Managing with kindness

Kindness from a management perspective is best practised through clear and constant communication, and praising and rewarding employees. By employers persistently emphasising praise for employees and allocating sufficient reward (not just financial, though!), a sense of kindness is transpired which can lead to domino effect of further kindness in and around the business. This can help to make employees feel valued which in a time where many employees are being furloughed and almost pushed away from the business, a sense of worth from their employers can give an unquestionable boost psychologically. In addition to this, by employees having this sense of value from the kindness they have received, there is a greater likelihood for the trust between employee and employer to be significantly increased, rather than employees turning to other companies. In what is traditionally a employee’s market, loyalty has an untold value. Additionally, this level of trust can help to lower a business’ labour turnover and save unnecessary costs on recruiting.

Now, imagine if you had to somehow manage kindness and relationships with a team of 50 people – it would seem to look like an unwinnable battle. Here’s where GoVox comes in – by having this stronger relationship between employee and employer the opportunity for both parties to be open and honest with each other is considerably larger, which in turn can mean that those conversations that matter can be had – both parties can prosper from it. An employee can express their feelings about certain parts of the workplace that may be negatively affecting them, and the employers gain an idea of what they can change in order to make their employees happier.

Some may think that being kind to those employed by you is pointless as it only wastes time and resources, however to them I say you are wrong! But don’t just take my word for it, research conducted by the Association of Professional Executives of the Public Service of Canada found that when being rude and unkind to employees, there are “profound implications on the level of energy, emotional engagement, and performance of work teams.” This statement was backed up with a statistic stating that employees are 30% more likely to feel motivated and empowered at work when being treated kindly.

As the UK and other countries slowly continue to relax lockdown restrictions, never before in a lot of our lifetimes has the need for kindness been so immense. Now more than ever, as people slowly return back to their workplaces and find a very different landscape than when they left, or if they’re one of the hero key workers working all through the pandemic. Whether it’s covering a shift for someone that may need a break or even simply making a socially distanced cup of tea for a colleague, kindness will help to bring us all together inside and outside of the workplace.