Being empathetic and mindful at the workplace: An essential soft skill!

Being empathetic and mindful towards your peers is an essential soft skill everyone should possess. It's even more critical during today's times when everything is virtual. Here are five tips to help you with this:

1) Do background screening

Whenever you join a new company, the first thing should be to connect with the team members on their Linkedin and learn about their background and previous work experience. This eliminates the chances of making comments based on assumptions about their past.

2) Respect other's time and your own too

Understand that your teammates are also humans with their busy schedules and personal life. So, if you expect others to respect your time, sometimes you have to adjust your routine based on your team member's convenience to respect their time limitations.

3) Understand and take a stand

While working in a team, there can be several instances when opinion clashes occur. This makes coming to a joint decision problematic. Take time to understand someone's desired goal and ask the right questions to know what experiences have led to a particular decision.

4) Help and observe

Ask colleagues if they need help with a challenging project and offer assistance when you can. It isn’t always obvious when a coworker is struggling, so part of empathy is observing your environment and taking the initiative to offer help before you’re asked.

5) Deliver what you say!

Overpromising and under-delivering is often a big turn-off. Trust is established when your employer or colleagues see that you can deliver what you said. It becomes the fastest way to catapult yourself into the spotlight when you provide more than expected.