Want to Keep Your Best People? “Mattering” Is Key

Author: Zach Mercurio

Aiden was such a good oncology nurse that he became a manager within two years. He led a team that helped people through one of the most challenging circumstances they’ll face: a cancer diagnosis and the ensuing treatment. He rarely missed a shift, his nurses received some of the highest patient satisfaction scores at the hospital, and he won several peer-nominated awards.

But as he neared the five-year mark of his tenure, Aiden quit. “I felt replaceable. It felt like the value I brought wasn’t any different than anyone else they could have brought in,” he told me. His leaders never asked for his input, and he couldn’t remember having a meaningful conversation with his manager. He often brought suggestions for improving the quality of care but was met with silence. “I felt like I was in a room yelling, and no one was hearing me,” Aiden said. “It was depleting.”

There’s a word for what Aiden felt. Psychologists call itanti-mattering: the experience of feeling insignificant that comes from feeling unseen, unheard, and unvalued. When people experience anti-mattering, they withdraw, languish, or leave.

When it comes to top talent, it’s common to cite a lack of pay growth and external opportunities as reasons for quitting. However, for high performers like Aiden, the experience of not mattering is a hidden driver of preventable turnover. And unlike increasing pay or competing with other job prospects, showing people how they matter is always under a leader’s control.

A Preventable Reason High Performers Leave

In one study of 200,000 employees in 741 companies, compensation was at the bottom of the list of reasons high performers left. Instead, employees referenced purpose, development, and relationships with leaders.

Relationships with managers, especially, seem to have an outsize effect on keeping people. For example, Gallup surveyed 700 employees who voluntarily left their jobs in the previous 12 months and found that 42% said their managers’ actions could have kept them. When asked what their manager could have done to retain them, employees said they wanted them to invest more in their well-being, engage in more positive interactions, and meaningfully recognize their unique contributions.

One employee told researchers their manager could have made one change to prevent them from leaving: “Make me feel like I mattered.”

How to Show Your People They Matter

“Mattering” is the experience of feeling significant that comes from feeling valued by others and having them regularly show us how we add value. Studies show those who feel that they matter at work are more satisfied in their jobs, more likely to be promoted, and less likely to leave. In research for my book The Power of Mattering: How Leaders Can Create a Culture of Significance, I found experiences of mattering happen not through awards, programs, or perks, but through daily interactions with leaders.

Employees tend to experience mattering in three ways: feeling noticed, affirmed, and needed. Here’s how to show them they matter.

1. Notice them

There’s a difference between “knowing” someone and noticing them. You can “know” an employee but not notice that they’re struggling or feel left out of discussions. Noticing is having a pulse on the details, ebbs, and flows of people’s lives and work and showing them you’re paying attention.

Many employees who leave feel unnoticed in the months before their departure. In the Gallup study, half of the employees who voluntarily left said that in the three months leading up to their quitting, their manager didn’t have a single conversation with them about how they were doing, their experience in their job, or their performance. Aiden told me no one knew he felt “depleted.” This lack of awareness is especially problematic given that surveys show high performers are more susceptible to burnout.

Noticing requires attention, but attention is a leader’s scarcest resource. Many leaders unintentionally use it to fix things that are wrong, like developing underperformers or trying to reengage disengaged employees. As a result, leaders can overlook those who consistently perform and produce. (See the section “High Performers Need Your Attention.”)

First, consider your team. Reflect on the question: “Who do I need to notice more?” When you bring this to conscious awareness, you can realize whom you might be overlooking or haven’t checked in on in a long time, or who might need your attention.

Second, make time for meaningful conversations. Many workplace interactions are transactional and focus on exchanging information. We talk to people about what they’re doing and not how they’re doing it.

Consider logging the interactions you have in a week with your high performers. What portion of those interactions involve asking for things, giving tasks, or receiving updates? How many of those interactions are spent asking questions, showing interest, and seeking understanding?

One valuable practice is conducting brief, daily check-ins. One study of more than 600 employees found that employees who interacted more frequently with their leader performed better, and almost 70% of participants said they wanted daily or weekly check-ins.

Check-ins should be used to understand how employees are doing as people, not to ask for updates. Keep the check-ins short but meaningful. Ask questions like, “What’s working well today, and what’s not? What obstacles are in your way, and how can I help move them? Do you need any information from me you’re not getting right now?”

