Empathy Training

Empathy skills are essential for the future of work. When you have a team that is proficient in self-awareness, seeing different perspectives, and keeping an open mind, you’re better able to achieve outcomes. In this increasingly complex world of work, employees are faced with challenging situations more regularly and need effective interpersonal skills to deal with these. The purpose of this workshop is to help teams with tools and strategies for growing their capabilities in empathy, so they can build better, healthier relationships.

Working with organisations in Melbourne, Sydney and across Australia, we know that teams are facing challenges like never before. Here’s a few of them:

1. Psychosocial hazards: Australian organisations are now responsible for doing more to protect their employees from psychosocial hazards. Employees with skills in both emotional empathy and cognitive empathy will become increasingly desirable, as the power of empathy helps people maintain better relationships and a better workplace culture.
2. Mental health: 1 in 5 Australians are currently experiencing a mental health issue. Skills in empathy can help employees understand each other and be more supportive to improve mental health outcomes. Empathy helps employees feel into what others are experiencing and understand the challenges they’re facing.
3. Complex world of work: Living in a ‘VUCA’ (volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) environment means teams need to be able to cope with constant challenges. Covid recovery, economic instability and hybrid working have all had a profound emotional impact and empathy in the workplace helps people have compassion for each other.
4. Hybrid working: There aren’t as many ‘across the desk’ conversations in this hybrid working world. Employees with strong empathy skills know how to reach out and connect with different people to make sure collaboration is consistent and strong.
5. Flatter hierarchies: More and more, organisations are becoming flatter with employees having more responsibility and autonomy. Team members are expected to initiate conversations and working relationships with others on their own to achieve outcomes. Skills in empathy help employees make smoother, easier connections.

Overall, these challenges can make it more difficult for teams if they’re not skilled in empathy and know how to build connection. However, with the right support such as Empathy Training, coaching sessions, and support from leaders, employees can thrive in this complex world of work.

With the help of this Empathy Course, skills that teams can put in place to enhance performance include:

1. Emotional Intelligence: Employees who are self-aware and understand others and their individual points of view, are more compassionate. Emotional intelligence is key in robust decision-making as all perspectives are recognised, and it allows for easier collaboration on tasks and projects.
2. Perspective taking: Conflict can arise when there are different perspectives in the workplace, but employees who can appreciate different points of view are better placed engage in this type of problem solving. Team members increase their perspective-taking skills by staying calm and objective in situations, truly listening to others, and working collaboratively to find solutions.
3. Holding space: Team members who can hold space for each other and understand, are more likely to build better, healthier relationships. Employees can build this this capability by applying active listening skills, refraining from judgement, and displaying open body language and facial expressions.
4. Self-reflection: Employees who engage in regular reflective practice learn from their mistakes and interactions to improve their ability to show empathy. Empathetic people are those who are willing to learn and become better humans as a result – so they can show up for others.
5. Trust-building: When you truly understand a person’s perspective and a person’s feelings, it goes a long way to signalling trust and connection. This paves the way for long-lasting relationships that are mutually beneficial.

By developing core skills in these areas, teams can grow capability in compassionate empathy, improve communication skills, and thrive in the workplace.

What is Empathy Training?

This training course is specifically designed for teams to develop fundamental skills in empathy. It aims to provide participants with the skills, tools, resources and confidence necessary to understand themselves and others. Our experienced facilitators have worked with many teams across Australia and draw from case studies and shared experiences to offer meaningful advice, practical strategies, and stories to learn from.

Why should my organisation offer Empathy Training?

Being part of Empathy Training can help teams to improve their ability to understand their own and other people’s emotions, see each other’s perspective, and collaborate. It can also help participants to break down limiting beliefs they have about themselves or others. The workshop experience is designed to help teams learn from each other and see how they might help each other grow different types of empathy skills.

Who can attend Empathy Training?

Empathy Training is designed for teams. The skills we focus on builds competency in self-awareness, perspective-taking and learning how to hold space for others. However, this training can be easily customised for emerging leaders, frontline leaders, or middle management as well. A team leader might want to be involved in the session with their team too, so they can help show the importance of empathy in healthy team relationships.

Is Empathy Training only available in person?

Empathy Training can be delivered in an in-person, virtual or hybrid format; depending on the organisation’s set-up. It is interactive and typically made up of strategies, discussions and a series of activities to support real world application. The training can be complemented with coaching sessions with a Thinka coach. Coaching plays an important role in helping participants challenge old behaviours, biases and judgements, to open them up to greater empathy. Organisations might also opt for a blended program that makes use of eLearning modules and other forms of media as part of an online course.

Workshop Series, Urbis

1. What was the objective?

Urbis were looking to upskill their employees across two tiers (teams and leaders) in a variety of human skills. The workshops selected would need to be engaging, content-rich, and delivered as online training.

2. How did we do it?

We created a workshop program based on their needs, with four virtual workshops delivered to a team member audience, and three virtual workshops delivered to a leadership audience. These workshops were delivered for two hours and included a range of engaging activities for virtual audiences and the integration of an introductory QR code that allowed participants to register their attendance.

Additionally, the workshops were housed in Urbis’ own LMS to allow users to seamlessly access the meeting rooms and materials.

3. How was it integrated and what were the results?

The workshops were facilitated across a number of months with strong anecdotal evidence that the concepts and strategies delivered had a great impact on the development of teams and leaders across the business.