Ask HR and compliance teams, and many will quickly say absolutely not. They’ll cite policies, regulations, and all the reasons why emotions should stay out of business decisions.
Others may say it depends on context. “Professional boundaries matter.” “Keep personal feelings separate from work.” “That’s why we have employee assistance programs.”
But I challenge you on this.
We are human beings. We have emotions. And it’s the feelings we experience that leave lasting imprints in our minds. Feelings drive our decisions about where we work, where we shop, and who we recommend to others.
Think about the smile a barista draws on your Starbucks cup when you look stressed. Or the airline employee who notices you’re traveling with a tired toddler and quietly moves you to a row with extra space. Or the support agent who remembers your name from last time and asks how that project turned out. Or the software company that proactively reaches out when they notice you’re struggling with a feature.
These are customer experiences. The same principle applies internally, such as the manager who checks in on how you’re feeling about a project, not just what you’re delivering. The colleague who notices you’re overwhelmed and offers to help. The leader who celebrates your win in a team meeting.
It’s all the micro-moments that add up and determine whether you’ll come back, tell others, rave online, stay loyal even when a competitor offers a lower price.
So what are these micro-moments really about? What’s the common thread?
What I Mean by Love at Work
I’m not suggesting romantic affairs, blurred boundaries or inappropriate relationships.
I’m talking about creating positive emotional connections at every interaction. That’s the key.
So, yes, love belongs in the workplace, but it’s professional love. Strategic love. The kind that reveals how your team:
- Cares genuinely about the people they serve; customers and colleagues alike
- Designs interactions that make people feel valued vs transactional
- Recognizes that every email, every call, every meeting is creating an emotion: confidence or doubt, trust or frustration, belonging or isolation
- Pays attention to how people feel, not just what they say in a survey. (There are simple techniques to detect emotions across the customer journey. Not sure how, let’s chat.)
Here’s the problem: Most companies are investing so much money in customer experience, apps, chatbots, support teams, NPS surveys, and they’re still losing customers. They’re still losing revenue. They’re still losing their best people.
Why?
Because none of that infrastructure tells you how someone actually feels.
Your NPS score says someone’s a 7. But are they anxious? Frustrated? Confident? Relieved? You have no idea.
Your CSAT survey says 78% satisfaction. But “satisfied” isn’t an emotion that builds loyalty. Satisfied is neutral. And neutral doesn’t make someone come back, tell their friends, or stay when your competitor offers a better price.
How Do You Know If You’re Creating Positive Emotional Equity?
Here’s the framework I use to help companies build emotional connection that drives business results:
1. Define the specific emotions you want to create at each touchpoint.
Don’t just ask “Are you satisfied?” Instead, assign one discrete emotion to each phase of the customer journey. What do you want someone to feel when they first discover you? Curious? Intrigued? When they make a purchase? Confident? Excited? When they have a problem? Anxious that shifts to relieved?
This isn’t about vague “good feelings.” I’m talking about naming the exact emotion: valued, capable, inspired, trusted, appreciated, overwhelmed, dismissed, invisible. Most companies have never defined this. They’re designing processes without knowing what emotion they’re creating.
2. Detect the silent signals that reveal how people actually feel.
Your customers and employees tell you how they feel every day but not always in words. They rage-click on your website. They backtrack through confusing processes. They use frustrated language in chat. They stop engaging.
One company I worked with found that 40% of customers were rewording the same question three times in their chatbot before giving up. That’s not a tech failure but rather customers feeling irate and frustrated. I recommend using AI and natural language processing to detect these tone shifts in real-time, before anger becomes churn.
And there are more critical steps after this…
In my upcoming podcast (new season starts Feb 17 on all major channels) and Doing CX Right℠ newsletter, I’m going deep into my complete framework with the exact tools, technologies, and tactics for each step. Plus, I’ll be sharing tons of research that shows the ROI of emotions and how to design a company that customers and internal teams LOVE.
Remember: Every Day Is About Creating Emotional Connection, Not Just On Valentines Day
We don’t stop being grateful after Thanksgiving. We don’t stop appreciating people after their birthday. And we must not treat emotional connection as a once-a-year thing either.
Love, (professional, intentional, measurable love), belongs in business every single day.
While your competitors keep deploying new technology at challenges, measuring transactions, and hiring people who have no emotional inteligence, you get to build the one thing that actually boosts revenue and brand reputation: emotional equity.
Emotion IS the Experience. It matters FAR more than you think!℠
I’m curious to know your thoughts about love in the workplace.
Interesting article, Stacy — and I agree that emotions play a real role in how people decide, stay, and engage. That said, calling it “love” in the workplace can blur boundaries where organizations actually need clarity.
What you describe — those micro-moments of care, attention, and awareness — is powerful. But in practice, it’s disciplined experience design and leadership behavior. At scale, organizations don’t operate on feelings alone. They rely on clear standards, accountability, and systems that deliver consistently, especially when things go wrong. If we frame it as “love,” it can become subjective and uneven. If we frame it as trust, respect, and reliability, it becomes something we can design, measure, and scale. Empathy absolutely belongs in the workplace. The challenge is making sure it holds under pressure — not just in intention, but in execution. –R