The 5 human-centered skills that have a big impact on workforce health and operations

2020 and the first part of 2021 will go down as among the most challenging years ever for business. From wildly fluctuating customer demand to pressures to slash budgets, the trials just keep coming.

The summer can offer downtime for organizations to step back and reboot their work. For example, many higher-education institutions use the summer to plan for the fall semester and try to figure out how to come back from the upheaval. In order to recover from these difficult times, businesses should focus not only on ways to regain lost revenue, but also revive five basic, human-centered skills that are sometimes taken for granted.

Skill 1: Empathy

The ability to sense other people’s emotions and imagine what someone else might be thinking or feeling has never been more important, especially in the workplace. Whether your employees are returning to work after a year at home or have been working in the office throughout the pandemic, they all are experiencing intense emotions that can interfere with productivity.

Because true empathy comes naturally to only some people, it’s vital that the skill be inculcated throughout an entire organization, which requires discipline and support. The payoff, however, is immense because empathy: