Kindness in Times of Crisis: How Empathetic Feedback Influences Performance in a Competitive Environment

• In Event: Social Values and Empathy

Abstract

In response to the uncertainties and challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic, many firms have adopted an empathetic approach to performance evaluations. We are interested in how the provision of empathetic performance feedback may affect employees’ work effort and their subsequent performance in a competitive environment. We conduct an experiment in which participants compete in rank-order tournaments for multiple rounds, in some of which the task difficulty is high. We manipulate whether participants receive empathetic signals in those rounds, i.e., whether performance expectations are lowered for all employees in those rounds. Evidence from our experiment shows that when provided with empathetic signals compared with when not, top performing employees perform worse in later rounds. This negative performance effect is driven by empathetic signals distracting top performers from relative performance information and social comparisons. We also observe a positive effect of empathetic signals on bottom performers’ perceived justice, but such a positive effect does not result in greater performance. We conduct a supplemental survey among 150 North American employees working during the pandemic. The survey shows multiple benefits of empathetic performance evaluation including increased satisfaction and engagement, and reduced stress, burnout and turnover intentions.

Authors

• Leslie Berger, Wilfrid Laurier University

• Lan Guo, Wilfrid Laurier University

• Sara Wick, University of Guelph