90% of U.S. workers think empathetic leadership leads to higher job satisfaction: RPT

Marcelo Bartholo, EY Americas Deputy Vice Chair of Consulting, joins Yahoo Finance’s Sibile Marcellus in this week’s Career Control to discuss how critical it is for companies to be empathetic.

Video transcript

- Welcome back. With a record number of workers quitting their jobs, a lot of companies are taking a closer look at their retention strategies. So just how critical is empathy in leadership? Yahoo Finance's Sibile Marcellus here now with another installment of "Career Control."

SIBILE MARCELLUS: Ernst & Young conducted a study to look at the correlation between empathy in leadership and business performance. And sure enough, 85% of employees said that empathy in leadership increases productivity.

I want to bring in Marcelo Bartholo-- he's Ernst & Young's Americas Deputy Vice Chair of Consulting-- to break this down for us. Marcel, looking at this study, many workers flat out admitted that they left a previous job because a boss was not empathetic to their struggles at work and in their personal lives. How critical is it right now for company leaders to be empathetic?

MARCELO BARTHOLO: Hi, good afternoon, Sibile. Thanks for having me. This has been a really interesting journey for us. We've been talking about the topic of empathy in the workplace for quite some time. And a few months back, looking at the stress levels within society, everything that's happened with COVID, looking at the increased levels of turnover within our clients and within our profession, we decided to go in this study.

And what the study showed is that empathetic leadership is one of the key drivers for the experiences that people have within their workplace, and frankly, perhaps, the biggest contributor to whether somebody decides to stay or go from their roles. And the statistics quoted within our study are very interesting, right?

There's a direct correlation between how people feel they are hurt and how much they feel then connected or like they belong in the organization. And when they decide to leave, they decide to leave because they feel like their bosses don't understand them or hear them in terms of their needs, both at work and at life. So it's been really interesting to watch the correlation between all of the issues you're seeing in terms of retention and how people feel about empathy in the workplace.

SIBILE MARCELLUS: Empathy in leadership has been known to help build trust, but this stands out. Nearly half of employees say that their company's efforts to be empathetic are actually dishonest. What's your take on that, Marcelo?

MARCELO BARTHOLO: Yeah, really interesting, right? And the other interesting statistic that to me is complementary to that one is that 40% also feel like their companies don't follow through in their commitments. And when you talk to people that have left their jobs, they say, "My company is trying to do something about empathy in the workplace, but it just doesn't feel genuine."

And to us, the real opportunity that every organization has is to balance what we think of as programmatic ways of looking at empathy in the workplace and things that you're doing around wellness and well-being, things you're doing around your PTO policies, but really focus on the one-on-one relationships that your leaders have within your workforce.

The study also shows that one-on-one connectivity is the biggest driver of building of trust within an organization. And if an organization can really drive a culture of connectivity at the individual level, we think this can really help change that statistic going forward.

SIBILE MARCELLUS: And Marcelo, what are all the characteristics of an empathetic leader?

MARCELO BARTHOLO: Yeah, great question. There are three things that came out in the survey. One is transparency, the second one was fairness, and the third one was follow-through. And what I took away from the study is, these are really simple things for anyone to do.

All it takes is for somebody to truly care, try to put yourself in someone else's shoe, really hear their points of view, and then build a set of actions that will address their personal desires. So it's been interesting to think about the fact that the biggest driver of people perhaps leaving an organization is actually something fairly straightforward to implement, and the characteristics are things that all leaders have the ability to develop.

SIBILE MARCELLUS: Your study also points out that a third of employees are not actually comfortable advocating for cultural changes in their workplace. What advice or what suggestions would you have for companies that would like more of their employees to actually feel comfortable having these types of discussions with their boss?

MARCELO BARTHOLO: Yeah, really interesting. And these things to us are all related. When you take a step back, the goal that everyone should have in an organization is to build trust and a feeling of safety and belonging. And if you do that, what you're finding is that your employees will then feel more comfortable bringing their full self to work. They are going to feel like they can raise a concern or have their voices heard, and that's going to drive a very different level of dialogue.

So to us, it's all about continuing to invest in the trust-building activities that you have, again, personally and more programmatically, to be able to address that issue. And the beautiful thing here, and perhaps my biggest takeaway from the study, is that if you can achieve that, not only can you get better productivity from your workforce, which is really how people mostly think about the topic, but also drive a lot more innovation and creativity. And that's what every organization is looking for today, is, how do I get a workforce that's not only engaged, but that is also maximizing itself in terms of the ability to innovate?

SIBILE MARCELLUS: Driving more creativity and innovation. Marcelo Bartholo, it was great to have you on. Thanks so much.