Dexian's fifth annual HumanKindex shows that leaders and employees strongly agree kindness matters, even as the perception gap widens on whether its presence in the workplace is increasing.
MCLEAN, Va., Dec. 1, 2025 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- In a time of rapid transformation and uncertainty, new research from Dexian's 2025 HumanKindex report reveals a dual reality inside U.S. workplaces. Leaders and employees are more aligned than ever on the importance of kindness, empathy, and purpose, and both groups report that kindness is increasing after dipping last year. At the same time, the report shows that the gap between leaders and employees on whether organizations are making consistent progress continues to widen, signaling a disconnect between leadership intention and everyday employee experience.
Developed in partnership with Attest, the 2025 study surveyed 1,000 full-time employees and 500 C-suite leaders across U.S. regions and industries to evaluate the role of kindness in engagement, innovation, talent attraction, and retention. The results reflect a workplace culture in transition: kindness is viewed as a strategic priority now more than ever, but its implementation is not yet perceived equally across the workforce.
Key Findings: The Business Case for Kindness
- Kindness is back up at the top of the organizational value list. This year, 87% of employees and 94% of executives say kindness is a core organizational value, marking a strong rebound from last year's decline.
- Employee expectations for kind leadership have surged. Workers are weighing kindness more heavily in their job decisions than ever before. 87% say kind leadership is "more important than ever" when choosing a job, and 91% say a culture of kindness is essential to building a high-performance workforce.
- Kindness is directly tied to measurable business outcomes. Employees overwhelmingly link kindness to performance (85%), productivity (84%), engagement (82%), and collaboration (81%). Leaders strongly agree, connecting kindness to engagement (93%), productivity and collaboration (92%), and recruitment effectiveness (88%).
- A widening perception gap exists between leaders and employees. 74% of executives say their organizations embraced kindness "significantly more" in the past year, but only 53% of employees agree.
The report's raw index scores reflect this divide, with employers' scoring rising from 71.2 in 2024 to 75.0 in 2025 and employees' scoring from 60 in 2024 to 63.5 in 2025, widening the distance between intention and lived experience to over 11 data points. This is a strong indication of how kindness is evolving in the workplace: progress is happening, but employees are not feeling it at the same pace leaders believe they are delivering it.
"This year's HumanKindex shows that kindness is not in question. Employees and leaders are aligned on its value and impact on performance, productivity, engagement, and talent attraction," said Maruf Ahmed, CEO of Dexian. "The challenge is that they are experiencing progress at very different rates. Leaders see significant improvement, while many employees do not feel that progress as consistently as they want to. Closing the gap means making kindness a lived experience at every level of the organization, where it can become a powerful driver of innovation, loyalty, and long-term performance."
Kindness as Strategy in a Disrupted Economy
The research underscores that companies embedding kindness in leadership and operations are better equipped to attract diverse talent, inspire collaboration, and retain top performers in an increasingly competitive market. Across five years of HumanKindex tracking, the message is unmistakable: organizations that build systems of kind accountability – integrating empathy, fairness, and trust into every decision – will lead not only with compassion but with performance.
About the HumanKindex™
Dexian's HumanKindex is an annual benchmark measuring how kindness drives organizational culture, engagement, and innovation across U.S. workplaces. The 2025 study surveyed 1,000 employees and 500 executives across industries and demographics to quantify perceptions of kindness as a business capability and leadership style.
About Dexian
Dexian stands at the forefront of talent and technology solutions with a presence spanning more than 70 locations worldwide and a team exceeding 10,000 professionals. As one of the largest technology and professional staffing companies and one of the largest minority-owned staffing companies in the United States, Dexian combines over 30 years of industry expertise with cutting-edge technologies to deliver comprehensive global services and support. The company's unique platform combines global scale with full-service staffing, technology, and workforce solutions to create the most complete service offering on the market. With its expansive onshore, nearshore, and offshore network of top-tier professionals, Dexian connects the right talent and the right technology with the right organizations to deliver trajectory-changing results that help everyone achieve their ambitions and goals. To learn more, please visit www.dexian.com.
Media Contact
Molly Masters, Dexian, 1 7037527900, [email protected], https://dexian.com
SOURCE Dexian
Share this article