3 Reasons To Help Highly Sensitive People Thrive in The Workplace

1. It's the right thing to do, ethically

We can look at this from two viewpoints.

The negative: if there's a group of people in your organisation who are being unduly harmed by conditions, it's the ethically correct thing to do to change those conditions. Highly Sensitive people can often be in this situation at work - unbenknownst to others, especially supervisors. Many conditions - in the physical/sensory environment and in processes and culture - which are considered normal in workplaces are actually harmful to people with this temperament. These halt their progression, cause undue stress, and prevent them from using their gifts for the greater good. If you become aware of the fact that this exists, which it does, then ethically, you need to do something about it. 

The positive: if there's a group of people in your organisation who have unique gifts, but whose potential isn't being fully utilised, both they and the organisation are suffering for that lack. That's a resource that's not being tapped, and a valuable one. Tap into it; nurture it; help it develop. Ethically, if there's a resource like this, and it's going to waste, then caring about employee wellbeing and organisational success means learning about it, making use of it, and improving it. Or else that resource should be going where that will happen. 

2. Benefits for everyone

A thriving Highly Sensitive person at work brings benefits to the rest of the organisation. Better ideas, wiser decisions, greater awareness of dangers, problems and opportunities, improved communication, and more. 

3. The things which help HS people thrive are often the things which need to be changed anyway

Better concentration, deeper motivation, greater commitment, feeling a part of the organisation and 'having a voice': most people want and are benefited by having these at work. 

A Highly Sensitive person is like the rosebush planted at the end of a row of grapevines (this is a common analogy). Like the rosebush, they are more sensitive to - more affected by - conditions which also affect the grapevines (i.e. everyone else), but more slowly and less obviously. Highly Sensitive people are an organisation's chance (and excuse) to get it right.

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