Let's face it: there isn't an office in the world where peril-fraught social dynamics aren't in play. When you work with people day in and day out, often seeing them more than you see your own family, there are bound to be at least minor conflicts. And on top of the office-grown problems, there are the homegrown ones to contend with. After all, employees don't just check their domestic issues at the office door. If even the emotionally obtuse can find such an office environment challenging, then what, I ask, is the empath to do? People-loving, peace-making middle child that I am, empathy (or at least empathy's less mature cousin, sympathy) comes fairly naturally to me. Not surprisingly, then, in the various offices where I've worked I've more than once been the go-to person for colleagues who've needed a shoulder to cry on or a nodding, clucking head to rage to. I have received frustrated e-mails from co-workers seeking consensus regarding annoying peers; I've answered whispered cellphone calls from other parts of the building when someone needed to vent about the boss; and I once spent several weeks' worth of lunch hours listening to the details of a sordid love affair from someone who, in our outside-of-work lives, likely didn't even consider me a close friend. While I was flattered to be entrusted with secrets from my co-workers' emotional lives, it occurred to me more than once that I might be more productive (and less emotionally burdened) if I just didn't give a damn. When I quit my job last year to work alone at home, therefore, I felt, in part, a sense of relief that I was no longer hooked into the interior lives of my office mates. On the other hand, I also felt a little guilty about leaving them adrift with no eager amateur therapist to turn to. Clearly, my ambivalent feelings about my role included more than a little arrogance re: the positive effect I had on the office psyche. Delusions of grandeur aside, however, these mixed feelings about my own experience do invite the more general question: Is having a sympathetic ear in the office useful, on balance, from an organizational point of view? I.e., does the office empath mostly promote well-being and productivity, or does she encourage gossip and fan the flames of perceived slights? And what about the empath herself? Is she setting herself up for emotional exhaustion or a promotion? Hello? Is anyone listening?? Empathy is the capacity to sense other people's emotions and imagine what they might be feeling. It's an ability that's gotten a lot of attention lately in two recent books, The Empathic Civilization by Jeremy Rifkin, and Humanity on a Tightrope by Paul R. Ehrlich and Robert E. Ornstein, both of which make cases for empathy as the engine of human progress. In a recent column in The Globe and Mail, ATB Financial's chief economist Todd Hirsch not only touts empathy from a humane perspective, but also from the point of view of corporate success. Hirsch calls empathy an "economic imperative" without which companies cannot "find new ways to please their customers" or resolutions to conflicts between workers. A little empathy flowing between office cubicles, it seems, ensures harmony and profitability.

Lisa Holden Rovers is a human resources specialist and leadership coach with Calgary-based Capability Connections Consulting. Essentially, she goes out to companies and helps employees learn to work together more harmoniously and, thus, more productively. She's a fine listener herself. But while Holden Rovers is all for staff having access "to a confidant in the office to help you figure things out," she has also seen how an office empath can be a hindrance. "You've got to ask, 'Is the work getting done? Is this dynamic helpful or harmful to the team? Are there issues not being dealt with because there's one person being used as a sounding board? Is this affecting the credibility of the manager and the team? Does this person feel like a doormat?'" Hugo Garcia has likely asked himself, in some form, a few of the above questions—perhaps the last one in particular. After emigrating from Guatemala City to Calgary a dozen years ago, Garcia, an IT solution architect, began consulting for the oil and gas industry, and soon had a successful business on his hands. In addition to being sought after for his technical expertise, Garcia, an approachable, funny guy, sometimes finds his office door revolving with co-workers in need, not of IT but of IP (interpersonal) solutions. He has, on several occasions, been listening to a co-worker's complaints about an unfair job assignment or a cheating boyfriend while another colleague waits outside the door for his turn at Garcia's ear. "The feedback I get is that I make people feel better because I listen, I make them laugh, I make comparisons with experiences I've had in my own life," he says. Garcia denies possessing any special empathic qualities, saying that what he mostly does is "sit and listen long enough to people so that they usually come up with their own solution to their problem." Interestingly, it wasn't until he came to Canada that Garcia found himself in the role of corporate guidance counsellor. He believes it's his cultural heritage as much as his approachability that makes him a magnet for empathy-seekers. "I find in my field that people react strongly to where you are from," he says. "The fact that I'm Latino seems to get people excited." He says upwards of 60 percent of his co-workers are recent immigrants from China who, when he tells them he's from Guatemala, "often have an amazing knowledge of the area I'm from, and want to take me for coffee or buy me a bottle of wine." Garcia feels that being from Central America instantly marks him as "accessible, friendly and open." Dubious cultural stereotyping aside, in Garcia's case, at least, his colleagues are right. Still, while he's too nice to say so to his work friends, office empath is a role Garcia finds frustrating. He admits he's turned down management positions because the thought of officially having to deal with endless interpersonal problems is paralyzing. Lately, when he takes new contracts, he negotiates as much time working from home as possible in order to reduce his contact with distressed and distracted colleagues. "I want to help people, but I also find it disruptive. It's just better for me if I don't have to be on-site."

