Sarah Sheehan has dealt with a lot in the last few weeks. She underwent a failed IVF treatment, her seventh this year. She unexpectedly lost her niece. She had a change of responsibilities at her organization. She had to leave her toddler behind on a cross-country business trip. She and her entire family got Covid. It’s all impacted how she’s shown up at work.

“There are things that we can control within organizations: how someone’s onboarding experience goes. If there’s a reorg, how you communicate about that, performance reviews, promotions,” said Sheehan, co-founder and president of Bravely. “But then there are all of these other layers to individuals–and things that are happening to them–that we have no control over as leaders. Caring for a sick relative. Conflict. Massacre.”

At From Day One’s Silicon Valley conference, Sheehan spoke in a Thought Leadership Spotlight about meeting the challenge of increased employee burnout and attrition in a time of constant external change. She referred to these as “moments that matter” in the employee experience.

“In those moments where we meet people,” she said, “that impacts all of these things: their sense of belonging, their psychological safety, their connection to the organization, their sense of purpose, whether or not they feel like getting up every day and coming to do the work. Resilience just doesn’t happen, it’s built because someone feels motivated to do it for you and your organization because of the care that you showed.”

Currently, only 24% of people feel that their organizations care about their well-being, according to a 2022 Gallup Poll. It’s a dramatic decrease in perception since the start of the pandemic, the impact of which has led to worsened work-life balance and burnout, all of which have contributed to the Great Resignation.

Burnout is estimated to cost the U.S. economy more than $500 billion dollars annually, as reported in a Harvard Business Review article titled, “Burnout Is About Your Workplace, Not Your People.” An estimated 550 million workdays are lost due to stress. And burned-out employees are 2.6 times as likely to look for another job. But when employees strongly agree their company supports their well-being, they are 69% less likely to leave.

So how can companies do things differently?

Cultivate a Culture of Compassion

For too long, the workplace has been an environment where people couldn’t talk about their lives and how they were negatively impacting them. But it now has to be part of any employer’s strategy for building culture. “The first step is to create a culture where people are able to actually share,” said Sheehan, who admitted that in past jobs she was unable to divulge vulnerable aspects of her life. “I would just have to put on my jacket every day and go to work and act like I was okay. Leading with empathy, showing your teams that you’re going to give and extend what is needed in these moments–we can’t go back to the old way of work.”

Each of us has a set of personal circumstances that impact how we show up at work. “We’ve designed workplaces for white men who have a stay-at-home partner, so they work for nobody,” Reshma Saujani, author of Pay Up: The Future of Women and Work (and Why It’s Different Than You Think), said recently. “When you design and build for the most vulnerable, you design for everybody.” Consider the identities and backgrounds of your people.

Use Trust as an Indicator

Companies should regularly ask their people for feedback through surveys and one-on-ones, in order to gauge if the workplace culture is healthy or not.

“Do they feel like they can trust the manager?” asked Sheehan. “Do they feel like they trust the leaders of their organization to steer them in the right direction? Is support normalized and encouraged? If the answer to that is ‘no,’ through whatever survey mechanisms you use, you know that you’ve got to start over.”

Prioritize Employee Development and Purpose

Everybody wants to be invested in, and everybody wants development opportunities. Rather than solely focusing on managers and high performers, employers should provide equitable access at every level across the organization. Ensure that resources are readily available and that people are empowered to engage with them in a self-directed way. And because every individual has their own set of needs, definitions of success, preferred working styles, and conditions under which they thrive, it’s imperative that organizations offer tailored support.

“Coaching or training supports inclusion and belonging,” said Sheehan. “It’s really critical that we start to look at every resource that we offer and ask ourselves, ‘Does this contribute or not to people having a greater sense of belonging, or are we only including a certain group of people in this level of investment?’ But when we invest in people, that’s only going to drive more revenue.”

Editor’s note: From Day One thanks our partner, Bravely, who sponsored this Thought Leadership Spotlight.

Samantha Campos is a freelance journalist who’s worked for regional publications in Hawaii and California, with forays into medical cannabis and food justice nonprofits. She currently resides in Oakland, Calif..