Is a ‘Chief Empathy Officer’ there to help employees or just the business?
Is a ‘Chief Empathy Officer’ there to help employees or just the business?
Microsoft and LEGO have both claimed to be putting empathy at the heart of their senior leadership approach. Not only does an emphasis on empathy lead to happier employees, they say, but it also means better performance, higher levels of customer satisfaction and a stronger brand.
Josh Bersin, HR and management guru in the US, has coined the term ‘Chief Empathy Officer’ to emphasise the growing importance of a caring attitude to building a sense of belonging in the workforce, particularly in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the need for engagement and resilience. Employers need to prove that they are a shoulder to lean on, he has concluded. As the most visible people, business leaders need to take on that role: people first, economics second.
Empathy in action
During 2020 there were a number of instances when CEOs were shown to be demonstrating their credentials as Chief Empathy Officers. For example, Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, and his call for CEOs to follow in his footsteps of making a “no layoff pledge” for 90 days, to give more security to employees and build more confidence. When redundancies were needed, CEOs like Mark Hoplamazian at Hyatt Hotels have been pointed to as models of leaders doing their very best to minimise the anxiety: decisions were made quickly to reduce any waiting period, and wide-ranging support provided for everyone affected.
According to Dr. Elizabeth Yuko, the Professor of Ethics at Fordham University, a culture of empathy generally at work leads to greater productivity. When people feel more comfortable and secure, knowing that their issues are being understood, the workplace is transformed, because “there is a people issue behind nearly every problem in a company,” said Bersin.
EAPs keep it real
EAPA UK chair Eugene Farrell said: “Empathy is a valuable quality for everyone in the workplace – something simple and fundamental, staying human, caring about other people and how they’re feeling.
“Making empathy a focus for business leadership and decision-making, however, is something more difficult and complex. Staff want empathy from their manager, they want it from HR; and when they have particular challenges they know they’re going to experience empathy from professionals delivering services on behalf of an EAP. But the CEO and other senior leaders have to make the hard business decisions that are essential for resilience and security. They have to get the balance right between economics and people.
“It’s important that the principle of empathy isn’t de-valued though mis-use. No-one wants to get to a situation where employers use the idea to boost their employer branding, for good PR, when behind the scenes exactly the same hard decisions are being made.
“In reality, the support for staff and their sense of psychological security comes from conversations with their peers, their line manager, knowing that they have the option of contacting an EAP and getting professional advice and guidance. In the difficult months ahead, as workplaces try to return to something close to normal ways of working, all employees need to know that the caring and the everyday support they receive is real, not window-dressing.”