It’s 2023 – we had a major global pandemic, geopolitical upheaval, and market ups and downs. So how are we doing when it comes to making the workplace more empathetic and adapting to everything that’s hit us? For 8 years, Businessolver, a leader in benefits technology has conducted their State of Workplace Empathy Report. This report has come to be the gold standard in workplace empathy and leadership. And this year? Well, let’s just say we have some work to do. In some ways, we’ve gone backward, with a widening gap between what the C-Suite thinks about its culture and what HR and employees actually experience. Also, HR is burning out. And as suspected, employees are craving flexibility as a key empathetic benefit.
Today, Rae Shanahan, who has supported the organic growth of Businessolver from 10 employees to 1500 employees, and I discuss the key findings 2023 State of Empathy Report, what it means for HR and C-suite leadership, where we can continue to be optimistic and push for change, and actionable ways you can close the Empathy Gap in your own organization, regardless of where you sit.
To access this episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
- What is right for one person is not going to be right for another. As a company, understanding what is right for each of your employees, as an individual, is a way in which you can be empathetic.
- 42% of employees feel their manager has the most impact on building a culture of empathy. More and more organizations are really focused on giving first-level managers training on empathy and caring.
- Empathy is not about treating people the way you were treated. Gen Z is estimated to make up 27% of the workforce by 2025 and they bring completely new expectations to the workforce, around empathy, DEI, financial wellness, and flexibility.
“96% of employees say flexible working hours is the most empathetic benefit that an employer can offer. That’s something that doesn’t cost a lot, but you can get a lot of love from employees for offering it.” — Rae Shanahan
Episode References:
2023 State of Workplace Empathy – 8th annual reportThe Empathy Edge Podcast – Rebecca Friese: How to Build a “Good” CultureNPR: Airbnb lets its workers live and work anywhere. Spoiler: They’re loving itAbout Rae Shanahan, Chief Strategy Officer, Businessolver
“Seasoned” executive supporting the organic growth of Businessolver from 10 employees to over 1500. We live the “Businessolver Way” which means we have an intentional guide that defines our core values, core business, operation principles, our “safe” environment, and common language. We spend each day training and applying the Businessolver way to grow and delight.
Connect with Rae Shanahan:
Businessolver: https://www.businessolver.com
LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/raeshanahan
Don’t forget to download your free guide! Discover The 5 Business Benefits of Empathy: http://red-slice.com/business-benefits-empathy
Connect with Maria:
Get the podcast and book: TheEmpathyEdge.com
Learn more about Maria and her work: Red-Slice.com
Hire Maria to speak at your next event: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross
Take my LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy
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FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW:
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host Maria Ross. I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy from trends and research to the future of work, to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business. It’s 2023 we had a major global pandemic geopolitical upheaval and market ups and downs. So how are we doing when it comes to making the workplace more empathetic, and adapting to everything that’s hit us. For eight years business solver, a leader in benefits technology has conducted their state of workplace empathy report. This report has come to be the gold standard in workplace empathy, thought leadership. And this year, well, let’s just say we have some work to do. In some ways, we’ve gone backwards with a widening gap between what the C suite thinks about its culture, and what HR and employees actually experience. Also, HR is burning out, and as suspected, employees are craving flexibility as a key empathetic benefit. Today I talk with Ray Shanahan Chief Strategy Officer of business solver. She has supported the organic growth of the company from 10 employees to 1500. So she’s in the trenches as well as studying the trends. We discussed the key findings from this year’s report, what it means for HR and C suite leadership, where we can continue to be optimistic and push for change, and actionable ways you can close the empathy gap in your own organization, regardless of where you sit. Today’s talk is a goldmine of information on where we are now, and where we have yet to get. Take a listen. Welcome ray to the empathy edge podcast. I am so excited to have this conversation with you. Because way before we met, I knew who you were because I quoted and cited business solvers state of workplace empathy report, copiously in my book, The Empathy edge. And I know many other empathy experts have to You are the creator of what is come to be the seminal report on empathy in the workplace. So welcome to the empathy edge podcast. Oh, my,
