The utility and implications of empathy in the workplace

The purpose of these two studies was to develop and validate an empathy scale contextualized for the workplace. In the first study, a Workplace Empathy scale was designed and administered to 153 students at the University ofTennessee. The students were instructed to answer the items in relation to a past or present job. An internal consistency reliability of.82 was observed for the final set of items. In The second study,185 employees from eight different companies voluntarily participated in completing theWorkplaceEmpathy (WE) scale,the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI,a general measure of empathy),a Job Involvement scale, a Job Satisfaction scale and a CustomerService Orientation scale. The employees’ supervisors also rated the importance of empathy to the performance of each employees’ job. WEand the IRI were significantly related(r=.50,p<.01)and WE was significantly related to customer service orientation and job satisfaction, but not job involvement. WE also accounted for additional variance above and beyond the IRI in predicting customer service and job satisfaction. Participantsinjobs where empathy was important for performance had significantly higher WE scores than participants in jobs in which empathy was of moderate or little importance,whereasIRI scores did not significantly differ between the two groups.The combined results demonstrate the importance of measuring empathy in the context of the workplace.