Despite a billion-dollar engagement industry, engagement is at a 10-year low. The root cause is not a lack of perks but a fundamental feeling of insignificance, as few employees feel genuinely cared for or invested in by their workplace.
Increasing meetings and communication platforms fails to curb loneliness because quantity of interaction is irrelevant. The solution is quality interactions—attention, respect, and affirmation—that make people feel they genuinely matter to their colleagues.
Appreciation values who someone is, and recognition values what they do. But affirmation is superior because it reveals *how* someone's unique gifts create a unique impact. It provides "indisputable evidence of their significance," which is more motivating.
The "spillover crossover model" reveals that employees feeling devalued at work lack the emotional bandwidth for patient parenting and are less likely to participate in civic life. Thus, improving workplace mattering is a powerful, overlooked lever for strengthening society.
The Ringelmann effect shows that individual effort declines in groups where personal contribution feels non-essential. To make people feel irreplaceable, leaders must explicitly state their unique value and impact, often by simply saying, "If it wasn't for you..."
Go beyond "knowing" to "noticing": deliberately observing and remembering small details about a person's work and life. One manager used a simple notebook to track these details for weekly micro-check-ins, creating immense trust and engagement by showing she remembered.