Rae Shanahan 03:23
that is so fantastic. And
Maria Ross 03:24
I’m so much
Rae Shanahan 03:26
I can’t claim that I’m the creator. But I get to be the face of it today. How about that? You
Maria Ross 03:31
do I love it, the face and the voice. I love it. So tell us a little bit about your work as Chief Strategy Officer? And how did business solver come to do what is now their eighth annual State of workplace empathy report? What led to that? Yeah,
Rae Shanahan 03:48
you know, our vision is, how do we can we turn this? Because we’re benefits technology company? How can we turn employees engagement and their benefits from a once a year annual enrollment experience to a year round personalized journey so that people get into the right benefits at the right place at the right price at the right time. And so we were working with an advertising agency Edelman, and they do this really cool study called the Trust Barometer. And we said we want something to have thought leadership of something like the Trust Barometer. And they, they tested some ideas. And they came back to us and said, You know what, when we think about what your vision is about the right benefits, right place, right time, we thought about empathy, because the definition of right is really something that you can think about from an empathy perspective, because what’s right for me can be completely different to what’s right for you and what’s right for the next person. So kind of all gelled. And so yeah, this is our eighth year and it’s been really it’s been fun to see the name. It’s not our the we can’t take credit for it. But it’s so fun to see how empathy is in the vocabulary more than ever. Absolutely. And
Maria Ross 04:57
you know, listeners have heard me talk about When I started researching the book, back in 2016 2017, agents didn’t understand it. They thought, is this a business book or a personal development book? What is it? And I was like, No, it’s a business book. It’s about the role of empathy in business as a strategic advantage. And luckily, even though that wasn’t in the vernacular, at the time, your report existed, several years of your report had already existed. And there was ample research to show that, hey, this is a thing that is a valuable strategic advantage for companies. And so you were one of the earliest to be measuring it and having your finger on the pulse of what HR professionals and C suite executives think about empathy in the workplace, before we had a global pandemic, and now everyone is talking about this, right? So yay for you. So let’s talk about the eight years of the empathy study. Because I know back a few years ago, I was putting together the book and citing the report, and even mentioning you in talks that I give the trends we’re going in the upward direction of in terms of how CEOs viewed empathy as a driver of financial performance, in terms of how people rated their willingness to work harder, quote, unquote, or longer hours or, and I hate to give the stat but for less pay for an empathetic leader or organization. So tell us what are some of the headline findings from this year’s report, given what we’ve gone through the last few years.
Rae Shanahan 06:29
And, you know, there’s several and I know you’re going to share empathy study too. But you know, I picked out three that I think are the really key ones that I’d like to spend time on today. So number one, empathy levels fall as employers push for return to office, that flexibility tops the list of most empathetic benefits, but our executives listening, and number three, a great divide is emerging as HR professionals are burned out.
Maria Ross 06:54
Hmm. Okay, so let’s tackle those one by one, let’s talk a little bit about empathy dropping as Return to Work starts to become more of a thing as a return to office, I should say not return to work, because we never left work, we left the office. Right.
Rae Shanahan 07:09
Right. Right. And to your point earlier, yeah, the studies were moving in the right direction. And this is the first year that we’ve, you know, and of course, everybody really jumped on empathy during the pandemic, especially the early months. And we started to see a few trends last year, but I’ll say this year is really when I think the things we’re just getting to really are really separating about between employees, HR and CEO. So I’m gonna read off a couple of stats. So approximately 49% of remote eligible us employees returned to the office in 2022, at least part time. And our empathy data this year, reveals that all audiences are working remotely considerably less than last year with 84% of employee saying some in person work is required up drastically from 33% in 2022. And it’s what we’re hearing is, people are not, leaders and organizations aren’t listening, and they don’t have a good pulse on what really matters to those employees. I’ll give you an example. You continue to read about how the CEOs and I don’t want to do any CEO bashing, I happen to be married to a CEO.
