I’ve watched countless organisations roll out “people-first” initiatives, complete with glossy internal campaigns proclaiming how much they value their employees. The messaging looks polished. The leaders say the right things. Yet employees remain cynical, disengaged, and unconvinced.
And it seems it’s only getting worse this year with more and more internal comms professionals getting in touch, asking for help with re-engaging with these employees.
The problem isn’t that organisations or leaders don’t care about employee care, it’s that caring has been communicated as a transaction rather than lived as a relationship.
In a recent culture report from O.C. Tanner, the team identifies this workplace challenge as closing the gap between what organisations offer (benefits, pay, perks) and what employees actually need (care, meaningful connection, and genuine support). Focus groups found that employees evaluate their workplace relationship by answering two fundamental questions:
Am I surviving?
And if so, am I thriving?
With one-third of employees just surviving at work, the stakes are high. But this isn’t about adding more wellness programmes or employee appreciation days. It’s about fundamentally reimagining the employment relationship itself. And as we start to think about the world of work in 2026, this is where I think the focus needs to be.
The credibility crisis in employee care
When organisations say “we care,” employees have learned to be sceptical. And they have good reason.
We’ve all seen the pattern: an organisation announces a mental health initiative while simultaneously increasing workloads to unsustainable levels. Leadership declares that people are their greatest asset in the same quarter they implement redundancies via impersonal email. The disconnect between stated values and lived experience creates what this credibility gap around employee care.
Research on organisational trust reveals that employees don’t assess care through policies alone, they evaluate it through the consistency between what an organisation says and what it does. The data tells a compelling story: employees with a strong sense that their organisation cares about them are 378% more likely to thrive at work, while those with a weak sense of organisational care are 80% less likely to thrive.
When internal communications say one thing about care when daily experiences contradict that message, cynicism becomes the rational response.
The traditional approach to employee relations has been fundamentally transactional: you provide the work, we provide the pay. Even when organisations have attempted to demonstrate care, they’ve often done so through transactional mechanisms like adding a benefit, launching a programme, or offering a perk. These gestures can be valuable, but they don’t address the deeper need connection and relationships at work.
Understanding the care contract
So what’s the alternative? We need to shift from a transactional employment contract to a framework that recognises employees as whole human beings, not just productive resources.
This isn’t about creating a formal document; it’s about making sure the psychological contract exists with intentional work from leaders and the organisation as a whole. It’s about making sure the communication experience employees have at work (through digital and non-digital channels) and with their manager/leaders is an experience that signals “you matter here, not just for what you produce, but for who you are.”
This matters because employees can tell the difference between performative care and the desire for a genuine relationship. The moment when an employee says “this feels like a relationship, not just a job” doesn’t happen because of a single initiative. It emerges from consistent patterns of behaviour and communication that demonstrate real investment in their wellbeing, growth, and humanity.
As I often say, if you’re stepping into the role of manager for your own career advancement, think again – leadership is about supporting others to grow, it’s not about you getting a bigger salary.
Relationships are about mutual investment, ongoing dialogue, and commitment that extends beyond the tasks you carry out to get the work done. When employees experience work on a deeper level, the outcomes are transformative. Employees who thrive at work are 84% less likely to burn out, 30% less likely to leave the organisation, twelve times more likely to feel highly engaged, and seven times more likely to do great work.
Five principles for communicating that you care
You have to actually care for this to work, so there needs to be a vulnerable conversation at a leadership level about this before anything can change – but if you’re seeing a cynical, disengaged workforce, this is the route cause of the issue and you need to have an honest and open discussion at the top of the organisation about where that care is for the people who work with you.
1. Lead with honesty, especially when it’s uncomfortable
Credibility requires truthful communication. When your organisation faces challenges, when decisions will negatively impact employees, when you don’t have all the answers, say so. Employees don’t expect perfection, but they do expect honesty.
This means your internal communications must prioritise transparency. Share the reasoning behind difficult decisions. Acknowledge when the organisation has fallen short. Admit uncertainty when it exists. The willingness to be vulnerable in your communications signals that you respect employees enough to tell them the truth, which is itself an act of care.
2. Make care visible through storytelling, not just statements
Saying “we care” is ineffective. Showing care through specific, real stories is transformative. Ditch the jargon of the HR and Comms profession to do this: research reveals that less than 40% of workers know what “Total Rewards” means, only 14% can explain it, and many employees view certain benefits as mere baseline employment conditions rather than demonstrations of care. The problem isn’t the offerings themselves, it’s how we communicate them.
Regularly spotlight moments when the organisation demonstrated care in action: the manager who advocated for a team member’s flexible working arrangement, the leadership team that adjusted project timelines when they recognised burnout risk, the colleagues who supported one another through personal challenges.
These stories shouldn’t feel like propaganda. They should be genuine accounts of how care manifests in your workplace, told in ways that help employees recognise and replicate those behaviours. The story you’re building isn’t “look how perfect we are” but rather “this is what care looks like here, and it’s something we’re all creating together.”
3. Create dialogue, not monologue
Transactional communication flows one way: organisation to employee. Relational communication requires a genuine two-way exchange.
Your internal communications strategy must include meaningful ways for employees to have a voice, and a way to demonstrate responsiveness to what you hear. This doesn’t mean every suggestion gets implemented, but it does mean every voice gets heard and considered.
When employees see their feedback acknowledged, their concerns addressed, and their ideas taken seriously, they experience care not as something done to them but as something they participate in shaping.
4. Connect communications to everyday experience
The credibility gap widens when there’s a disconnect between what communications say and what employees experience daily. Your internal communications must be grounded in the reality of employee experience, not an idealised version of it.
This requires communicators to deeply understand the lived experience of different employee groups. What does a typical day look like for frontline staff versus office-based employees? What are the actual pain points, pressures, and frustrations people face? When your communications address real experiences and offer genuine support, employees recognise that care isn’t just a concept, it’s responsive to their actual needs.
5. Amplify leadership behaviours that demonstrate care
Leaders are the most powerful communication channel you have. When leadership behaviours align with care-based values, those actions communicate more effectively than any campaign ever could. There is a reason being supportive is part of the 8 practices of credible leadership!
Your internal communications should consistently highlight and reinforce leadership behaviours that show care and support: leaders who listen before deciding, who acknowledge their mistakes, who prioritise employee wellbeing alongside business results, who treat people with dignity regardless of their position.
This isn’t about creating a new personality for leaders; it’s about making visible the behaviours that should define your culture, so employees can see what care looks like in practice and understand what’s valued and expected.
From concept to cultural reality
Shifting from transaction to relationship doesn’t happen overnight, and it certainly doesn’t happen through communications alone. But internal communication plays a vital role in making the care-contract visible, credible, and operational.
The organisations that will close the care gap in 2025 won’t be those with the most generous benefits packages or the most sophisticated wellness programmes, though those things matter. They’ll be the organisations where employees experience the feeling of a genuine relationship through consistent patterns of honest communication, visible care, real dialogue, and leadership behaviours that align with the organisational values.
The question for communicators isn’t “how do we say we care more convincingly?” It’s “what does care look like here and how do we make it so embedded in our communications and culture that employees experience it daily?”
When you can answer that question with specific, honest, day-to-day practices, you’re no longer just communicating about care. You’re helping to create a workplace where it’s the foundation of how people experience their work, and that changes everything.
