The Radical Act of Actually Caring: Why Your Best Retention Tool Has Nothing to Do With Technology

By Dr. Sharon Grossman

Here’s something nobody wants to admit at a strategic planning meeting: your shiny new HR analytics platform isn’t why people stay. Your competitive benefits package isn’t the reason someone shows up on the hardest days. The real retention secret? It’s embarrassingly simple, almost annoyingly old-fashioned, and it costs approximately nothing.

It’s whether people feel like they matter.

I know. You were hoping for something more sophisticated. Something you could put in a PowerPoint with arrows and graphs. But the truth is, in our rush to optimize and automate everything, we’ve somehow convinced ourselves that human connection is a luxury item—a nice little extra we’ll get to once we’ve solved all the “real” problems.

Except human connection is the real problem. And increasingly, it’s the only solution that actually works.

The Numbers Don’t Lie (Even When We’d Prefer They Did)

Let’s talk data, since that’s what gets budget approval. Employees who describe their workplace culture as “good” or “excellent” are nearly four times more likely to stick around. According to SHRM, only 15% of these folks are actively job hunting. [1]

Four times. That’s not a rounding error.

Ernst & Young found that 92% of employees across four generations—yes, including the ones who supposedly only care about ping-pong tables—say company culture influences whether they stay or go. [2] And here’s the kicker: Accenture research shows only 1 in 6 people feel strongly connected at work. [3] Which means most of your workforce is operating in a state of mild emotional detachment, wondering if anyone would notice if they stopped showing up.

Spoiler: they’re updating their LinkedIn profiles right now.

Why This Actually Works (The Unsexy Truth)

Organizational culture isn’t some abstract concept invented by consultants to justify their fees. It’s the lived reality of how work gets done, how people treat each other when nobody’s watching, and whether leadership shows up as actual humans or corporate holograms.

Research on hospital nurses found that supportive leadership culture showed a significant correlation with job satisfaction (β = 0.66). [4] Translation: when people feel genuinely supported, they want to stay. Groundbreaking, I know.

But here’s what really matters: disengaged employees are 2.6 times more likely to leave for a better culture. [5] Not more money. Not better benefits. A better culture. Because it turns out people don’t actually want to spend 40+ hours a week feeling invisible, undervalued, or like interchangeable parts in a machine.

They want to feel like their work means something. Like someone sees them. Like they’re part of something bigger than a quarterly earnings report.

Revolutionary concept.

What It Costs When We Get This Wrong

Here’s the part where I’m supposed to tell you about the financial impact of turnover—the recruitment costs, the onboarding expenses, the lost institutional knowledge. And yes, all of that matters.

But let me tell you what really happens when culture withers: the best people leave first. They’re the ones with options, the institutional knowledge carriers, the informal leaders everyone actually listens to. And when they go, they don’t just take their expertise. They take the organizational memory of how things really work, the unwritten rules that make everything function.

You’re left with sleek systems and empty seats.

Studies confirm that cultures emphasizing well-being, transparency, and growth generate higher long-term commitment. [6] Meanwhile, toxic or indifferent cultures—the ones where leadership says “people are our greatest asset” while treating them like widgets—correlate strongly with turnover. [7]

The irony is devastating: in our quest for efficiency, we’ve sometimes engineered out the very thing that makes people want to stay.

What Actually Works (The Practical Stuff)

Build connection into the daily rhythm, not the annual retreat

Stop treating connection like an event. It’s not a quarterly all-hands meeting or a team-building exercise involving trust falls. It’s the daily micro-moments: the quick check-ins, the genuine “how are you really doing,” the visible recognition of someone’s contribution. These aren’t additional tasks—they become how work happens. Healthcare organizations especially benefit here: when frontline staff feel genuinely seen and supported, safety, quality, and retention all improve. [8]

Measure what matters (and connection matters)

If you’re tracking turnover but not measuring how connected people feel, you’re treating symptoms instead of causes. Survey for belonging. Ask about alignment with values. Track recognition frequency. Monitor leadership visibility. These are your early warning systems. Research shows employees who report culture improvement are 2.9 times more likely to be highly engaged. [9] Culture isn’t static. It’s either getting better or getting worse.

Leadership has to go first

Culture doesn’t cascade from mission statements; it cascades from observable leadership behavior. When leaders model acknowledgment, transparency, and inclusive decision-making, everyone notices. [10] In high-stress environments, visible human leadership isn’t a soft skill—it’s a retention anchor. People don’t leave organizations; they leave managers who never learned their names or cared about their lives.

Technology should enable humans, not replace them

Analytics and automation have their place in supporting faster feedback loops, enabling recognition systems, making it easier to see and respond to people’s needs. But when technology creates distance, when it becomes one more barrier between humans, it becomes part of the turnover problem. The question isn’t “Can we automate this?” It’s “Does this help people feel more connected or less?”

The Uncomfortable Truth

We keep looking for complex solutions because simple ones feel insufficient to the scale of the problem. How can something as basic as “see people as people” possibly solve retention in a tight labor market with massive generational shifts and unprecedented workplace transformation?

But maybe that’s exactly the point. In the age of AI and analytics-driven everything, the actual competitive advantage is profoundly human: the capacity to connect authentically, to create belonging, to make someone feel that their presence matters.

That advantage translates directly into retention, performance, and sustainable organizational health.

The question for your next strategy session isn’t “What new retention program should we launch?” It’s “How connected do our people actually feel?” The answer will tell you whether you’re building for retention or just hoping really hard that it happens.

Because people stay where they’re seen, valued, and part of something meaningful. They leave where they’re not.

It’s that simple. And that hard.

References:

[1] Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), Culture Survey Data

[2] Ernst & Young (EY), 2022 Workplace Culture Survey

[3] Accenture Newsroom, Research on Workplace Connection

[4] PMC (PubMed Central), Cross-sectional study of hospital nurses and leadership culture

[5] Quantum Workplace, Culture and Engagement Research

[6] Quantum Workplace, Culture Improvement and Engagement Data

[7] Articlegateway, Review of toxic culture and turnover correlation

[8] PMC (PubMed Central), Retention strategies and supportive workplace environments

[9] Quantum Workplace, Culture Trajectory and Engagement Study

[10] Harvard DCE, Leadership Behavior and Organizational Commitment Research