“I see you.”
“You matter.”
“You make this work.”

They’re simple words. No budget required. No rollout plan needed. And yet, in many organizations, employees rarely hear them in a way that feels real.

After years of constant change, employees have become exceptionally good at adapting. They absorb shifting priorities, take on more with fewer resources, and keep things moving even when clarity is thin. What’s quietly eroded in the process is the feeling of being genuinely seen.

Most leaders believe those messages are understood. Appreciation feels implied. Value feels obvious. But what’s clear in intention isn’t always clear in communication. And when employees don’t hear or feel those messages, they don’t usually disengage loudly. They disengage slowly.

Research from Gallup helps explain why. Only about one in three employees strongly agrees they receive meaningful recognition for their work. That gap isn’t about praise; it’s about connection. When acknowledgment feels generic or infrequent, trust thins and engagement follows.

What employees are really asking for isn’t complicated. They want recognition that reflects their reality.

“I see you” isn’t a slogan. It’s a practice. It requires leaders to notice the work that doesn’t show up neatly on a dashboard: the extra shift, the steady hand during change, the emotional labor that keeps teams functioning. In roles where work is visible only when something breaks; healthcare, frontline operations, manufacturing, silence can feel like indifference, even when it’s not meant that way.

Specificity is what makes recognition land. A broad “great job, everyone” passes by unnoticed. Naming effort, pressure, or progress in real terms stays with people. That isn’t soft leadership. It’s attentive leadership.

The same goes for the phrase “you matter.” Employees are incredibly perceptive when it comes to disconnects between language and behavior. They hear the words, but they watch the decisions. When communication is one-way, when change arrives without context, when feedback disappears, those words lose their weight.

Research published by Harvard Business Review shows that employees who feel respected by leadership experience higher job satisfaction and greater resilience under stress. Respect isn’t performative. It shows up in transparency, explanation, and the willingness to acknowledge impact not just intent.

Then there’s the sentence leaders say least often, but employees feel most deeply: “You make this work.”

Strategy doesn’t execute itself. Culture doesn’t sustain itself. Customer experience doesn’t magically happen. Employees do. And yet recognition is often reserved for outcomes, not effort, adaptability, or endurance. According to SHRM, employees who feel their contributions are valued are far more likely to stay, even during uncertain times. Staying isn’t about perks. It’s about feeling essential rather than expendable.

After more than 15 years of working inside organizations and listening closely to employees, we’ve learned there’s no universal way to say these things. What resonates with a nurse won’t land the same way with a corporate analyst. What works on a manufacturing floor won’t translate in a remote Slack channel. The message may be consistent but the delivery can’t be.

That’s where many organizations get stuck. Empathy in communication isn’t about finding the perfect phrase. It’s about understanding the context behind the work. One message does not equal one experience, and when leaders forget that, even well-intended communication misses the mark.

Employees aren’t asking for grand speeches or polished campaigns. They’re asking for moments that feel human. Timely. Grounded. Personal enough to be believable. They want leadership to say the quiet things out loud.

“I see you.”
“You matter.”
“You make this work.”

When employees feel seen, trust grows. And when trust exists, everything else has a chance to work.

At LaineGabriel, we help organizations translate strategy into communication employees actually hear because leadership messages don’t fail from lack of intention. They fail in translation.

You speak strategy.
We speak employee.