By Kathy Gurchiek
Empathy, civility, compassion—all are watchwords in recent years that emphasize an employer’s people-first focus toward employees as well as clients and customers. Walmart recently highlighted the role managers play during a weeklong training session that focused on the value showing compassion toward workers, The New York Times reported.
The training was part of Walmart’s Manager Academy, which it created during the pandemic.
“As The New York Times article shares, we’re focused on leadership development and bringing managers from all over the country into our headquarters to immerse them in our company’s core values, our culture, our evolving leadership expectations, and how to manage strong teams,” wrote Donna Morris, executive vice president and chief people officer at Walmart, in a LinkedIn post.
“It’s all with a focus on putting people first,” she added.
Compassion goes beyond empathy to create change, according to the Harvard Business Review, noting “it’s that desire to act and create change that differentiates compassion from empathy.” For example, it noted, a manager may feel empathy toward a team member experiencing a personal hardship in adhering to the requirement to be physically back in the workplace. Compassion is taking steps to change the schedule so that team members can work more comfortably.
