We're proud to share that Confirm was featured in Forbes in a comprehensive piece on workplace empathy titled "Empathy at Work Enhances Leadership, Productivity and Profits."
Forbes contributor Bryan Robinson explores the business case for empathy — moving beyond the "soft skill" framing to demonstrate the concrete impact that empathetic leadership has on employee performance, retention, and bottom-line results. Confirm's perspective adds an important dimension: how performance management systems either enable or undermine empathetic leadership at scale.
The problem is structural as much as cultural. Traditional performance review systems are designed for evaluation, not connection. Managers are put in a position of judge — scoring employees against a rubric — rather than partner — helping employees understand their impact and develop their potential. This adversarial framing makes empathy harder, not easier, to practice.
Empathetic leaders want to understand an employee's full context: the constraints they're working within, the informal contributions they're making, the development trajectory they're on. But without good data, empathy often operates in the dark. A manager may genuinely care about an employee's experience while still missing 70% of that employee's actual work because it happens in cross-functional projects, mentoring relationships, and informal influence networks that traditional reviews don't capture.
This is where Confirm's approach connects directly to the empathy conversation. When managers have richer visibility into what employees actually do — not just what's visible in their direct reporting relationship — empathy becomes more actionable. They can recognize contributions they might have missed, understand who's quietly supporting teammates, and make decisions that feel fair because they're grounded in evidence rather than impression.
The Forbes feature is a compelling read for anyone thinking about how to cultivate empathetic cultures at scale — and why performance management infrastructure matters for making that possible.
Read the full article: Empathy at Work Enhances Leadership, Productivity and Profits — Forbes
Give managers the visibility to lead with empathy
Confirm surfaces the full picture of employee contribution — so managers can make decisions that feel fair and grounded. See Confirm in action →
