When organizations show compassion by protecting capacity and setting boundaries, employees are nine-times more likely to produce great work and organizations are 13-times more likely to innovate regularly, according to a new report by the O.C. Tanner Institute.
It found when employee capacity is protected, the odds that employees feel their leader demonstrates compassion increased by 10-times and the odds that employees feel compassion is shown by team members increased by eight-times.
Notably, employees at organizations that practice compassion were 11-times more likely to stay for another year. The odds of burnout dropped 87 per cent and the odds that employees feel supported in their work increased 12 per cent.
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The report also identified three pillars of organizational compassion: a foundation of care, capacity protection and guidelines and boundaries. A foundation of care means considering employee impact alongside business outcomes and having that reflected in organizational strategy and total rewards, says Dr. Alexander Lovell, vice-president of the O.C. Tanner Institute.
“To protect capacity, leaders need to understand how much work employees can reasonably take on. They may assume [artificial intelligence] has given employees more time, but in fact, checking the work it produces hasn’t given them any time back in their workday. Before increasing expectations, organizations need to ensure leaders discuss with employees what their jobs involve and keep workloads manageable.”
Guidelines make those decisions consistent and fair by setting clear limits on after-hours work and giving managers authority to extend deadlines when employees are overloaded, she adds.
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AI can help employees finish a task sooner without making their day any less full, so leaders need to understand where the work has shifted before deciding whether someone can take on another assignment, notes Lovell.
“That conversation can be difficult for some employees who worry setting boundaries will be seen as a lack of dedication. Someone may care deeply about the outcome and need to say ‘no’ to deliver on their existing responsibilities. Organizations need to make that a conversation employees can have without feeling penalized.”
However, the willingness to help colleagues can stretch some people too thin when they don’t have support and lead to “compassion fatigue”, she adds. To prevent this, Lovell recommends organizations have backup plans and escalation policies that account for reduced staffing and distribute work based on the team’s available capacity.
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