There's a phrase that gets tossed around in all-hands meetings like confetti: "People are our greatest asset."

And then the same organization gives those "greatest assets" 10 days of Paid Time Off, a company-wide email when something major changes, and a manager who's responsible for their career but never actually reachable.

I've spent over 30 years on both sides of this equation - as an employee starting out at Subway and Kmart, as an employment lawyer representing both workers and companies, and as an HR leader inside organizations trying to close the gap between what leadership says about people and what they actually do about them. What I've seen consistently, across every industry and org size, is this:

How people feel at work plays a critical role in business outcomes.

But many managers don’t treat it that way - they assume being kind will hamper productivity or that there's nothing they can really influence anyway, when the complete opposite is true.

Watch this week’s video for a quick breakdown - then keep reading for how to put it into action.

The Line-Item Problem

At the leadership level, people are often talked about as "labor costs," "headcount," a "line item." The thinking goes something like: We've got X resources. We need Y output. How do we optimize?

That framing isn't inherently wrong. Numbers and results do matter.  And shareholders, boards, investors - they're not going away.

But when you treat people purely as inputs to a production function, you skip over a critical variable: how those people experience the work itself. And that variable has a name - several names, actually.

It's called engagement, productivity, retention. These aren't soft HR buzzwords - they're measurable drivers of whether your team actually performs or just shows up and does enough to not get fired.

And those metrics - especially engagement - aren't primarily driven by compensation or perks. They're driven by the day-to-day experience of working for you.

What the Research (and Reality) Actually Shows

Gallup’s 2026 State of the Global Workplace report found that only 20% of employees worldwide are engaged at work - and that lack of engagement cost the global economy $10 trillion last year.

$10 trillion. Not from bad strategy. Not from poor products. From people simply not caring about their work.

So what actually moves the needle? Start with managers. The way they show up every day matters more than a CEO’s vision statement or perks in the break room.

Gallup's report cites research from Stanford, Harvard Business School, and MIT that found that management practices drive about 30% of productivity differences.

Which means when you’re wondering why retention is struggling or performance targets aren’t being met, it may not just be about compensation - it may also be about whether managers know how to create an environment where people want to do their best work.

The "Just Send an Email" Trap

Here's a scenario I use to illustrate this. Imagine a company is rolling out a new process - a new product launch or initiative - a major change. Leadership has two options:

Option 1: Send a company-wide email letting people know. Check.

Option 2: Walk people through it with not just an FYI, but the opportunity to ask questions, information for managers on how to hold discussions, and leaders who follow up.

Obviously Option 2 produces better adoption. That part's not controversial. But so often organizations still go with Option 1. 

Employees in Option 1 don't just learn less. They feel less cared about.

When you get a policy change by email with no follow-up, no conversation, no "how this applies to you" - you internalize something. You think, My employer doesn't actually think about how this affects me. I'm just supposed to fall in line.

And that's a small deposit into what I think of as the "Trust Deficit." Enough of those deposits and you have a team that's technically employed but emotionally checked out.

What "Checked Out" Costs You

Let's talk real numbers.

Turnover is expensive. Depending on the role, replacing an employee costs somewhere between 50% and 200% of their annual salary when you account for recruiting, onboarding and the productivity gap while the new person ramps up. That's not HR talking - that's finance.

Disengaged employees who stay are often even more expensive. They're present, technically, but they're doing the bare minimum. They're not catching problems before they become crises or bringing problems up proactively. You're paying for a body, not a contributor - when the latter is absolutely possible, from the same person.

Because on the flip side - engaged employees who believe their manager sees them as humans, not headcount solve problems you didn't know you had. They stay through hard times. They tell their networks your company is worth working for. They are the culture.

That's the ROI of treating people like people.

The Manager's Lever

If you're a manager reading this who thinks, Okay but I don't set policy. I don't control compensation. I can't fix the PTO situation.

You're right. And also: you control more than you think.

It's not just one Gallup report. Research consistently shows that the quality of an employee's relationship with their direct manager is one of the strongest predictors of engagement, performance and intent to stay - often more predictive than pay, benefits, or even the work itself.

So what do you actually control?

Whether you hold regular 1:1s. How (and even whether) you greet your team members. Whether you follow up when something changes. Whether you explain the why behind decisions, even when the decision wasn't yours. Whether you notice when someone seems off. Whether you make it easy - or awkward - for people to come to you with questions.

These are not big, expensive interventions. They're not culture initiatives that require a 3-day project kickoff. They're daily, low-cost decisions that compound over time into either a team that trusts you or a team that's quietly job-hunting.

The Question Every Manager Should Be Asking

I work with HR and managers at every level, and one of the simplest reframes I give is this:

"How will this impact my team, and how can I help them?"

Just as a check. Before you send that email, before you roll out that change, before you cancel that 1:1 for the third week in a row - pause and ask: How could this be received by the person on the other end?

Because employees are always reading the signals, whether you intend to send them or not. And when those signals consistently say "you're not worth my time" or "it's up to you to figure out" - they make decisions accordingly. They disengage and underperform - or even leave.

But when the signals say "I get you, I have time for you, I'll bring you along" - they perform at a level you couldn't have bought with a 10% raise.

What to Do as a Manager

You don't need to be a therapist (unless, of course, that's actually the work you do). But you don't need to worry about getting it perfect.

You need to understand that engagement isn't an HR metric - it's a performance driver. And you, as a manager, are the single biggest variable in whether your team is engaged or not.

So the business case for how you treat employees isn't just about doing the right thing (although that is also a good reason). It's about understanding that every single one of the largest goals in your organization is going to be impacted by the day-to-day choices you make as a manager.

And you can make small choices that both deliver results and build a workplace everyone (including you) says, "I really like my job."

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