Maria Ross 08:17
But as a safe space for them, it’s fine. But
Rae Shanahan 08:20
it’s so much of this bias that you have to be in person in the office to be able to have opportunity, and who are the people being impacted. It’s predominantly going to be women and people that are in diversity kinds of situations D IB, and that’s wrong. And our findings this year really found that gap and forcing people into the office.
Maria Ross 08:44
Is that really better for business? Right? Right. Well, I mean, that’s the whole misunderstanding of what culture actually is. And if you are relying on your four walls for culture, you are doing yourself a disservice. Because that’s culture is really how work gets done, according to my good friend and a previous guest Rebecca Frese of Flynn consulting, who I can link to her episode in the show notes. But there is a lot of, there are a lot of narratives out there around the fact that we can’t collaborate as well, if you’re not holding the office together, and you can’t innovate as well. And while I as an extrovert, totally understand that there’s value in being together, I do miss being around people. I mean, I’ve worked from home actually, since I launched my business, but even my husband who loves working from home, does like going into the office every now and then and just having those serendipitous interactions with people. But when we get leaders saying that that’s the only way to innovate. That’s the only way to maintain culture. That’s the only way to be creative. Look at all the innovation and creativity. We had the last few years that everybody’s been working from home, right? They made it work. So I have this like, push pull with myself and then just recently heard about, you know, with a lot of downtown’s getting vacated stores closing because there’s no workers coming into the office, especially in San Francisco. though a lot of it is being blamed on return to work, and from that perspective, I’m like, okay, I get that I get that, like there’s small businesses closing because they no longer have a customer base. And is it the responsibility of the larger tech employers to bring people back downtown to bring people back into the office? So it’s hard. I’m almost like, over empathetic about every side story. So given that, what’s your perspective on that whole return to work? perspective?
Rae Shanahan 10:29
You know, I think a couple of things and empathy is not treating others how you were treated, and keeping an open mind. And there’s this concept that I think I read about from Malcolm Gladwell about holding your ideas lightly. And what I take out of some of this force return to work is that because I grew up in a time where I had to be in the office, I had to work all the extra hours. I mean, I know my first professional job, I could work, whatever hours I wanted to as long as it was, you know, before eight and after five. Right. And it’s easy, some of us as leaders, and we think about leaders, and many of these organizations are more in the image, what am I a Gen X, the Forgotten generation and power? Yeah. So many of us, we grew up in a very strict kind of working time, the only way you could work was being in the office. And I think sometimes even without doing it intentionally, we sometimes see leaders push upon other people. And some of these decisions about return to work are really tied to what they experienced. And it was like the rite of passage,
Maria Ross 11:34
right, and also what they’re comfortable with, right? So if you’re only comfortable leading in an environment where you can see people every day, and if you haven’t mastered the art of adapting to remote working, then yeah, I’m sure it’s more comfortable for you, as a leader to go, No, I want everybody back, I want to fall back on what I’m comfortable with.
Rae Shanahan 11:53
It makes me feel good makes me feel good and opposite of empathy, supposed to be about what’s good for the other person. And you’re the other thing I’d add on to that Maria is that so much of empathy is around building trust. And if you think about these required, return to work, mandates, so to speak, that are going on, that’s basically saying I don’t trust you. And in today’s modern world of the technology and all the tools, and I’m sitting here with two iPads to screens, my phone, right, that in this day and age that why can’t trust the first. And then let’s deal with the outliers. We don’t need to penalize everybody, because we think that there’s a productivity last, let’s deal with the outliers. And let’s use our technology to identify if people truly aren’t productive, then let’s have a conversation about that. But so many times, we try to enforce the rules on everyone, instead of just doing the right thing, which is let’s focus on people that maybe remote work isn’t the right thing for them. And then let’s help them find another opportunity rather than change it for everybody. Right?
