Effective communication is a cornerstone skill for return to work coordinators. After all, coordination without communication is like navigating without a map. To communicate with compassion however seems to add a very complex layer to this cornerstone skill. To effectively communicate and coordinate with compassion, we must first understand what compassion truly means. Many mistakenly interchange compassion with empathy. While empathy is indeed essential in return to work coordination, compassion plays a pivotal role in gaining buy-in from stakeholders and sustaining success and longevity in the field of workers compensation.
It is not to say that as return to work coordinators we should not practice with empathy because as Jimenez (2021) explains, having empathy as a starting point sets the tone for the entire return to work process. To practice with empathy and true compassion it is important to start by acknowledging and accepting that all employees have a life outside work and to remember that these lives may be full of concerns and stressors that as managers, supervisors or return to work coordinators we may not see (Jimenez, 2021).
If we consider that empathy is about feeling with, while compassion is about acting with care (Jimenez J, 2021) we can begin to differentiate the two. It is important that as return to work coordinators we get clear on what compassion is and to practice compassionately to get true life changing outcomes for the injured people we are helping. Jimenez (2021) explains that at a basic level, empathy involves understanding and sharing the feelings of others. This is does come in handy when listening to the injured workers story and experience, however as coordinators it is important that we set boundaries when it comes to empathy and sharing feelings. Jimenez (2021) goes on the explain that in contrast to empathy, compassion is the act of showing kindness, support, and a desire to alleviate someone’s suffering without necessarily sharing their emotional experience, which as return to work coordinators allow us to set boundaries more easily and not become emotionally attached. Compassion creates emotional distance from the individual and the situation we’re facing (Jimenez, 2021), this is prudent to allow coordinators to do great work, whilst avoiding burnout.
Another challenge we face as return to work coordination is being the communication bridge between the employer, the agent, the treating health practitioner and the injured worker. Being the conduit for information flow and outcome expectations can make it easy to form judgement and to become outcome and premium focused, forgetting about the workers experience. Shuck et al, (2019), recognise that unless personally experienced by the ‘helper’, difficulties created by individual suffering at work can be challenging to comprehend. We not only encounter this as coordinators, we see it happening in managers and supervisors who are output focused. The level of compassion that coordinators, mangers, and supervisors exhibit often depends on the perceived level of discourse experienced by the worker. For instance, as Shuck et al (2019) explain, serious incidents such as workplace violence, might more easily invoke the ideals of compassion, as this is a situation that has expected, ’normal’ behaviours from leaders, coworkers, and communities. However, the sufferings of other everyday situations being experienced at work such as constrained financial resources, relationship breakdowns, requesting that employees work overtime, and having to make difficult personnel decisions, may not always be seen as a severe, overt events, so the magnitude of compassion differs, which impacts the buy-in we get from the injured worker (Shuck et al, 2019).
On the flip side, a study by Ruttan, McDonnell and Nordgren in 2015 found that our lived experience and the memories we carry from that can have a significant impact of the level of compassion given. They say that constrained memories from affective experiences means that once the distressing event has been overcome, we may have difficulty reliving the original emotional response to the event. They found that because people instead rely on their immediately accessible feelings in forming judgments, they may believe that their current “cold” state perceptions of the event reflect how they have always felt and reacted (Ruttan, McDonnell & Nordgren, 2015). So, if we consider this from a return to work point of view, we must consider that a coordinator with lived workplace injury experience may only consider that they were able to overcome the experience and successfully return to work, forgetting about the challenges they faced along the way. These constrained memories may risk leading to feelings of unhelpful judgement or unrealistic expectations of the injured worker who maybe struggling to overcome difficulties. Decreased levels of compassion exhibited towards the worker, can ultimately affect our ability to successfully assist the injured worker to make the life changing decision to return to safe work.
In conclusion, cultivating and maintaining compassion without judgment in return to work coordination is paramount for fostering positive outcomes and supporting injured workers effectively. By understanding the nuances of compassion, setting empathetic boundaries, and acknowledging the diverse challenges and difficulties workers face, as coordinators we can then work with the injured worker to successfully navigate this complex terrain with compassion, professionalism, and genuine care.
References
Jimenez J, 2021. Compassion vs. empathy: Understanding the difference. Better Up. https://www.betterup.com/blog/compassion-vs-empathy#:~:text=At%20a%20basic%20level%2C%20empathy,is%20about%20acting%20with%20care. Accessed 21 April 2024.
Ruttan R, McDonnell M, Nordgren L. (2015) Having “Been There” Doesn’t Mean I Care: When Prior Experience Reduces Compassion for Emotional Distress. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Vol. 108, No. 4, 610 – 622
Shuck D, Alagaraja M, Immekus J, Cumberland D, Honeycutt-Elliott M. Does Compassion Matter in Leadership? A Two-Stage Sequential Equal Status Mixed Method Exploratory Study of Compassionate Leader Behavior and Connections to Performance in Human Resource Development; Mixed method study. Human Resource Development Quarterly. 2019; 30: 537–564.