Half of workers say bosses don’t understand their job. Here’s why

Almost half of U.S. workers say their boss doesn’t fully understand what they contribute.

That’s according to the 2025 “Workplace Perception Gap Survey” by the software and analytics provider The Predictive Index.

The consequence of this is that workers tend to feel undervalued. Maybe they’re not recognized for their contributions, or feel as if they’re passed over for promotions on account of superiors not understanding the value a particular person might provide, which is more common when there’s role ambiguity.

For example, it’s relatively straightforward to quantify how your sales team is performing when measuring the same metrics week over week, quarter over quarter, and year over year. Much more role ambiguity might exist with a corporate communications manager, who may juggle internal messaging, brand reputation, and press releases.

Sometimes managers might struggle to explain why a specific job matters or be able to define what “doing a good job” looks like. Without that clarity, they can’t ask the right questions, or measure the right things — none of which is good for morale.

Karim Adib, public relations manager at AI search engine optimization automation firm Search Atlas, remembers feeling like it was hard to know whether he was doing a good job. His work achievements often went unacknowledged.

“It felt like you’d achieve a milestone and you wouldn’t be appreciated for it, but the moment you stop working towards that milestone, because you don’t feel like it’s valuable to the business, you are told you’ve stopped working hard,” Adib said.

Adib works hard today as a manager to ensure his team doesn’t feel that way, but he recognizes that he’s human and capable of having blind spots, making it important to have systems in place to prevent managers from failing to acknowledge a team member’s success.

His top three tips for this are as follow:

“I think it’s really important for employees to know whether they’re doing well or not,” Adib said. “I’m not just going to leave it up to chance.”

“It’s practically impossible to have an environment where you encourage people if people are scared to even understand what they need to do,” he said. “So you need to make sure that your employees can come to you and ask you anything, because it ensures communication is super clear through your company.”

“I really take the opportunity to make sure people feel appreciated for what they’ve done and to also make sure to hear out any problems or struggles they are facing to avoid issues early on,” Adib said.