Maria Ross 12:58
And there was an executive I talked to you as I was researching my new book, who actually verbalized very well, one of the reasons he does like having his team in the office, but he would never force them all back. It’s just he’s like, I like that I don’t have to schedule those connection times that you do have to do when you do a video. He’s like, so I know, I can walk past someone’s desk, and I can see if someone’s looking down or I can see if someone’s looking stressed. And I was like, Okay, that’s a valid reason. But the whole, like, we can’t innovate if we’re not together. It’s just BS. Oh, I
Rae Shanahan 13:27
totally agree. And you know, what I’ve heard, I had a real employee retire that had been with us for quite a while she started two weeks after I did so she’d been there 23 years. And we had a little event for and a number of the employees that were at our headquarters in Des Moines came in and I don’t know how many of them came up and just chatted with me in a way that when I had been in the office, and you know, had been that intimidating executive in the office, that I think they felt like they couldn’t as easily connect with me. And, you know, John, and I, you know, we talked about culture. But John, and I’ve made a concerted effort every Monday morning at 830 Central, which means when I’m out here in Scottsdale at 630, Pacific Time, we do a 30 minute broadcast to the whole organization, and live and we talk about what’s going on in the business. And what I’ve continued to hear over and over and over from employees is it helps them feel comfortable with us, they feel like they know us. And so I think you can still make very strong connections and in some ways level the playing field for people and opportunities because that disabled person having trouble getting into the office in their wheelchair, they are able to show up the same way and not be judged. So I don’t know if you can tell I have some some opinions on that.
Maria Ross 14:41
I love it. No, I love it. So what else did the report find around flexibility? Because that’s actually a great lead in to understanding what enables us to be flexible for the needs of different people and not necessarily you know, I hate the way people use the air quotes around the word accommodate and roll their eyes like we need to occur. imitate our employees now, how about your accommodating employees so they can do their most productive and most innovative work for you creating an environment where they feel safe, they feel supported. They feel like they don’t have to experience micro aggressions if they don’t want to. And they can actually perform. So what’s going on with the flexibility highlight that
Rae Shanahan 15:20
you talked about? Yeah, you’re right, that does. Many people that are in our like, benefits administrative, like you think about are the senior Benefits Administrator, they say HR, they have a very narrow focus because of their knowledge, what their knowledge share is that they have a very narrow sense of what benefits are. And what we explored in this year’s report is, let’s really talk about expanding the definition of benefits. And when we had medical, you know, health care benefits, and we had other types of benefits, and then we said remote work or flexible work hours that came back as the number one. So 96% of employees say flexible working hours is the most empathetic benefit that an employer can offer. So here it is, that’s something that doesn’t cost a lot. But you can get a lot of love from the employees for offering it. Right. Right. I love that.
Maria Ross 16:13
And did anything find that there were differing levels of acceptance of flexibility? Because I know you segment between if you’re talking to C suite people, if you’re talking to HR professionals, or you’re talking to employees, and we should mention you’re talking to 1000s of people across different geographies. Yes. Yes, yes. So did anything strike you as being a difference in perceived flexibility across those different groups?
Rae Shanahan 16:37
Yeah, there was definitely a separation and a gap in that I think that there was a 20% or 20 point gap between what CEOs saw and what employees saw. And you know, a couple of those employees viewed benefits. As I said, 96% of them viewed having flexible work hours is the most important benefit, but only 39% of them responded that that was available. Okay. So that’s a pretty, you know, there’s a great opportunity there to make up that gap.
Maria Ross 17:05
Okay. And before we go into the last one about HR pros are suffering right now was your other big takeaway. You had mentioned to me offline, some pretty big deltas in perception between CEOs and the people on the ground? What’s actually going on? Can you share a little bit about those kind of shocking deltas around mental health support? I mean, all the things there were there was maybe like two or three. But if you can mention a couple of those, I think that would be really important for the audience to hear,
Rae Shanahan 17:35
Sir. Sir. I think some of the biggest gaps are really around something that I’m trying to find the right term, something called optimism bias. So what we’re finding in the data is, words the optimism bubble. So it’s, as you get more senior, you overestimate the degree to which other people are speaking up, you overestimate your approachability, and you overestimate your listening skills. And that’ll means that you underestimate the strength of feeling that might exist with some of your employees. And that’s a woman by the name of Megan writes, who’s an executive coach and speaker. And I feel like that’s what’s what we’re really starting to see in this data point where we see a 24 point gap. So 92% of CEOs view their HR professionals as empathetic. 20 sets up 27 points from 2022,
Maria Ross 18:24
right, because they put a tunnel or plate. Yeah.
