Kindness in the Workplace: Why It’s Essential and 8 Ways to Practice It

The world often isn’t a kind place. The workplace should be.

Generally, people want to work at a nice place. But being a nice place to work has critical business attributes.

“Within our jobs, more than ever, people are feeling like they don’t know their place,” says Tessa West, Professor of Psychology at New York University, author of Jerks at Work and Job Therapy, and expert in interpersonal communication. “It’s almost like we all feel like we’re back in the first year of high school: uncomfortable in our own skin and insecure in ways that we aren’t used to. And because of this, we’re often looking to our colleagues and bosses and mentors to help provide some sense of security, to help ground us. Kindness is about providing that.”

Why Kindness is More Than a Nice-to-Have

Here’s the good business news: Workplaces that promote and support kindness excel, according to a compilation of studies by researchers Nicki Macklin, Thomas H. Lee and Amy C. Edmondson published in the Harvard Business Review.

Specifically, those workplaces show:

• stronger relationships
• greater collaboration
• higher engagement, and
• longer employee retention.

While those are quantifiable data points (that vary from one successful business to the next), kindness is seen and felt through employees who are willing to help each other, unafraid to share ideas, willing to speak up, and happy to promote where they are.

Incivility at Work Hurts

On the other side of the coin, incivility at work is bad.

More than a quarter of employees in a meQuilibrium survey said they’ve experienced incivility while working. It’s often the absolute opposite of kindness. That includes:

• Being ignored or dismissed
• Having personal or professional judgment questioned
• Being addressed in an unprofessional manner.
• Getting yelled or cursed at
• Being accused of incompetence, or
• Being the butt of jokes.

On an anecdotal scale, the meQuilibrium researchers found that people who experience incivility at work end up with sore necks, bruised egos and burned motivation.

“Workplace incivility creates a toxic work environment that undermines team cohesion and collaboration, erodes trust between employees and their managers, and can ultimately damage the organization’s reputation,” says Brad Smith, PhD., Chief Science Officer, meQuilibrium.

Compound that with the unkind world we often face when we scroll social media, turn on the news or walk out the office door, and it’s often even more difficult to maintain a kind workplace.

But, at HRMorning, we want to help. Here are eight strategies to bring more kindness to the workplace.

1. Know What Kindness Is

Macklin, one of the Harvard Business School researchers (in separate research that aimed to distinguish between kindness, compassion and empathy) came up with this definition of kindness: The proactive effort to support someone else’s growth, well-being, or success; it is a set of observable, intentional actions.

If the workplace isn’t the perfect place to practice kindness, we can’t imagine anything better! But if you still need an extra nudge to identify and celebrate it, plan for World Kindness Day on November 13.

2. Know What Kindness Isn’t

So bear with us here. Kindness isn’t niceness. Personally, being nice reminds me of the process of rushing sororities in college: Every girl who wanted to be in a sorority was considered “nice.” I can assure you that many were not kind. Some were downright nasty.

Fortunately, West, the psychology professor, explains it much better. “Nice is a way of presenting oneself during social interactions. Sometimes it’s a consequence of impression management–there’s social pressure to put on a smile and so you do it. And sometimes it’s genuine. You really are ‘nice’ in how you speak, what your nonverbals are.

“But it’s more of how you present yourself. Kindness goes deeper. Kindness takes a lot more work. And I think the version of kindness that people want right now is about helping ground each other through the behaviors I describe above.”

3. Step Back, Grab Oxygen

The meQuilibrium researchers found that the least toxic workplaces are where leaders check their well-being so they can ensure their employees are well, too.

“Data from the study show that managers report higher levels of stress-related productivity impairment, higher burnout and elevated turnover risk compared to non-managers,” researchers wrote in their report. “Reminding managers to put on their own ‘oxygen mask’ first is an important first step. It is necessary to refresh and enlarge our concept of leadership training to emphasize the necessity of leading by modeling resilience while maintaining one’s own well-being as the top priority.”

4. Stand Up, Stick Up

True kindness isn’t a symbolic display of empathy when something goes wrong.

“Nothing is less kind than a public flex of caring about an issue, but a private display of, ‘Not my problem, not my solution,’” says West. “It takes work to be kind. Sometimes, it means losing some social capital because you’re sticking up for the person who needs your kindness.”

Beyond that, West reminds us to notice the people around us.

“Most people who need kindness aren’t wearing a sign, ‘Please help me!’ They are probably a bit withdrawn. Maybe struggling to fit in, get their work done. Pay attention to people. Bring them in,” she says.

5. Set (or Reestablish) Standards

In today’s expansive workplace — across fully remote, hybrid and in-office spaces, kindness needs wings.

That’s because virtual incivility — the kind that goes on behind cameras in Zoom meetings, through keyboards in workplace apps and verbally on phone calls — happens and can be more difficult to detect. So it’s more important to set or re-establish etiquette standards.

It won’t hurt to cover in-person and online etiquette.

A good starting point is your existing, on-site behavior guidelines and expectations. In addition to those, give examples of what’s acceptable. A few:

• Raise your hand (real or virtual) before speaking
• Address colleagues respectfully
• Do not yell or use profane language, and
• Listen to the speaker.

6. Pay Attention

Good leaders pay attention to their team’s well-being. With that, they can cut turnover risk by more than 75%, the meQuilibrium study found. Plus, their employees are 33% less likely to struggle with motivation and are about 55% less likely to be highly stressed.

“Effective managers who support team mental well-being dramatically improve retention and speed innovation by ensuring psychologically safe environments,” says Jan Bruce, CEO and co-founder at meQuilibrium. “Supportive managers cut burnout risk, boost productivity and provide an important buffer against incivility.”

How can you do it? Decide to do it. When you check in with employees at regular one-on-ones, ask how they feel about the state of kindness on the team and in your workplace. If you hear red flag words such as “ignored,” “yelled” and “rude,” it’s time to address issues head-on.

7. Encourage Calling ‘In,’ Not ‘Out’

People tend to call out others when they experience or witness incivility: Defense is the natural instinct.

But University of Michigan and Dalhousie University researchers suggest a counterintuitive approach: Call in people.

Here’s how it works: Invite instigators — aka, people who are unkind — into a quiet meeting to talk, understand, learn and hopefully correct negative behaviors. Meanwhile, support the victims.

Some keys to the conversations:

• Avoid blame and snap judgments
• Cite exact behaviors that violate codes of conduct
• Focus on how the behavior affects others, and
• Guide the person to take responsibility for the behavior and the fix.

8. Bring Back Niceties

Many of the old workplace niceties — nice to have, nice to do, nice to see — don’t exist these days. For instance, people don’t bring in doughnuts for the crew because the crew isn’t in. Teams don’t chat socially before meetings start because they click on the Zoom meeting the second it starts.

But if managers make time for some niceties again, they might curb incivility.

Take the lead: Don’t consider the time to “catch up with colleagues” unproductive or irrelevant. You might start meetings by giving employees a chance to share one good thing that’s happened to them today. Or set up a “brag board” on your internal communication app where employees can post news about themselves, families and accomplishments.

Further, West suggests:

• Give honest feedback that is useful for making smart decisions in the here and now.
• Share whatever insider information you have that can help someone get past that “lost” feeling, and
• Share connections that might help them get answers to questions you don’t have answers to.