Dr. Piers Steel, a professor of human resources and organizational dynamics at the University of Calgary's Haskayne School of Business, offers a less extreme avoidance strategy. Steel is a researcher in the field of procrastination and author of the book The Procrastination Equation. He's a master at setting boundaries to protect his time and energy for what really matters to him. "Saying no to people is uncomfortable but there are a lot of uncomfortable things we have to do in life—like taxes and not having a second chocolate chip cookie," he says. "We've got to learn to differentiate between times when a colleague comes to us with an issue such as 'My family has been in a tragic car accident' versus 'I was caught in a traffic jam.'" The former obviously deserves genuine care and concern, whereas the latter, Steel says, isn't worthy of a lengthy conversation that will cut into your work time. "There are places for useless pieces of information like that," he says. "It's called Facebook." After all, he adds, "you'd say no if someone at work asked you for a bunch of money, right? Well, time is money! If you don't value your time, why should anyone else?" Lest Steel seem heartless, it should be mentioned that he volunteered for a couple of years answering phones at a distress centre. While he didn't exactly relish the gig, it did strengthen his understanding of the importance of effective empathic leadership in building relationships and facilitating community. What he still doesn't have time for, however, is people he calls "endless pits of need who live with their hearts in the public sphere." When I tell him about Garcia's ambivalent feelings about being the go-to guy at the office for staff who want to vent, Steel immediately offers a bevy of tips he believes could dramatically alter the perception of Garcia's emotional availability around the office. "I'm not surprised (Garcia) is in demand in his workplace," says Steel. "IT is a task-oriented workplace so I'm sure he's an anomaly there; if he's willing to listen, it's not surprising that there's a crowd at his door." He says a first step toward reducing the demands on someone such as Garcia who risks giving away too much of his valuable work time could be as simple as avoiding eye contact. "That's often what initiates things," says Steel. "You can also angle your computer away from people," he continues. "Shut the door. Throw a jacket across the empty chair in front of your desk." Steel also suggests having at the ready a "summary statement of acknowledgement," combined with an "escape" for those times when a co-worker approaches with a time-consuming problem. He gives an example: "Say, 'Hmm, that sounds rough,' then look at your watch and add, 'Ooh, look at the time—I've gotta go!'" That kind of "out" generally doesn't break the relationship, Steel says, but "it can put a stop to the interruptions in the flow of your day. "While Holden Rovers is as aware as Steel of the potential perils of empathy in the workplace, she is inclined to tout its potential benefits as well. For her, access to an empathic personality can "unblock" what stops people from getting into a productive flow at work—in other words, emotional offloading can sometimes be the key to unlocking efficiency among staff who are too irritated or upset to get their work done. This productive benefit explains why even some leaders short on empathy practise an open-door policy.Holden Rovers once coached someone she calls "a very smart leader"—a logical, results-oriented man with a "fact-oriented type of style." She was surprised, then, to learn that he spent part of nearly every day patiently listening to his staff's personal problems. The explanation? "He told me he knew that people in the office thought he cared about them because he let them come and share their personal issues with him," Holden Rovers recalls. "But, he told me, in fact, he doesn't care. He sits and listens to them because he learned that if he doesn't help them solve their problems, he won't get the results out of them that he knows are possible because they'll be thinking about something else." This approach may strike some as disturbingly android-like—press "E" for empathy—but from a productivity point-of-view, at least, it seems to have worked. "If people are getting issues out in the open in a safe environment, then that's good for the organization," says Holden Rovers.