Beth Brown, director of health and well-being at a company that provides employee mental health programs and absence management services, said she was assigned to a major project at work when hardship struck. She said her 6-month-old daughter fell ill with COVID-19, and that a few days later her mother passed away. Brown told how she informed senior leadership that she would miss work to care for her daughter and to make funeral arrangements.
Rather than calling to go over remaining tasks, Brown said the director reached out to ask whether she was OK and to tell her not to worry about the project. Brown recalled the colleague saying, “In the grand scheme of things, this is not important,” and adding, “It’ll be here when you get back. I’ll be there when you’re back.” Brown said hearing the kind words left her feeling like there was “a brick taken off my chest.”
The Associated Press story frames kindness as something that often gets missed in work settings that reward competition and pressure, especially when financial worries and fears of layoffs can stifle generous impulses. It says that, for many people, workplace acts of kindness stand out precisely because they happen during moments when employees can least afford additional stress.
Molly MacDermot, director of special initiatives at Girls Write Now, said she felt lucky to have a boss who was kind when MacDermot’s father died eight years ago and her mother passed away six months ago. MacDermot said technology is accelerating many types of work, and that it is “really important to feel human, to be allowed to be human, which is getting the grace to just deal with the bumps in life.”
The article also describes kindness as cultural design, including how workplaces handle political divisions and disagreement. Anna Malaika Tubbs, a sociologist and author of “The Three Mothers” and “Erased,” said that in a workplace, creating a level playing field can help people feel seen. She said, “Especially in a workplace, where you can level the playing field and really make sure people know, ‘Hey, you’re welcome here and you’re seen here,’ that can really make a difference at a time when on a national level people feel really divided from each other.”
Tubbs said a way to build empathy is for people to know one another. She described organizing staff retreats where family members are welcome, bringing in guest speakers, starting book clubs, and scheduling offsite activities such as going to an escape room. Tubbs said the goal is not “to erase political difference or erase being able to disagree with each other,” but to encourage behavior that can shift the culture away from what often gets rewarded at work.
In a similar approach, Maya Nussbaum, the founder of Girls Write Now and MacDermot’s boss, said she starts meetings with “heart warmers,” a time when staff share thoughts on topics as simple as a favorite candle. She also said she encourages actively listening to different perspectives, and added that “Productivity is better when people feel that they’re valued and they’re listened to and they matter,” adding that people are more likely to work hard and care when they feel dismissed less.
The story also highlights feedback as a form of kindness. Chantel Cohen, founder and CEO of Atlanta-based CWC Coaching and Therapy, said “sometimes kindness is getting out of your comfort zone and telling someone the truth so they can shine.” She said managers should provide specific examples of behaviors that need improvement, and she said, “Kindness isn’t a conflict-free workplace. Kindness is a workplace where repair is possible or improvement is possible.”
Karla Cen, who works in a retirement community in Florida, said daily encouragement can change how teams feel. Cen described how another manager passed by and said, “You did that really well today,” saying it “uplifts the mood of the whole department and makes us ready to come in for the next challenges.”
The article includes practical suggestions about meetings and time. Cohen suggested that before scheduling a meeting, a manager can share the agenda, ask a working group to take time to think, and ask people to send ideas in writing. She said, “Sometimes, the gift of time is such a kindness,” and she suggested that managers could skip an upcoming meeting by telling teams, “Hey we’re going to skip tomorrow’s meeting and here are the things I want you all to think about,” then asking them to submit their thoughts so they have time for themselves.
Finally, the story describes bending workplace rules when strict policy would cause harm. It says Meher Murshed and her husband, Anupa Kurian-Murshed, began dating more than two decades ago when they both worked at Gulf News in Dubai, but the newspaper prohibited spouses from working in the same department. The couple appealed to their editor-in-chief, who raised the issue with the managing director, and the top managers decided the couple could keep their jobs and get married as long as one of them didn’t report to the other. Murshed said, “It changed our lives. Life could have been very different.”