Do you feel the Love
It’s not the language of employee relations. You won’t find it in HR policies or leadership frameworks. But stay with it.
When one of a team’s top players walked away, the explanation wasn’t pay, promotion, silverware or a bust-up with the manager. According to the journalist he spoke to, it was simpler than that: he didn’t feel loved.
We tend to reach for more respectable explanations when employees leave. Better opportunities. Poor management. Career progression. Pay. All valid, all evidence-based. But occasionally the reason is more uncomfortable and harder to quantify: they didn’t feel valued, included or respected. They didn’t feel anyone would notice if they stayed or went. In short, they didn’t feel the love.
Before we dismiss this as the fragile ego of an overpaid elite performer, it’s worth asking how different this really is from the everyday experience of most workplaces.
Organisations are increasingly preoccupied with retention—and with good reason. Skills shortages, hard-to-fill posts and the cost of turnover have made keeping experienced staff a strategic priority. Yet much of the response is structural: pay reviews, career pathways, recruitment campaigns. Necessary, but not sufficient.
Because beneath all of that sits a more basic question: why would someone choose to stay?
Would your team perform better if people were motivated not just by targets but by a sense that their contribution mattered? Would the organisation be more resilient if employees felt respected, listened to and treated fairly? Of course it would. We know this from years of research into engagement and discretionary effort. People give more when they feel they matter.
So is it the responsibility of managers to make people feel “special”? The word is unhelpful—it suggests indulgence. This isn’t about pampering or lowering standards. It’s about attention.
Good managers notice people. They know them as individuals, not just job titles. They ask about life outside work—and remember the answer. They handle feedback in a way that builds confidence rather than diminishes it. They mark small successes, not just major milestones. They create an environment where people feel heard, not managed at a distance.
None of this requires a budget line. It requires intent—and consistency.
Of course, not every employee will feel the same level of connection all of the time. Nor should organisations promise something they can’t deliver. But there is a world of difference between a workplace where people feel invisible and one where they feel recognised.
And that difference shows up in performance, retention and reputation.
So perhaps the question isn’t as soft as it first appears. Strip away the language, and it becomes something more robust:
Do people feel valued here?
blairmcpherson.co.uk
