Showing Compassion Through Intelligent Kindness

Intelligent Kindness at work is about showing compassion for one another, understanding how we can impact each other’s wellbeing, and being confident to treat others in the way we would want to be treated ourselves. We have used Intelligent Kindness events with colleagues to help underline our values of dignity, fairness and respect.

Since 2021, we have held 90 digital learning and development sessions with over 2500 colleagues taking part across the organisation.

Our person-centred approach of placing people at the heart of our service echoes the commitment in our corporate plan, which says that we should be an “intelligent kind organisation”.

Delivered by Alliance Scotland’s National Lead for Caring and Outreach, Tommy Whitelaw, these sessions have been instrumental in sparking initiatives related to Intelligent Kindness across our organisation, which have included Intelligent Kindness Cafes and the welcoming process for new colleagues.

Colleagues who have attended the sessions found them a positive experience:

“Everyone should attend these sessions. We have a real opportunity to build an amazing caring service for the people of Scotland (people who really need us just now). I will certainly be taking forward Tommy’s advice when building our Local Delivery service. This is my chance to make a difference. Thank you.”

“I feel that this will allow me to implement a practice which is client-led and based around what matters to them and the individuals supporting them, to ensure the service provision is holistic and person-centred”.

Intelligent Kindness sessions are run across all levels of the organisation. The Management Development Programme helps managers become more familiar with Intelligent Kindness concepts and use them through one-to-one conversations with colleagues they manage. All colleagues are invited to take part in What Matters to You Day, an annual event where people can share what is meaningful to them about the work they do.