Don’t Underestimate the
Power of Kindness at Work
by
and
May 07, 2021
Summary. Organizations
benefit from actively fostering kindness. In workplaces where acts of kindness
become the norm, the spillover...
Everybody
wants to be happy. But how can we meet that sometimes elusive goal? This was a
difficult question even before the global pandemic, but nowadays just thinking
about it can seem futile. Parents are trying to balance the demands of remote work and online
schooling; people who live alone try to keep their focus in isolation. When
life is measured by back-to-back Zoom meetings, even taking a shower can seem
like a win.
The
transformation of the workplace into scheduled online meetings has led to
another source of deprivation: The removal of serendipitous encounters. For many people,
hearing a colleague say, “Thank you so much” in the hallway, or a manager
telling you “Great job” after a presentation were a highlight of office life.
Now, these seem like traditions from another lifetime. Without water cooler
interactions, casual lunches, and coffee breaks with colleagues, we don’t have
the same opportunities for social connection as before. Without them, it can be
much harder to find joy in our work. So, what can we do about it?
We
offer a humble suggestion: Kindness. This past year, most management advice has
focused on how to sustain productivity during the pandemic, yet the power of
kindness has been largely overlooked. Practicing kindness by giving complimentsand recognition has the
power to transform our remote workplace.
The Benefits of Kindness
A
commitment to be kind can bring many important benefits. First, and perhaps
most obviously, practicing kindness will be immensely helpful to our
colleagues. Being recognized at work helps reduce employee burnout and
absenteeism, and improves employee well-being, Gallup finds year after year in its
surveys of U.S. workers. Receiving a compliment, words of recognition, and
praise can help individuals feel more fulfilled, boost their self-esteem, improve
their self-evaluations, and trigger positive emotions, decades of research haveshown. These positive downstream
consequences of compliments make intuitive sense: Praise aligns with our
naturally positive view of ourselves, confirming our self-worth.
Second,
practicing kindness helps life feel more meaningful. For example, spending
money on others and volunteering our time improves wellbeing, bringing
happiness and a sense of meaning to life, research finds. Being kind brings a sense of
meaning because it involves investing in something bigger than ourselves. It
shapes both how others perceive us — which improves our reputation — and how we
view ourselves. We draw inferences about who we are by observing
our own behavior, and our acts of kindness make us believe that we
have what it takes to be a good person. In the remote workplace, where
cultivating moments of joy is difficult, this may be a particularly important
benefit that translates into long-term job satisfaction.
Third,
as we found in a new set of studies, giving compliments can make us even
happier than receiving them. We paired up participants and asked them to write
about themselves and then talk about themselves with each other. Next, we asked
one of them to give an honest compliment about something they liked or
respected about the other participant after listening to them. Consistently, we
found that giving compliments actually made people happier than receiving them.
Surprisingly, though, people were largely unaware of the hedonic benefits of
being kind.
Why
does giving compliments boost our happiness to such a degree? A key ingredient
of well-being that we’ve sorely lacked during the pandemic plays a role: social
connection. In our studies, we found that giving compliments engendered a
stronger social connection than receiving compliments because giving them
encouraged people to focus on the other person. Sure, receiving a compliment feels great,
but making a thoughtful, genuine compliment requires us to think about someone
else — their mental state, behavior, personality, thoughts, and feelings.
Thinking about other people is often a precondition to feeling connected to them. In
this way, compliments can become a social glue, enhancing connections and
positivity in relationships, and making us happier.
Nonetheless,
people are often hesitant to give compliments. Why? The idea of approaching
someone and saying something nice can trigger social anxiety and discomfort, recent research by Erica Boothby and
Vanesa Bohns shows. For this reason, we assume people will feel uncomfortable
and be bothered by receiving a compliment, when the opposite is true.
In
addition to these psychological barriers, working remotely has added more
structural barriers to random acts of kindness, compliments, and recognition.
Before the pandemic, organizations often recognized employees through formal
programs, while serendipitous encounters could easily generate a simple thank
you or words of praise. By contrast, today’s Zoom meetings tend to follow
strict agendas that leave no room for any other topic, let alone compliments.
Organizations
benefit from actively fostering kindness. In workplaces where acts of kindness
become the norm, the spillover effects can multiply fast. When people receive
an act of kindness, they pay it back, research shows — and not just to the same
person, but often to someone entirely new. This leads to a culture of
generosity in an organization. In a landmark studyanalyzing
more than 3,500 business units with more than 50,000 individuals, researchers
found that acts of courtesy, helping, and praise were related to core goals of
organizations. Higher rates of these behaviors were predictive of productivity,
efficiency, and lower turnover rates. When leaders and employees act kindly towards each other, they
facilitate a culture of collaboration and innovation.
Bringing Kindness to Work
How can
leaders promote kindness in the remote workplace? First, they can lead by
example. People are naturally sensitive to the behaviors of high-status team
members. By giving compliments and praising their employees, leaders are likely
to motivate team members to copy their behavior and create norms of kindness in
teams.
Second,
leaders can set aside time during Zoom meetings for a “kindness round” in which
team members are free to acknowledge each other’s work. This need not take much
time — even a few minutes a week will suffice. But these few minutes can boost
morale and social connection, especially when months-long projects are mostly
completed over Zoom.
Third,
consider small spot bonuses. Companies such as Google
have used “peer bonus” systems to encourage employees to send small amounts of
money (from a fund in the organization) to each other to show appreciation for
particularly effective work. Even a few dollars could have a positive effect; research finds that
people appreciate small acts of kindness as much as large ones. A gift card or
a small gift sent through the mail might work just as well. Simply knowing that
one is appreciated can trigger the psychological benefits of kindness without
costing the organization substantial sums.
The
power of kindness can mitigate the ill effects of our increasingly online
social world. It is an essential leadership skill that can cascade through
people, changing the culture of the workplace along the way.
- Ovul Sezer is
a behavioral scientist, stand-up comedian, and Assistant Professor of
Organizational Behavior at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School.
- Kelly Nault is
a PhD candidate in Organizational Behavior at INSEAD. Her research focuses
on person perceptions and social decision making affecting status dynamics
in organizations.
- Nadav Klein is
a behavioral scientist and Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior
at INSEAD
