An Impersonal Touch

The email from the boss arrived almost immediately following the client presentation. It contained no signature, and it read simply, “Great job.” It seemed more like a formality than a sincere compliment, and instead of feeling appreciated, the employee felt barely noticed.

Lost amid all the talk about remote work’s erosion of corporate culture, experts say, is leaders’ own part in the situation. Indeed, much like their employees, leaders have come to rely on digital tools to communicate—at the cost of personal connections with their workforces. According to one recent survey, it’s all having an impact, with three-quarters of employees saying they felt undervalued at work, while 44% said they felt completely unacknowledged by their employers.

The problem apparently extends far beyond their immediate managers. Nearly 30% of employees in another survey say they never receive recognition from executive-level leaders. “It takes more effort to connect with employees,” says Liz Schaefer, a senior client partner and practice leader in Korn Ferry’s Professional Search division with a focus on human resources. “You can’t just pop into someone’s office, so leaders have to be more intentional about it.”

Kevin Cashman, vice chairman of CEO and enterprise leadership at Korn Ferry, says employees are feeling undervalued because of a lack of “authentic appreciation” on the part of leaders. Even if leaders are communicating more with employees, they aren’t connecting with them, at least not on a personal level. “The act of doing can demonstrate deep, caring connection,” says Cashman. In other words, it doesn’t take much time, effort, or thought to fire off an email—and employees know it.

To be sure, many leaders recognize the need to reestablish personal, one-to-one connections with employees at every level of the organization. For instance, one major energy-company CEO makes a point of writing letters to recognize employees, taking care to point out specific interactions or details. “Handwritten notes are particularly impactful in our digital world,” says Cashman. Retail and consumer-goods leaders are visiting stores on a regular basis to interact more with frontline employees, while others hold small, informal monthly lunches with talent at all levels of the organization. “Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of CEOs who take the time to focus on talent like this,” says Jamen Graves, global leader of CEO and enterprise leadership development at Korn Ferry.

And that could end up costing them in the long run. Data shows that employees crave recognition and feedback from managers and senior leaders. Just under 82% of them say recognition directly affects their engagement; the lack of it appears to be correlated with historically high levels of employee disengagement since the pandemic. Even worse, 44% of employees who intend to leave their jobs cite a lack of recognition as the main reason.

Leaders say that serendipitous elevator and hallway meetings build culture and shared purpose; Schaefer says that works both ways. Indeed, 46% of employees say that receiving unexpected praise or rewards from their supervisors greatly enhances their sense of being appreciated. “Blocking time to make calls or write personal notes shows that leaders care, and that can spread across the entire organization,” she says. 

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