Rae Shanahan 18:26
So empathetic, and then 91% of CEOs view their employees as empathetic. But the other way that 32 point gap is the employee seeing their CEOs is empathetic is a 32 point gap. And 90% of CEOs say they are more motivated than ever. So they’re out there saying that our organization is empathetic, but then they’re not then they’re requiring people to return to work and not trusting them. So it’s a battle right now.
Maria Ross 18:56
Right, right. And there’s also like, some big deltas between how HR perceives the C suite and how the C suite proceed. As you mentioned, the C suite perceives HR and I would assume a lot of that is from because the C suites had to rely on HR a lot the last few years. And so of course, they’re seeing them deal with all of these crises. And of course, they’re gonna go, they’re great. They’re handling it. They’re awesome. We love them. They’re the ones delivering all the bad news. And, you know, having to defend these policies they don’t agree with that we’re creating. But yeah, we love them. They’re great. And then meanwhile, it sounds like HR is thinking, Oh, you think you’re really empathetic as a C suite leader, but actually, the employees don’t think you are and we don’t think you are either. You know what I mean? So there’s a big disconnect in perception. And I would be curious, I know this is out of the purview of this study, but I’d be curious around what other vectors that gap in perception exists for, you know, around humility or around performance or around open mindedness or whatever. Whatever the Actor is because you do get in this bubble as you graduate up through the C suite of you’re in this kind of cushion, little bubble and you don’t always have your ear to the ground at all times.
Rae Shanahan 20:10
Yes. Again, how is that whole concept of holding your ideas lightly, just because you have an opinion, or you have witnessed one thing, you know, that may not apply and being open and being in listening, I think is the number one thing and making it Okay, as a leader that it’s okay to change your mind. You know, one of the most powerful things that happened, I think, in our organization, during the beginning of COVID, is, I’ll tell you what, we were not a work from home organization. Prior to COVID. We had mostly salespeople and some of our clients services people throughout the country, but of our 1000 employees at the time of COVID, we probably had less than 100 working remotely. And that was driven a lot by our CEO. He was adamant that you needed to be in the office, he was adamant that he needed to see people he was adamant that touching and experiencing those interactions was super important. And I mean, he’s a great example of the concept of holding your ideas lightly and saying, You know what I’ve been presented with data. So I can make a data informed opinion, so to speak, because you know, you can change, you can make stories out of data. But that, you know, he listened and said, I hear you loud and clear, we’ve been able to hire a more diverse workforce, we’ve been able to have higher engagement rates, our client retention has gone up, our quality of our calls and our service center have gone up. And he said, Well, I’m not going to make people go back into work, even though we just spent, I think about $3 million renovating a Denver office, it was just getting done as COVID as we went home. But again, he said, just because I put all that time and energy and money into that, that’s a sunk cost. Let’s do the right thing for the business. Let’s do the right thing for our clients. And let’s do the right thing for employees. And, you know, at least get once a week get a message from an employee that is so grateful that we support their being able to see their kids in the morning. And you know, one person said, I get to have breakfast with my kids. And I’m still to work before I would normally have been to work when I was commuting.
