Why Empathy Training is Gaining Ground in the Workplace

Empathy has moved from a nice-to-have leadership trait to a metric companies actually track. Businessolver’s 2025 State of Workplace Empathy Report, now in its tenth year, found that organizations perceived as unempathetic face roughly $180 billion in attrition costs annually across the U.S. workforce. That number is why more companies are building empathy training into their leadership development programs instead of treating it as a soft skill that takes care of itself.

Empathy means putting yourself in someone else’s position enough to understand what they’re feeling and why. It sounds simple, but most people don’t do it automatically under pressure, which is exactly why training programs exist.

If you’re an HR professional building an empathy training program, here’s what’s driving the trend and how to start.

Why Is There a Gap Between What Leaders Believe and Employees Experience?

Leaders overestimate how empathetic their organization actually is, and employees are the ones paying for that gap. The Businessolver report found that 89% of CEOs agree empathy drives financial performance, but only 55% believe their own organization undervalues it. Meanwhile, 27% of employees say their workplace isn’t empathetic at all, and that group is far more likely to report burnout, disengagement, and plans to leave within the year.

That disconnect matters because leaders tend to assume empathy is already baked into their culture. Employees are telling a different story, and the data backs them up.

How Does Empathy Training Improve the Customer Experience?

Empathy training shapes how your team handles customers, not just how they treat each other. When employees feel supported and understood internally, that same instinct carries into how they handle a difficult client call or a frustrated customer email. Teams that practice reading emotional cues internally get better at spotting them externally, which is part of why so many customer experience leaders now treat empathy as a trainable skill rather than a personality trait some reps happen to have.

What Are 3 Tips for Training Employees in Empathy?

The most effective empathy training combines self-regulation, listening skills, and structured perspective-taking.

1. Build in mindfulness practice. Mindfulness training reinforces the habits that prevent reactive, stress-driven responses in the first place. It also strengthens focus, memory, and self-control, all of which make it easier to stay present in a difficult conversation instead of jumping to a conclusion.
2. Teach active listening, not just hearing. Most people listen for their turn to respond instead of listening to understand. Body language training, active listening exercises, and practicing follow-up questions all help employees catch what’s actually being said instead of what they expect to hear.
3. Practice perspective-taking on purpose. Before reacting, employees need a habit of pausing to consider the other person’s position. This is harder than it sounds, especially for people who default to their own experience first. One approach gaining traction: KKR’s CEO Empathy Gyms put senior leaders directly into frontline employees’ shoes so the exercise isn’t theoretical.

Leadership sets the tone for the rest of the organization. When leaders visibly practice empathy, teams follow their lead faster than any training module can teach it on its own.

How Should You Deliver Empathy Training?

Deliver empathy training in the format your employees actually prefer, whether that’s remote, in-office, or hybrid, because the delivery method itself sends a signal about whether the training is genuine. Ask your employees how they want to receive training before you build the program. Skipping that step undercuts the message before the training even starts.

We help you deliver empathy training however your workforce needs it, from printing and shipping training materials in bundles to teams and offices worldwide, to distributing courseware digitally through Mimeo Digital.

Want to deliver empathy training materials anywhere in the world? Get started with Mimeo today.

Frequently Asked Questions

Key Takeaways

• Unempathetic workplaces cost U.S. companies an estimated $180 billion annually in attrition, according to Businessolver’s 2025 report
• A significant gap exists between how empathetic leaders believe their organization is and how employees actually experience it
• Empathy training combines mindfulness, active listening, and structured perspective-taking
• Leadership behavior sets the tone for whether empathy training sticks across the organization
• Training delivery format matters: ask employees how they prefer to receive training before building the program