You can also check how people are doing by introducing a low-risk way to share their energy levels. One tool is called a “stoplight check-in,” introduced to me by author and executive coach Jerry Colonna. Green means you’re fully present and energized, and have few distractions. Yellow means you can be present but have some things weighing you down. Red means you’re under acute stress, and it’s difficult to be present.

Facilitating the check-in is simple. You should explain the intention and what each color means. Then, have each person share. Your job is not to change their color; it’s a tool for awareness so that you, as a leader, have data. Research shows that teams that do regular check-ins like the stoplight check-in are more engaged, exhibit lower burnout, and perform better.

Finally, as you conduct check-ins, ensure you have a tool to note your observations. One leader I work with writes her team members’ names in her notebook every week and one key observation she had about them from the previous week. At the start of each week, she schedules a three-minute check-in to discuss what she has written. For example, if she wrote that one of her team members was struggling to prepare for a meeting, she’d say, “I remember that last week you mentioned you were worried about that meeting with sales; I wanted to see how that was going.”

Or consider writing on top of your team’s one-on-one agendas, “Don’t forget to ask about . . . ” It will help you start the conversation by showing them you’re paying attention.

2. Affirm them

In 2024 Textio, a developer of AI-powered HR writing solutions, reviewed over 23,000 performance reviews in over 200 workplaces. It found that high performers get almost 1.5 times more feedback than middle or low performers but tend to receive the lowest-quality feedback—both negative and positive.

Low-quality positive feedback is characterized by exaggerations, generalizations, or clichés. Employees who received generic feedback were 63% more likely to quit within the next year. On the other hand, another report shows that those who received meaningful gratitude for their work were 45% less likely to have left a job between 2022 and 2024.

To give high-quality positive feedback, leaders should first understand the difference between recognition, appreciation, and affirmation. When we recognize someone, we make their contributions visible. We elevate and give thanks for what they do. When we appreciate someone, we value their presence. We give thanks for who they are. But when we affirm someone, we show them the specific evidence of their significance and how they uniquely matter. Affirmation is precise and delivered personally.

There are four key components of meaningful affirmation. First, whenever you say “thank you” or “good job,” describe the setting in which whatever you’re thanking them for occurred. Where was it? When was it? Be specific. This helps you not to be the manager who says thank you at the same time every day.

Next, describe the behaviors you observed. Then, name the unique gifts the person modeled through their actions. What strengths did they use? What perspective did they bring?

Third, and most importantly, tell them how they made a unique impact on you, others, or the broader team and organization.

“Affirm” comes from the Latin root “affirmare,” which means to “firm up.” When we affirm employees, we strengthen their belief that they matter.

3. Show them how they’re needed

Aiden told me that before he quit, he “felt replaceable.” People who feel replaceable tend to act replaceable and leave. But when people feel irreplaceable, they act irreplaceable.

High performers can be almost 400% more productive than other employees, and it can be easy to unintentionally take their efforts for granted. Yet feeling essential is critical to feeling that we matter. Employees feel needed when they know their unique strengths, purpose, perspective, and wisdom are indispensable to a team or for accomplishing the bigger mission.

One way to ensure high performers feel needed is to show them, using metrics. For example, I talked with a digital marketing agency leader who mentored a talented content strategist struggling with confidence. She pulled data and showed him the difference in performance via engagement rates between campaigns he was involved in and those he wasn’t. It had a powerful impact. She noticed both increased confidence and energy. He could see how he was needed.

Employees who feel needed also tell me they frequently hear their manager say, “If it wasn’t for you . . . ” Try it today. Think about a high performer you rely on. Today, tell them, “If it wasn’t for you . . . ” and share why. You’ll see the power of mattering.

The best leaders I’ve observed don’t just tell people that they matter; they show them exactly how they matter. When it comes to high performers, showing them how they matter could be the difference between keeping them or watching them leave.

Aiden was a high performer. His job mattered, but he didn’t experience mattering in his job. Feeling significant to others at work is a fundamental need for motivation and commitment, especially for top talent. That’s why the best leaders I observe don’t just tell people that they matter; they show them exactly how they matter daily.

The good news is that you can reinforce each person’s importance through intentional actions that show them they’re noticed, affirmed, and needed. Doing so could be the difference between keeping them or watching them leave.

Zach Mercuriois an instructor and researcher at the Center for Meaning and Purpose and the Organizational Learning, Performance, and Change program at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. He works with hundreds of organizations worldwide to cultivate mattering and meaningfulness in work. He is the author of The Invisible Leader and The Power of Mattering.