Maria Ross 22:08
Yeah. Oh my gosh, I’m getting chills listening to that story of your CEO. And I love that it’s just about your company, too. But that reminds me of a report I heard recently on NPR. And I’ll put a link in the show notes about the success Airbnb has had with completely flipping their model and not requiring people to be back in the office. And one of the big things cited by the companies that are embracing it is how much they were able to diversify their workforce by finding people, number one that never maybe would have applied. And I know that their state regulations for different companies where they can’t necessarily employ people in different states, right from a legal perspective. But when they can, they’re finding the right candidates for the job. And it doesn’t matter if it’s someone who can come into an office or not, it doesn’t matter if that person needs to be home for childcare, eldercare, or is disabled and can’t make it into a non ADA compliant office situation. They’re able to tap into talent that they’ve never been able to tap into before. And that’s what a lot of these companies, that’s the first thing that suffers when they do these return to Office blanket mandates that don’t factor in all these different needs. And you know, the air quote, accommodations that people say. So, as you kind of look ahead and you pick up from this report, you know, you’ve talked a little bit about some of the highlights and the findings, what would be from a now and looking into the future? What are some areas of concern that you see brewing on the horizon? But also, what are some areas of optimism? Where are some bright spots? And what you found in the report this year? Sure, sure.
Rae Shanahan 23:43
I’ll start with the bright spots. Something that I’m starting to do a lot more reading about is really, yes, we have the CEO. And yes, we have the empathy at the HR level. But we’re also finding, I think one of the stats was 42% of employees feel their manager has the most impact on building a culture of empathy. And that’s the first time that that started to emerge. And I’m hearing about more and more organizations that are really focused on helping that first level manager really having some training on caring and empathy. That’s something very, very optimistic. That’s great.
Maria Ross 24:19
I mean, and that’s the work I love to do is going into organizations and helping train managers and new managers on building that muscle building that skill, because it doesn’t come. It’s an innate biological skill, but it doesn’t come easy for everybody because that muscle may have atrophied because of family or because of past job experiences or life or whatever. And so being able to be in a space where they know that that’s actually a skill that’s going to get them promoted, going to get them rewarded, going to help them perform better, is sort of a big sigh of relief for a lot of managers that actually, were going to work in the past and not aligning their values with how they showed up at work. And now they’re like, oh, I don’t have to be this jerk at work. get stuff done, I can actually be more empathetic, be a better listener care about my people, and just knock my goals out of the park. So I love that and talking about that idea of like a micro culture, a micro team within what could be maybe a very bureaucratic organization, you don’t want to wait for the CEO to decide that the organization is going to be fine. Right? Yeah. So I love that it’s very much it’s about your immediate team and what they can do and what kind of model they can be for the rest of
Rae Shanahan 25:30
the organization. No, I love that Maria. And I’ll just pile on to that a little bit. Because, you know, there’s the studies and whether you believe it completely or not, that employees leave their manager, not always their employer. And out of the studies. And out of this conversation, I want actionable things that people can take and start working on right away. And that’s the place where, regardless of what level a person is in, they can start to make a difference in their organization. I think I’m going to name this exercise the snowball. But so an example of an exercise that I brought into the organization a couple years ago, and we’re doing it at different levels now is every time we have a planning meeting, well, I have everybody on my team. And again, this goes in other places, they all need to come and share a story about somebody that they hadn’t worked with before in the organization, and or somebody that doesn’t work in there or part of their team, but they’ve been impressed with. And then we go around, and we talk about them. And then we assigned someone to send a note to a person saying, Hey, I was just in a meeting. And Maria said, You did an awesome job in the call with the client, I just wanted to pass on that we talked about you and are really thankful for you. And why I call it snowball is because that’s something that it just keeps going. And that fuels that feeling of people want to matter. They want to feel connected to their organization, they want to feel like the stuff that they’re doing is making an impact. And so finding small opportunities with specific examples is a way that a person can start to bring empathy into an organization immediately,
Maria Ross 27:01
