Creating Compassionate Workplace Cultures

In today’s fast-paced, competitive landscape, organisations are facing unprecedented challenges, so identifying ways to sustain employee health and wellbeing requires more attention than ever before.

The CIPD’s most recent Health and Wellbeing at Work Report found that those organisations taking a strategic approach to employee wellbeing were more likely to see positive reactions.

An invaluable strand of any strategic approach to wellbeing is developing employees’ skills of self-compassion and their ability to take a compassionate approach in the workplace. When individuals are compassionate towards themselves and others, they are more likely to experience lower levels of anxiety, stress and burnout and higher levels of wellbeing. Enacting self-care also leads to a more sustained and authentic approach to dealing compassionately with colleagues.

Extensive research shows that by encouraging our employees, at all levels, to show self-compassion and compassion in the workplace, the organisation clearly benefits from increased engagement, a more inclusive culture, improved productivity, enhanced client and staff satisfaction and a positive work culture. Senior leaders who recognise and address this with crucial development and support at an organisational and individual level are likely to have a happier, healthier and more successful workforce, which is able to thrive rather than survive through difficult times.

Self-Compassion courses and Compassionate Leadership

Creating Compassion offers several programmes which develop individuals’ self-compassion, grow compassionate leaders as well as build a compassionate workplace culture.

Our high volume, cost effective Self-Compassion at Work Programme can be used to develop employees at all levels across the entire organisation. This is delivered online in an easy to access format which enables the individual to fit the learning around their work and personal commitments. Assessment of the programme’s benefits in a randomised waitlist control trial has shown participation improves mental wellbeing, stress, burnout and self-compassion.

The leaders in your organisation are charged with the most critical aspects of your performance and effectiveness. Our Compassionate Leadership Coaching Programme is delivered online to support small groups of an organisation’s key leaders to develop self-compassion and deliver compassion focused people management skills. This programme consistently shows improved psychological wellbeing, self-compassion levels and directly impacts on leadership effectiveness and performance.

If individual executives in your organisation are looking for one to one coaching to cope more effectively with the pressures of work or to improve their effectiveness in a challenging environment, we also offer ‘Executive Leadership Coaching’ .

Compassion Audits in Organisations

Many organisations recognise the benefits of creating a compassionate culture but are unsure where and how to start creating this.

Our compassion audits can be used to assess where your organisation currently is against indicators such as:

• The extent to which compassion is a driver of organisational performance
• Whether workplace interactions authentically draw upon self-compassion and a compassionate approach
• Whether leaders’ decisions are guided by compassion as a unifying principle
• Are working practices and procedures helping or hindering the development of a compassionate culture

Our audits’ findings give informed recommendations and practical solutions on how to integrate compassionate practices to improve the effectiveness and performance across the entire organisation. Previous client audits have identified and made recommendations in areas such as training and development, health and wellbeing strategies, recruitment and retention, talent management and succession planning, HR policies and procedures and performance management systems.

Audits are led by Dr Amanda Super, a Chartered Occupational Psychologist who brings her 25 years plus expertise in the field of self-compassion and compassionate leadership to assess the organisation’s competence. Our audits are consultative and constructive, working with key departments to take account of the organisation’s values, competencies and behaviours.

Post audit, we can work in partnership with the client to advise on strategy and planning to ensure the organisation is on course to develop the compassionate culture which directly impacts on its success.

Executive Team and Board Development in Compassion to Drive Performance

Our unique Executive Team and Board development aims to enhance the knowledge of senior decision-makers about the potential to use compassion as a legitimate driver of organisational performance. Led by Dr Amanda Super, these online sessions draw upon Amanda’s doctoral research and extensive experience in delivering evidence-based compassion-focused programmes across various sectors.

The sessions offer an efficient way to introduce evidence and practical case studies showing how the development of a compassionate culture positively impacts on financial performance and effectiveness.  Amanda shares her expertise on using compassion in working practices, colleague interactions, communication and leadership decision-making, to enhance staff attraction and retention, reduce sickness absence, boost staff engagement and improve client satisfaction, based on organisational best practices.

These sessions give plenty of opportunity for discussion and are typically delivered during a Board Away/Development Day.  An example of a session includes the following components:

• Presenting research evidence and examples to highlight the benefits of developing compassion at work
• Identifying the desired organisational values and behaviours
• Understanding barriers to compassionate approaches and action planning to overcome these
• Introducing theoretical insights into the role of leaders as a catalyst for compassionate cultures and exploring what works in practice to sustain compassionate leaders
• Examining the research and evidence behind self-compassion as an approach to promote greater workplace wellbeing
• Consideration of next steps and work planning.