What I would like, however, is just once for someone not to feel the need to make a business case for treating your employees with kindness and empathy. This need to include the business case and the impact on the bottom line is an appeal to management in their self-interest and the financial interest of their business.

How about we make the case that being kind, thoughtful, and empathetic towards employees is the right way to treat a fellow human being, regardless of what it means for the bottom line? Is it too much to ask managers and CEOs to treat people like people? Or are we so far down the caste system at work that we have to convince managers to act as if they care about their employees to benefit themselves?