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Compassion can also be manifest in organizational
mission: treating employees fairly, considering
long-term needs, respecting differences, etc.
Conversely, self-compassion takes the idea and
turns it toward oneself, differing from global self-
esteem in that self-compassionate people tend to
have more resilience and are better able to cope
with failure — driven by a desire to learn. Sharing
these approaches encourages self-development,
community well-being and stronger candidate pools.
Although compassion has been shown to have
positive organizational, physical and psychological
effects (Gilbert, McEwan, Matos, & Rivis, 2010),
there are those who fear it. This is extremely
problematic from an evolutionary standpoint as
affiliative emotions help us regulate threats and
social isolation (Depue & Morrone-Strupinsky, 2005).
There are others who believe showing or receiving
compassion from others is a sign of weakness.
Some feel that if one is compassionate towards
another, he will be taken advantage of, that they do
not deserve self-compassion or are being indulgent.
In my own research, my co-authors (Heineberg,
Sepalla, Rossamando, Doty, Zimbardo, Berger,
Shiue, and Zhou-in press) and I have found that
fear of giving and receiving both compassion and
self-compassion is significantly related to individual
stress, anxiety and depression. Considering the
amount of time Americans work, related stress and
the importance of work to our self-identity, we need
to make compassion more salient and expected
in organizational contexts. Frequently, employers
give no consideration to compassion until workers
compensation claims are filed and their insurance
costs increase.
The majority of work-based, self-help books focus on
individual interactions (for example: use power here,
try active listening, be perceived as empathetic in this
situation) but when developing compassionate policies
and procedures that set the tone for all employee
interactions, some may become uncomfortable.
Human resources management is a fascinatingly
complex mixture of psychology, management and
legal expectations that requires deep consideration in
application of compassion.
The basis for the American Employment Law is equality
and fairness for all, but the rationale for laws and their
relationship between equality and compassion are
rarely discussed. Research in epidemiology, economics
and demographics show that economic inequality
negatively affects human development, resulting in
lower skills, low levels of trust, fewer opportunities
for social mobility, lower physical and mental health,
and contributes to a number of social ills (Wilkinson
and Pickett, 2009). The desire of the legal system to
address past suffering is manifest in compassionate
action, the law. At the same time, no two candidates
have had the same opportunities, same level playing
field before they are evaluated by HR professionals.
And given HR’s critical application of equality and
meritocracy, compassionate action may also be illegal.
How Do We Practice Compassion
Within the Constraints of Our Profession?
We need to truly understand the full breadth and
depth of our constituencies. Compassion is not
only a response to organizational pain, but also a
value, linked to tangible behavior that occurs both
within and outside of the organization. Candidates
for positions deal with multiple opportunities and
challenges. Stress impacts performance in not only
the recruitment process, but also personnel testing
and subsequent work. Accordingly, long-range
relationships with labor pools should be considered
for organizational reputation, opportunity, community
well-being and corporate social responsibility while
recruiting in a transparent manner.
So, ask yourself, “If there was a tool to…
a. Drive compassion through an organization
and community
b. Develop an HR pipeline for future talent
c. Offer a realistic job preview without hiring
d. Facilitate compassionate interpersonal
skills development in current employees
e. Provide data to report corporate
social responsibility
f. Position the organization as a
great place to work
…would you use it?”
Outside the walls of our
workplace are the communities we exist in (our
talent pool) and we have all the tools we need to
develop, mentor and cultivate the next generations
of talent, while compassionately addressing the lack
of equity manifest in society.
Mentoring: Compassion in Action
One way to take advantage of the above is to use
an ancient and well-established productivity driver,
mentoring, to expand the impact of compassion
across relationships. The mentorship process
benefits the protégé with more satisfaction, career
mobility/opportunity, recognition and a higher
promotion rate then non-mentored individuals.
Mentors experience greater career satisfaction and
a sense of fulfillment.
While most Fortune 500 companies have
mentoring programs based on a proven track
record in employee development, mentoring can
be emotionally challenging and involve honest
(but difficult) disclosures for both protégé and
mentor. As such, mentoring programs should have
competency-based assignments that facilitate a
structured, but open-ended relationship that is time
bound and has specific, job-related goals that can
be accomplished by the pair.
Mentoring is widely understood, but little has been
done in predicting mentor-protégé relationship
outcomes and their subsequent impact on the
relationship. As important, the science of mentoring
has not been fully minded, with a lack of awareness
of the potentially limiting impact of emotions on
mentoring relationships. Critically, we have a tendency
to think of mentoring as an internal system within our
organizations. In reality, developing and cultivating
critical relationships with custom built talent pipelines
(local universities developing students within our
occupations) that meet our needs to develop our
future employees, creating a free recruitment tool is
well within budget and reach.
HR
Daniel E. Martin, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor
of Management at California State University, East
Bay and a Visiting Associate Professor at CCARE,
Stanford University. Formerly a visiting scholar at
the Center for the Study of Law & Society at U.C.
Berkeley, a Research Fellow for the U.S. Army
and a Personnel Research Psychologist for U.S.
OPM, he has worked with private, public and
non-profit organizations on pre-employment selection, training and organizational
assessment. His current work uses social capital to ameliorate social problems.
Dan holds a Ph.D. in Social/Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Howard
University. Reach Dan at
. Learn more about his
ground-breaking mentoring software at
.
Employee Relations
