The Empathy Advantage

3Grok the Empowered Mindset

In the spring of 2020, people all around the world were sent home to work remotely. Likely, you were one of those people. By the spring of 2022, nearly a million people in the United States and nearly 8 million around the world had died from Covid‐19 infection.¹ In between, millions of workers navigated an existential crisis that left us deeply changed, although not all in the same way. We rode out the same storm, but in very different boats.

While the pandemic was experienced differently in one way or another by virtually everyone, one through line stands out. The relationship between individuals and the organizations for which they work has forever changed. We have reaffirmed our values. We have reordered our priorities. We have reassessed our work. And while we no doubt will debate where and when work takes place, it's clear that we are all rethinking where and how work fits into our lives. And while the Great Resignation grabbed the headlines, this Great Reset is the real game changer.

Employees across generations had a rare opportunity to pause and really think about the role of work in their lives. And why not? After sleep, we dedicate the most time in our lives to work, some 81,396 hours on average, according to the pollsters at Gallup.² Why wouldn't we want that time to be well spent?

For many workers, it's not. Gallup found that 60% of workers are “emotionally detached” and 19% are downright “miserable.”

It's no wonder, then, that people ...