Good for All: Fostering Kindness in the Workplace

7-minute read

Imagine working in a setting where colleagues consistently greet each other with sincere smiles, leaders show genuine care for employees, and everyone feels valued and supported.

Too good to be true? Actually, there’s no reason why that scenario can’t be a reality — right now.

Kindness at work is more than just a feel-good concept — it’s a long-term investment in your employees and organization. A foundation built on kindness in the workplace leads to happier, healthier employees and stronger business outcomes.

Why Kindness Matters in the Workplace

MJ Shaar is a well-known wellness culture coach, author, and motivational speaker on how to apply positive psychology to health promotion. She has led sessions for businesses of all sizes, government institutions, wellness and coaching organizations, and universities in 10 countries and 4 continents. MJ uses science-backed research to educate employers on the importance of creating fuller, healthier workplaces through pragmatic changes and strategic shifts in perception such as kindness.

She recently talked with us about kindness at work, citing 3 research examples that highlight how vital these efforts are:

• A Harvard School of Public Health report found that a sense of belonging increases work satisfaction by more than 2 times and productivity by 1½ times
• According to Gallup research, 54% of employees strongly agree that they feel engaged when they can approach their manager with any type of question
• In a Give and Take study of workplace kindness, Givers who completed 5 acts of kindness became less depressed and more satisfied with their lives and jobs, while Receivers paid kindness forward with 278% more prosocial acts than a control group.

“Feeling good and being able to fully engage at work is not only about individual wellness, it’s more and more about our relationships to work, to the organization, and to each other,” MJ explains. “We are currently facing epidemics in work-related stress, loneliness, and burnout — and the stats are worsening. Companies can’t keep on treating these as individual issues; they are organizational challenges.”

Kindness in the Workplace Is Good for Business

Organizations that emphasize kindness create a more positive, productive, and successful work environment where everyone feels valued and motivated to contribute their best, with benefits like these:

• Improved Employee Morale and Mental Health — When employees feel appreciated and respected, their mental health improves significantly, which can lead to greater job satisfaction and resilience.

• Higher Productivity and Collaboration — When employees can trust their leaders and peers, they’re more likely to share ideas, take risks, and innovate. They also waste less time trying to cover their bases, which leaves more room for productive contributions.
• Reduced Employee Turnover — When employees feel connected to their work and colleagues, they know they have something good — and rare! — going. Their loyalty increases, which strengthens relationships and reduces the likelihood of burnout.
  
  

“We’re starting to understand a whole lot more that we are not just individuals who are all acting on our own behalf and impacting our own lives,” MJ explains. “We are realizing more and more that we are part of a culture that influences us in all kinds of ways. Accordingly, the wellness world is increasingly interested in how to improve our relationships to work and at work. I think it’s the most direct solution in order to start improving our wellness. And I think that it goes deep and wide.”

Removing Barriers

Encouraging acts of kindness in the workplace can create a virtuous cycle that benefits everyone, as well as the organization as a whole. Kindness is a cost-effective, accessible, and powerful tool to nurture all that’s good — both individually and collectively — and improvements are easy to start… right away.

These types of initiatives are more needed now than ever.

“Right now, 7 out of 10 people are overly stressed, even burnt out. That’s the post-pandemic reality. Therefore these people are in survival mode,” MJ adds. “They’re not thinking their best thoughts, their highest-order thoughts; they’re not acting as adults as well as they would otherwise. If those of us who are able to initiate more kindness in and around us can reach as many of these afflicted people as possible, we might give them a hand up. That’s why I think that kindness is more needed than ever.”

Here are 3 ways organizations can update values to promote uninhibited kindness that will lead to better work and positive outcomes:

• Emphasize Collaborative Work Environments. Make collaboration a priority, instead of competition and individual performance, to promote more acts of kindness.
• Increase Psychological Safety. Establish an environment where people feel free to express ideas that may be out of the box or even make mistakes without fear of negative consequences.
• Reduce Time and Workload Pressures. Encourage employees to make time for kindness. Even small acts, such as a quick thank-you note or supportive message, can make a significant impact without taking much time.

Read more: Defrosting Corporate Culture With Acts of Kindness

Tips to Promote Workplace Kindness

“To experience the true power of kindness, you can’t just fake it, right?” MJ emphasizes. “I think the first step for the initiatives to be authentic is that people have to understand how deep kindness truly goes. With that understanding in mind, they want the real thing.”

Here’s how you can implement a virtuous cycle of kindness in your organization:

1. Train managers to lead with kindness.
2. Integrate kindness into the core elements of well-being strategies.
3. Highlight acts of kindness in employee recognition programs.
4. Stream kindness media in common areas, break rooms, cafeterias, and trainings.
5. Offer team-building activities that foster positive relationships and encourage kind interactions.
6. Feature civility policies in employee handbooks.
7. Use games and social events to encourage random acts of kindness among team members.
8. Advocate for making sustainability a priority across teams, systems, and supply chains.
9. Adopt kindness as a core organizational value, promoted in internal and external communications.

Read more: How to Launch a Workplace Kindness Challenge

Companies Are Already Spreading Kindness at Work

A survey by Born This Way Foundation found 89% of 1200 US workers say mental health and kindness are high priorities in the workplace. And 77% of respondents are more likely to apply for a job that lists “kindness” as an important value of the company.

MJ confirms: “Kindness needs to become part of everything that we do from the recruitment process to performance evaluations. If kindness is part of your HR practices, then people get the message, ‘Oh, this is important.’”

MJ’s experience with diverse organizations gives her countless examples of positive effects from concentrated kindness at work initiatives. She cites leaders from well-known companies who have used hand-written notes to make their employees feel seen, safe, or special, including:

• Frank Blake, former CEO of The Home Depot
• Dan Cathy, former CEO of Chick-fil-A
• Douglas Conant, former CEO of Campbell Soup.

“They send cards for just about everything: ‘Thank you for what you did. Happy wedding anniversary! Happy birthday to your son. Well done on this task. You made a difference for this person on my team recently. It was good to meet you for the first time.’ All those things make people feel special.”

“My top tip for those CEOs looking to embrace this practice is keep stationery on hand. Because the minute you think about it, you can write it and it’s done; 2 sentences later, people feel a little bit more recognized.”

Kindness in the Workplace Is a Long-Term Initiative

Some employees and leaders may be skeptical about kindness initiatives or view them as distractions from job duties. It’s essential to address this resistance by highlighting the tangible benefits. Remember this 1-2 punch:

• Align Kindness with Business Goals — Show how kindness will improve productivity, customer satisfaction, and financial performance
• Start Small — Begin with small kindness initiatives to build momentum and then gradually expand the program from there.
  
  

Read more: Culture vs. Programs: How to Achieve Well-Being at Work

Raise Awareness of Kindness at Work With Good Nurtured

Research shows kindness in the workplace yields a variety of positive outcomes for businesses, from retaining talent and establishing a culture of compassion to increasing employee engagement and enhancing productivity.

That’s why we created Good Nurtured, focused on the mental, emotional, and physical health benefits of kindness, civility, and graciousness. This new HES challenge inspires organizations to develop stronger connections and build a culture of kindness that benefits everyone.