It is particularly important to distinguish between two forms:

• Cognitive empathy: the ability to put oneself in the shoes of others and understand their perspectives (“perspective taking”) (Davis, 1983).

• Affective empathy: the emotional response to the experiences of others – i.e., compassion and concern for their well-being (“empathic concern”) (Davis, 1983)

In addition, empathy can also be visible in behavior, for example through questioning, active listening, or nonverbal signals (Wu et al., 2024).

Empathy plays an important role, especially in job centers and career counseling. It helps employees to better understand the situation of clients, build trust, and develop solutions together (Tountopoulou et al., 2019). Studies also show that empathic perspective-taking can help reduce prejudice and make encounters more open and respectful (cf. Batson & Ahmad, 2009).

We assume that employees at job centers are already empathetic in their everyday counseling work. With our project, we want to support them in further training their empathic skills—specifically for a work context that is characterized by diversity, different needs, and complex challenges (Lambert & Barley, 2001; Ritter et al., 2002).