While the worst of the pandemic might be behind us, anxiety and burnout aren’t going away any time soon. Complicating this, suggests a new study, is a decline in the level of empathy among employers:
- 69% of employees say their organization is empathetic, down from 72% last year.
- 69% of CEOs believe it’s their job to build empathy. However, few workers identify the CEO as playing the most important role in promoting workplace empathy; instead, they say, direct managers are the greatest source of empathy-building.
- 79% of CEOs say they struggle to be empathetic, and 77% worry that they would lose respect if they’re seen as being too empathetic.
For CEOs and manager who want to build empathy, some strategies include empowering and training managers, offering flexible work, and offering mental health benefits.
