How listening training affects workers'

Listening well is important for both workers and the company (Flynn et al., 2008; Itzchakov & Kluger, 2018). Better performance (for example, more sales; Bergeron & Laroche, 2009; Itani et al., 2019; Johnston & Reed, 2017), job satisfaction (Tangirala & Ramanujam, 2012), organizational commitment (Tucker & Turner, 2015), creativity (Castro et al., 2018), and work engagement (Jonsdottir & Kristinsson, 2020) are some of the benefits. Because listening is so important for building good relationships at work and the benefits that come with them, it may lead to better results at work (Kluger & Itzchakov, 2022). bad listening is seen as a problem by managers because it causes bad work and low output (Hunt & Cusella, 1983). Companies, especially human resources management (HRM), may want to spend time and energy helping their workers improve their listening skills because it is useful and important (Gilchrist & Van Hoeven, 1994). In this piece, we use two "quasi-field experiments" to look at what happens to workplace relationships when you teach employees how to listen well. We measure these relationships by how close they are to each other. We also test how listening at work can help lower stress and the desire to leave. A lot of times, people quit high-paying jobs because they don't like the social atmosphere at work (Griffeth et al., 2000). We claim that employees who feel heard and connected at work should be less emotionally worn out (i.e., burnout) and less likely to want to leave the company (i.e., turnover intentions). We also say that listening training can help make these things happen.

Teams are trained for a very high cost by businesses. Case in point: in the US alone in 2018, businesses spent over 87.6 billion dollars on training and development for their employees. So, training employees is an important part of HRM, and it includes planning, carrying out, and evaluating the process. According to researchers, training needs to be paired with real-world study (Salas et al., 2012). Regrettably, a lot of training programs are not thoroughly researched. We're going to test a certain kind of training here: training for listening skills. Listening helps people bond and form better relationships (Kluger & Itzchakov, 2022). This means that it can help work relationships and maybe even lower turnover. So, human resource (HR) managers should care about the benefits this kind of training could bring to the company. This is especially true since there is proof that shows listening training does improve employees' ability to listen. On the other hand, a meta-analysis of 32 studies with a total of 3298 participants found that training had an average effect size of 0.38 on listening behaviors, with no proof of publication bias (Kluger, 2020).

1.1 Training for building good relationships at work

The current work is based on the idea that listening is important for building good relationships at work (Itzchakov & Kluger, 2018; Kluger & Itzchakov, 2022). It's natural for people to want to be understood and listened to (Reis et al., 2017; Rogers, 1975). When a coworker or boss really listens to an employee, they send messages like "you belong," "you are important to me," and "your thoughts and feelings matter" (Van Quaquebeke & Felps, 2018). Additionally, employees who receive good listening are likely to do the same for others (Kluger et al., 2021). This creates close relationships by fostering a feeling of "togetherness" between both parties, as explained in the Episodic Listening Theory (Kluger & Itzchakov, 2022). When people in a dyad feel connected to each other, they become more open-minded, which leads to more happiness, creativity, and understanding (Kluger & Itzchakov, 2022). A recent poll also found that more than a third of workers felt most connected to their jobs when their coworkers or bosses listened to their personal or professional stories (COQUAL, 2020).

1.2 How listening training affects stress and plans to leave

People's coworkers have a big impact on their social lives and can help each other with social and mental issues when they listen (Itzchakov & Kluger, 2017a, 2017b). These resources, along with the supervisor, affect how well workers can control their feelings (Diefendorff & Richard, 2003). Emotional exhaustion is a key part of burnout (Seidler et al., 2014). Good listeners may help lessen it by providing social and emotional support (Ashford et al., 2009). Listening is a type of social support (Itzchakov et al., 2022; Weinstein et al., 2022). It can help people talk about their feelings and thoughts without hiding them, which can keep burnout from getting worse (Wilk & Moynihan, 2005). It has been shown in both real life and theory that feeling listened to is linked to feelings of burnout (Lloyd, Boer, Keller, et al., 2015; Pines et al., 2002). A meta-analysis found an estimated r = −0.28 95% CI [−0.32, −0.23] link between perceived listening and speakers' burnout (K = 10, N = 3858) (Kluger, 2020). Based on Bosco et al. (2015), this effect size is in the top third of relationships in the field of applied psychology.

1.3 How stable is listening training?

There hasn't been a lot of study done on how stable listening training at work is for improving employees' listening skills. As far as we know, only one study (Itzchakov, 2020) has looked at how stable listening training is. But this study only looked at listeners (customer service reps) and not actors, and it didn't track how the work affected organizations. Gayed et al. (2018) also did a systematic study and a meta-analysis on training managers in social support. They said, "...information on organizational stability was not captured in the included studies, and its effect is still unknown" (p. 468). In the real world, the question of stability is important because companies spend time and money on listening training with the hope that it will have long-lasting benefits. Given the large amount of money, time, and effort that goes into these kinds of HR practices, companies should be able to look at scientific data to see if the training worked in the short term (right after the program) and the long term.