisis and Beyond (Report).

What is Empathy Training?

While the idea of empathy—understanding someone else—is a simple enough concept, in practice, it becomes more difficult, especially when that practice is occurring in a workplace. How do you improve your own empathy skills, and how do you replicate that on a larger scale across an organization?

Empathy training encompasses a wide range of best practices, learning, listening, and skill building. From simple everyday practices to large-scale company-wide training sessions and courses, empathy training requires complete cross company buy-in. The pursuit of workplace empathy must be completely supported by leadership and management. At the same time, the rest of the team?must understand the importance and value of empathy. Skill building will only work if each individual aims to actively improve their empathy skills.

To learn more about strategies for implementing empathy training across your organization, visit the Creative Problem Solving School blog

Overlap’s?Creative Problem Solving School?brings empathy-driven training to individuals, teams, and organizations. Our courses help people and groups build critical empathy skills, including how to ask better questions, how to lose your assumptions, how to make decisions that consider everyone involved, and how to test and gather feedback so that you can design your products and services around the needs of your customers.?

Each course includes practical and engaging materials that will leave you thinking about your impact on those around you and well-equipped to solve whatever complex problems come your way.?

Learn how to work better together, understand your customers, and solve complex challenges with our wide range of courses. New to?design thinking? We recommend starting with our?Intro to Human-Centred Design (101)?course. You can further your education and team building with our?Exploring Complex Problems (201)?and?Making Better Decisions (203)?courses.