Beth Brown was assigned to a major project at work when hardship struck. First, her 6-month-old daughter fell ill with COVID-19. A few days later, her mother passed away.
Brown, director of health and well-being at a company that provides employee mental health programs and absence management services, sent a note to the senior ComPsych director who was her partner on the project, explaining she would have to miss work to care for her daughter and to make funeral arrangements. “The guilt that I felt for knowing I was going to leave her dry on my end,” she recalled.
Instead of calling to go over remaining tasks, the director reached out to ask whether Brown was OK and to tell her not to worry about the project. “In the grand scheme of things, this is not important,” Brown recalled her colleague saying. “It’ll be here when you get back. I’ll be there when you’re back.” Hearing the kind words, Brown “felt like there was a brick taken off my chest.”
The importance of treating others with kindness is one of the first lessons most parents and guardians try to teach children. But the skill sometimes falls by the wayside in work settings that encourage competition and where adults face deadlines and pressure. Financial worries and fears of layoffs also can stifle generous impulses.
Perhaps that’s why acts of kindness on the job often are so memorable for those on the receiving end. Molly MacDermot, director of special initiatives at Girls Write Now, a nonprofit mentorship and writing program, feels lucky to have a boss who was kind to her when MacDermot’s father died eight years ago and her mother passed away six months ago.
As technology accelerates the pace of many types of work, “it’s really important to feel human, to be allowed to be human, which is getting the grace to just deal with the bumps in life,” MacDermot said.
Kindness can also mean sharing hard truths in a productive way, going out of the way to welcome a new coworker or bending the rules for the sake of love.
Here are some examples of kindness in action and ideas for spreading goodwill at work.
Create safe spaces
Treating others with warmth and consideration may be especially meaningful at a time of heightened political divisions that has many people feeling like they have to choose sides, said Anna Malaika Tubbs, a sociologist and author of “The Three Mothers” and “Erased.”
“Especially in a workplace, where you can level the playing field and really make sure people know, ‘Hey, you’re welcome here and you’re seen here,’ that can really make a difference at a time when on a national level people feel really divided from each other,” Tubbs added.
One way to encourage empathy at work is to create an environment where people get to know each other, Tubbs said. Organizing staff retreats where family members are welcome, bringing in guest speakers, starting book clubs and scheduling fun offsite activities like going to an escape room are ways to generate shared experiences and facilitate healthy dialogues, she said.
The goal isn’t “to erase political difference or erase being able to disagree with each other” but to promote a cultural shift by encouraging behavior and actions different from the ones that often get rewarded at work, Tubbs said.
“Let’s not show up to meetings thinking that we have to compete and show who’s going to be the loudest and who’s going to be the most dominant,” she said. “What would look differently if we were collaborating with each other? If we were more focused on community?”
Creating a supportive culture within an organization requires daily attention, said Maya Nussbaum, the founder of Girls Write Now and MacDermot’s boss. She starts meetings with “heart warmers,” a time for staff members to share their thoughts on topics as simple as a favorite candle. She also encourages actively listening to different perspectives.
“Productivity is better when people feel that they’re valued and they’re listened to and they matter,” Nussbaum said. “They’re going to work harder and they are going to care, and they’re going to channel their passion as opposed to feeling dismissed.”
Provide real feedback
Compassion can mean sharing hard truths in a tactful way. For example, it’s challenging to let people know they aren’t meeting performance expectations, but “sometimes kindness is getting out of your comfort zone and telling someone the truth so they can shine,” said Chantel Cohen, founder and CEO of Atlanta-based CWC Coaching and Therapy, a counseling and life coaching practice in Atlanta.
When providing feedback as a manager, give specific examples to illustrate the behaviors that need improvement, she said. “Kindness isn’t a conflict-free workplace. Kindness is a workplace where repair is possible or improvement is possible,” Cohen said.
However, remember to acknowledge successes. Karla Cen recalls a former boss who she says criticized her several times a day. She learned a lot, but felt unrelenting pressure.
A manager at the retirement community in Florida where Cen works now brought her a potted plant on her first day after driving four hours to meet her. Another manager provides encouraging feedback daily.
“Having her pass by and say, ‘You did that really well today,’ it just really uplifts the mood of the whole department and makes us ready to come in for the next challenges,” Cen said.
Give back time
Before scheduling a meeting, consider whether the goals can be accomplished another way. For example, a manager can tell a working group, here’s what’s on the agenda, take time to think about it and send your ideas in writing, Cohen suggested.
“Sometimes, the gift of time is such a kindness,” she said. “Maybe you can’t give your team time off right now, but what you could do a couple times a quarter is just say, ‘Hey we’re going to skip tomorrow’s meeting and here are the things I want you all to think about. Submit this in writing so that you can have the time for yourselves.’”
Keeping meetings structured and focused also frees up time, Nussbaum said.
Reconsider rules
Meher Murshed began dating a colleague, Anupa Kurian-Murshed, more than two decades ago when they both worked at Gulf News in Dubai. The couple wanted to marry, but the newspaper prohibited spouses from working in the same department. They feared one of them would have to quit if they wed.
So they appealed to their editor-in-chief, who raised the issue with the managing director. The top managers decided the couple could keep their jobs and get married as long as one of them didn’t report to the other.
“It changed our lives. Life could have been very different,” Meher Murshed said.
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