Why soft skills are important for workplace wellbeing

Often in busy work environments there is so much pressure placed on achieving goals and hitting targets that the wellbeing of employees gets forgotten. There could be many reasons why this occurs but ultimately, this kind of responsibility lies with the management and their ability to use soft skills to nurture, inspire, and motivate their workforce. In a study by Gallup, it was found that "about 50% of the 7,200 adults surveyed left a job to get away from their manager".

In order for a business to retain and maintain the wellbeing of staff, it’s vital for employees to feel a level of trust and respect towards their line manager. For many of us, we are much more likely to enjoy job satisfaction and go the extra mile when we are given support not only within our role but also for our mental wellbeing.

How to improve leadership soft skills?

Let’s not forget that managers are also human and might need assistance from time to time to improve their soft skills in order to ensure a happy and positive workplace. Being given help to better their emotional intelligence, communication skills, and interpersonal skills will stand them in good stead for being a respected leader that can maintain a healthy and inclusive workplace culture.

Get to know your team

Although it’s important to have a professional relationship with your employees, it’s equally as important to understand them on a personal level. Finding out what motivates a person, how they respond to stress, or understanding how they communicate with others can help you manage their workload and environment effectively.

Learn to listen properly

Especially when our jobs are busy and stressful, it’s easy to neglect the wellbeing of others, but by taking time out to listen to your staff’s needs or feelings, you can manage workloads much more effectively.

Give considered and empathic feedback

Not only can constructive feedback be beneficial to employees, but it can also help managers understand how they can improve workflow and productivity. It may be that a member of staff is struggling with one particular role, so rather than reprimanding them, ask them if there’s another area they feel they would excel in. Not only does this give them more job satisfaction, but it also gives them the confidence that you have considered their wellbeing.

Developing your own soft skills

Become more aware of an employee’s emotional needs by looking out for any subtle signs that may arise from personal issues, stress, or anxiety. Is someone quieter than usual, are they interacting less with others, do they look tired, are they more agitated than normal? These can all be signs that a member of your team is off-kilter and might need to air their thoughts to you in a private and confidential environment.

How practising empathy can create a better work environment

No matter what kind of industry you work in, the chances are there will be times when work colleagues clash, emotions run high and stress levels go through the roof. Spending so much of our time (whether in person or online) with work colleagues is sure to put a strain on our relationships from time to time.

So, how can we improve our working relationships and what can we do to create a more positive work environment? In Denmark, empathy classes are a part of the curriculum, teaching children from the ages of 6 to 16 how to empathise with others and help to solve each other’s problems collaboratively. Although this method might not necessarily work in an adult workplace, by practising empathy in other ways, we can create a better environment.

The three types of empathy

Psychologist Daniel Goleman believes there are three types of empathy: compassionate, cognitive and emotional. 

1. Cognitive Empathy – Being aware of how someone is feeling or what they're thinking by understanding what other people are experiencing emotionally or mentally on an intellectual level. For example, you recognise when someone is feeling sad even though you might not actually feel their sadness.
2. Emotional Empathy – Physically feeling someone else’s emotions. Perhaps a loved one is going through a lot of pain which creates an emotional response from you such as crying. 
3. Compassionate Empathy – As well as understanding someone’s feelings on an intellectual level and becoming emotionally involved, compassionate empathy means that you want to help the person.

By showing all three types of empathy with the people we work with, we are able to create a sense of trust between one another and connect on a deeper level. In a work environment, you might find that different situations require a different type of empathy, so it’s important to recognise when to understand, when to feel, and when to help.

The American website Businessolver delivered a Workplace Monitor Report in 2017 which detailed how empathy in the workplace impacts on the productivity of employers.

Incorporating empathy into the workplace

There are many ways you can incorporate empathy into the workplace:

• Undertake surveys and questionnaires so you can understand employees better.
• Listen more to colleagues and ask more questions.
• Shadow a colleague in another role so you can observe their working day.
• Try to establish facts before making assumptions about a situation.
• Organise social activities once a month to allow workers to get to know each other on a more personal level.
• Encourage group lunches to promote inclusion.

In 2018, HMRC undertook an empathy experiment to discover how they could improve relationships at work, the results were very interesting.

Working in an environment where there’s little or no compassion between employees and employers can heavily impact on a person’s mental health. Making a few relatively small changes that encourage staff to practise empathy can make a huge difference to the work environment and people’s wellbeing.