Leveraging Compassion to Address Inequality at Work

Workplace compassion, an empathic behavioral response to suffering, is a means by which workplaces operate as caregiving systems and sources of social support, healing and health. Workplace inequalities, indicative of differences in status, power, resources and opportunities among people, arising due to social identities such as gender, race/ethnicity, age, class, religion, caste, sexual orientation, disability/chronic illness and so on and their intersectionalities as well as around workplace hierarchies, gives rise to forms of mistreatment ranging from incivility, discrimination, bullying and violence which can cause significant suffering. The juxtaposition of compassion and inequality opens avenues for better understanding and resolving challenges that trigger, define and emerge from workplace inequalities, cohering with and contributing to the contemporary quest for social responsibility, inclusion and ethics at work, thereby enabling employee dignity, well-being and thriving as well as organizational performance, success and flourishing. Compassion holds the promise of catalysing change and generating and sustaining workplace renewal, particularly in matters pertaining to workplace inequality which are associated as ‘worlds of pain’ (Rubin in DiTomaso & Parks-Yancy, 2014: 450). Recognizing that compassion at work undergirds a nurturing relational environment, strengthens interpersonal sensitivity and ties, and facilitates co-operation and collaboration among colleagues, this panel symposium examines the interface between workplace inequalities and workplace compassion. Panelists will draw on their own research and/or applied work to speak to the possibilities - and perhaps pitfalls - that a consideration of compassion affords in the attempt to address inequality and establish socially sustainable workplaces.