Last week, when I was working at the HQ of a large company, an employee asked me to help her interpret her benefits statement. She’d worked there all her career and had taken every bonus in share options. She intended to gift the proceeds to her grandchildren as her legacy.

She was clearly puzzled by the latest figures and couldn’t understand the corporate double-speak in the accompanying literature that was supposed to explain them to her. It was left to me – someone she barely knew – to break the news to this loyal member of staff that her share portfolio, which had been worth £35,000 according to the previous year’s figures, was now worth £7,300. You can imagine the look on her face when reality dawned.

The arguments about dealers’ bonuses in big banks may be making the front pages, but they are very much the side issue here. How many people are out there right now receiving the same sort of message delivered in a similarly dispassionate way?

Bullying can be defined as an abuse of power. Information, it is often said, is power. How is it being used where you work? Bullying may not always be overt. It may not even be intentional at times. But failing to understand the importance of communication and the link between employee engagement and brand performance is tantamount to bullying when it has such devastating results as it did in this simple cameo.

Employee engagement should be a main focal point for anyone with responsibility for other people in an organisation. It can’t all be driven from the centre. Face-to-face communication, especially in tough times, should be given top priority. So how are line managers shaping up to the challenge where you work? Or is everything being left to faceless names at the centre to cascade the weekly news, whether or not it’s life-changing?