right, right after this podcast. I love it. Yeah, actually, that’s a great segue into I wanted to know, what are some actionable steps based on the data that you saw. And based on what you see with clients every day, and the models that your organization has shown? What are one or two other actionable steps that companies or leaders or even colleague to colleague, we can do to close that empathy gap and close that misperception between different groups in the organization, different levels within the organization,
Rae Shanahan 27:30
as well. And I didn’t only talk about what I was optimistic about. So I’ll wrap the things that I was concerned about with this. At the same time, so the thing that I’m really concerned about is the impact that this is having on HR, and seeing this dramatic gap between what HR, you know, what they feel and what they believe in their likeliness to leave an organization. And I think it starts with things that you do Maria is some organizations need to have a third party come in and be a mediator. And the CEOs that are vulnerable enough to say I need help are the perfect ones that are going to be able to make a difference. And by stopping and listening and setting aside ego to repair this, I think is extremely important, because those HR leaders just feel stuck. They had to do the heavy lifting during getting out of the office. And now they’re having to do the heavy lifting to bring everybody into the office. Again, I don’t want to make it just about the office. But that’s a pretty big rift right now is
Maria Ross 28:28
a flashpoint. Yeah, it
Rae Shanahan 28:29
is it really a flashpoint but bringing in somebody that can help mediate and moderate a conversation is, I think extremely important at this point in time. Well, I’m part of
Maria Ross 28:39
what makes people dig in their heels to on any policies that they don’t feel heard, and being heard and still implementing the policy can still go a long way. Yes, absolutely. At least you know that someone was listening and understands. And now I can explain why we’re doing this policy, we can have a conversation about why what’s going on? Yeah, and what’s going on with the business and what’s going on in the market and the economy that might make whatever the decision, the controversial decision is understandable to someone going, Oh, okay. I don’t like it. But I understand why the business is cracking this decision.
Rae Shanahan 29:13
And then there’s acknowledgement and acceptance and people can move on. But if we don’t if we’re not adults, and don’t have open dialogue and sharing the reasons why then this gap is going to is definitely going to continue.
Maria Ross 29:27
Right, right. I just have this image of you know, certain groups just running around with fingers in their ears going lalalalala we’re awesome. Everything is fine.
Rae Shanahan 29:36
Back to that optimism
Maria Ross 29:37
bubble. Yes, exactly. But I am glad to hear that. You know, there is optimism around Well, I mean, for me, the optimism always is that the incoming talent generations are still going to be part of changing the game. What’s happening now I feel like this backlash to boss ism, because of people going back to models they’re comfortable with. They were willing to sort of adapt adapt, and pivot and be resilient and try new things. And now they’re like, Okay, I don’t have to do that anymore.
Rae Shanahan 30:06
I can go back to what I know and I feel comfortable in. And then that goes back to what I, you know, kind of started with is, is that empathy is not about treating people the way you were treated. Right? It’s because just because those are that’s the the muscle memory break out of that, because here’s the reality, right? The generational shift that’s coming, because Gen Z is estimated to make up what 27% of the workforce by 2025. And they bring completely new expectations to the workforce, around empathy, dei financial wellness, flexibility as being paramount. And that’s just going to put more pressure on HR teams, and the new expectations for benefits aside from the traditional benefits,
Maria Ross 30:47
right? Absolutely. What I love it, and I love this work that you do every year on this report. It’s so thoughtful and so intentional, and it’s it does so much good for so many different organizations and leaders. So thank you can’t wait for the next one for 2024. But for now, we will celebrate 2023 We will have all the links to you and to business solver in the show notes and especially the link to the report where people can access the executive summary and all the goodness but for folks that are listening while they’re working out right now, can you tell us maybe the best place to find out more about you or your work?
Rae Shanahan 31:22
Sure, sure. LinkedIn for me LinkedIn for business solver as well. And then, you know, our website is business solver.com two s’s in the middle. Yes, business solver. named the company with three S’s in there, that was not his best, his best idea to have only the two
Maria Ross 31:39
I was gonna say as a brand strategist, but I decided to bite my tongue. But anyway, it’s a good conversation. So Ray, thank you so much for sharing your insights. I am so happy that we connected and I can’t wait to collaborate with you more on this very valuable topic. Absolutely. Thank you, Maria. And thank you everyone for listening to another great episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard you know what to do, please rate and review and share it with a colleague or friend. And until next time, please remember that cash flow creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com. There you can listen to past episodes, access shownotes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice Maria. Never forget empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place.
