When leading CEOs gathered early this year for the first-ever Transformative CEO Summit to discuss the unprecedented events of the past year and ways they will shape the path forward for corporations, the importance and resurgence of human connection emerged as the unifying lens. New public polling indicates the CEOs were right. For 44% of the Informed Public, being in a workplace with more empathy and human connection is more important to them now than it was before the pandemic. The increase in importance is even more true for younger employees (52% for those 18-34 years old), employees who are parents (49%), employees working in a fully remote or hybrid environment (49% each), or whose volume of work (48%) or level of work-related stress (53%) has gone up during the pandemic. These groups all account for a huge share of any workforce. An additional 40% of respondents say it’s no more important now than before, but empathy and human connection in the workplace is still important to them.