Table of Content
Empathy in HR is an absolute must in today’s workplaces. Empathy increases the chances of employee retention and decreases the turnover rate as the employee gets bonded with their HRs and managers.
Listening to employees, solving their problems, giving them flexibility, and much more are part of empathy for HR. It helps to build stronger relationships between employees and enhance work productivity. HR needs innovative and smart HRMS software in India to implement it successfully.
uKnowva brings a lot of features in itself and provides smart solutions by streamlining and automating the tasks of HRs.
Today you will get an insight into the term empathy and why it is so essential for HR leaders. So read the content and get the knowledge for increasing and implementing better empathetic practices at workplaces.
Want to skip this content?
Schedule a demo.
Defining Empathy in HR in the Workplace
When an HR can perceive and relate to the emotions, thoughts, and experiences of the employees is defined as empathy in HR. When the HR has a high level of empathy skills developed in themselves, they can easily understand the situation from the employee’s perspective and react with compassion.
The relationship will grow strong when your workforce establishes this behaviour sincerely. It helps in enhancing relationships and the performance of the company. Remember that there is a difference between sympathy and empathy, so don’t get confused between the two.
- Sympathy is a feeling of pity for other employees without understanding the actual situation of the employees.
- On the other hand, Empathy is the feeling in which one imagines them in place of the other person and experiences the ideas, emotions, or opinions.
That is why empathy is more desirable in the workplace, as it leads to more productivity and engagement.
The Importance of Empathy in HR
In today’s race to achieve success, basic human emotion gets lost. But to have a successful business and enhance work productivity, HR have to focus on their emotion of empathy towards employees as it can adversely affect the workplace environment.
-
Help employees with personal problems
Due to increasing workload, the lines between personal life and work life are becoming increasingly blurred. As an empathetic manager, you must understand their situation and take necessary actions in the matter, as employees are also maintaining their professional life with their problematic personal life.
Sorting out personal life is essential as it impacts the work quality of the employee. Being present at the moment when your employee needs you the most spreads the wave of positivity in the workplace culture.
Communicate with employees freely with the social intranet so they can reach you whenever they want. Encouraging transparency in the workplace helps to foster psychological safety and make employees feel comfortable with managers and HRs.
-
Watch for signs of burnout in employees
As the workload increases, the cases of work burnout due to intense pressure and stress also increase. Many of the employees find it hard to maintain a balance in their personal and work life.
Working for longer hours to meet project deadlines hardly saves home life. But when you have empathetic skills as a manager, you will be able to recognise the sign of burnout in employees.
It will help you to avoid burnout in your organisation and spare the workforce culture from becoming disengaged and having high turnover rates.
With the help of innovative HRMS, you will get insights into how employees are handling the current workload and suggest ways to help them in recovering from overwork.
-
Show compassion for a personal loss
A bond is made when one feels the pain that the other is going through. In this digital age, this can’t be possible, but as an HR, show your compassion when your employee discloses their loss to you as a friend or mentor.
If you use your empathetic leadership skills correctly, it helps to build strong connections and make the employee feel listened to and valued. You can even offer a half-day leave, order brunch or do anything that strikes your mind to make them feel good.
-
Make a habit of listening first
One of the essential skills of HR is listening. A good leader must always practice this skill and keep it going in day-to-day life. But it becomes difficult many times as HR has a lot to handle and especially when they are tasked with communicating the organisation’s policies and needs.
You liaison between the senior authorities and the employees, so you have to upskill yourself at a definite time. Some ways in which you can become a better and more empathetic listener are:
- Establish a course of action
- Validate the feelings of employees
- Generate a distraction-free block for communication
Empathy in HR: The Key to building resilient and thriving workplaces
In recent times, HRs and managers have thought of it as a soft and inconsequential skill that they may or may not contain. But as the scenario changes, the difference between the reality and the misconceptions of empathy in HR has been cleared out.
Now, empathy has become a vital part of building a resilient and thriving workplace. To become a successful HR and create better programs, HR has to listen to people, look into the matter which gets more voices, and measure outcomes. It is a give-and-take relationship.
When HR and managers provide the right kind of support to the employees, it fosters their level of trust in the organisation and will help to emerge even stronger in the market. This whole journey of success starts with the empathy shown by an HR to its employees.
Conclusion
In this blog, we have shared things that HR will need to hone their empathetic leadership skills to improve their effectiveness and increase their chances of success in the company. Retaining top talents and decreasing the employee turnover rate play a critical role in leading organisations. Thus, with uKnowva, HR can build empathy and play a part as an asset for the organisation. This HRMS helps to effectively build and maintain relationships between the workforce.
Contact us for a demo.
Other blog to read:
