How being kind can change office life
PA Consulting’s head of people and change, Rachael Brassey, discusses how small acts of kindness can make a difference to office life.
The article discusses how researchers at the universities of Stanford and Chicago have found that even small acts of kindness can make a big difference in everyday interactions.
The academics discovered that people underestimate the positive impact compliments have on recipients, based on a series of experiments with hundreds of individuals. At the same time people overestimate the awkwardness recipients feel in being given a compliment.
Rachael says kindness in everyday interactions can help shape a company’s culture: “Regardless of how senior we are, each of us makes moment-by-moment choices about how kind to be to those around us. And, in the fullness of time, it is those choices that exert influence on corporate behaviour.”
The article goes on to say that firms wanting to attract talent nowadays need to embed kindness in a company’s culture by training and promoting staff that demonstrate related attributes.
Rachael says kindness can be “built into a company’s culture” by firms providing development opportunities and by investing in learning.
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