--By Rachel Feintzeig

 

To get employees to spend more time in the office, try a little tenderness.

 

New research out of the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and George Mason University shows that an office culture of “companionate love” can lead to less worker absenteeism and increased employee satisfaction, as measured by surveys and personnel records.

 

“Love has kind of been a taboo word,” when it comes to work, says Sigal G. Barsade, a Wharton management professor. But “this is where we spend most of our time.”

 

Companionate love–as opposed to the passion associated with romantic relationships–is marked by feelings of caring, compassion and affection, says Ms. Barsade. Workers can show such love by buying a cup of coffee for a colleague who’s been up late with a new baby or offering to cover for a co-worker during a doctor’s appointment.

 

Ms. Barsade and George Mason management professor Olivia O’Neill studied 185 employees working in a nursing home in the Northeast where managers were trying to cultivate a warm, caring environment. They found that employees in sections where co-workers showed more companionate love reported higher satisfaction, less emotional burnout and better teamwork than employees in less-demonstrative units. They were also absent from work less.

 

Residents of the nursing home, who were also studied, benefited too. Researchers found residents in the more loving sections had better moods and took fewer trips to the emergency room than residents of other sections.

 

“In response to Tina Turner’s famously haunting lyrics, love, actually, has very much to do with it,” the authors write in the paper, set to be published by Administrative Science Quarterly in the next few months.

 

Small acts of kindness and compassion in the workplace can be contagious, previous studies have found. For example, an accountant who’s encouraged to take time off during a busy tax season to deal with a personal issue will feel more loyal to the company and will be more likely to respond compassionately when another colleague needs his help down the line.

 

“It turns into this virtuous cycle,” Ms. Barsade says.

 

Ms. Barsade and Ms. O’Neill also surveyed 3,201 workers across industries including engineering, financial services and higher education about the emotional cultures of their workplaces. Respondents who worked in compassionate environments reported increased job satisfaction and greater commitment to the organization, they found.

 

Ms. Barsade says leaders of all types of companies need to recognize that the emotional cultures of their workplaces are as important as the “cognitive” concepts they place front and center – like innovation or results. Executives can start by treating those around them with more compassion, she says, and also incorporate formal company-wide policies like flexible work hours.

 

“If as a leader you foster a culture of companionate love, you will have more satisfied employees and a better work outcome,” she says.