Top trends in employee engagement

Since its peak in 2020, U.S. worker engagement has been on a crash course, according to recent data from Gallup. 

While worker engagement remained unchanged in 2025 from the previous year, it has dropped from 36% in 2020 to 31%, Gallup found. That’s an estimated 8 million fewer workers who were actively engaged over five years. 

The greatest declines were recorded regarding clarity about what is expected at work and feeling cared about as a person, the data showed.

The trend was starkest among younger workers. From 2020 to 2025, the percentage of Generation Z and younger millennials who were engaged at work fell eight points; among older millennials (those born from 1980 to 1988), engagement dropped nine points, Gallup said. That compares to a six-point decrease in engagement for Generation X and no change in engagement for baby boomers. 

Gen Z and younger millennials were 13 points less likely over the five-year period to strongly agree that “My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person,” Gallup said. Likewise, the percentage of those who agreed that “This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow” dropped to 37% in 2025 from 48% in 2020.

A recent General Assembly report had a similar finding: While most millennial workers say they are satisfied in their current roles, they also would be willing to leave for better pay, clearer paths to growth or better learning opportunities if the job market allows. 

Adecco also recently found that workers want “robust” employer support for agility, resilience and engagement.

Gallup offered some insights to help employers address worker disengagement. More than a third of workers said better communication would best help them understand expectations at work, while others said better direction from leadership, more development and recognition and cultural improvements would help. 

Likewise, more than a third of employees said supportive relationships, communication and respect would help them feel more cared about at work, while lesser shares named pay, benefits and security; work environment and balance; and growth and future opportunities as helpful. 

“Employee engagement has declined after a decade of steady improvement leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic. The data suggest that many of the gains organizations made in clarifying role expectations, developing people and improving the day-to-day experience at work have stalled — and, in some cases, have begun to reverse,” Jim Harter, a chief scientist at Gallup, wrote. “During periods of ongoing change and uncertainty, clarity becomes more important, not less.”

Nearly three quarters of human resource leaders (73%) said they’re feeling optimistic about their organization’s future in 2026. However, 66% said they expect more change despite their generally positive outlook after experiencing a difficult 2025, according to the latest Wiley Workplace Intelligence report.

The survey of 1,500 HR and L&D leaders in North America found that 30% cited organizational culture improvement as well as employee engagement as top challenges for the year ahead. Meanwhile, 35% of respondents said learning technology would be a top priority.

Communication will also be important for organizational efforts involving change and improvement, per the survey, with 64% of respondents naming it the most important leadership skill.

The research suggested that many employees lack confidence in their organization's ability to adapt to change, Wiley said in a release, adding that there was a potential disconnect between leadership outlook and workforce reality.

A 2025 study from The Conference Board found that while 73% of HR leaders and 60% of workers reported being prepared for change and confident about their organizations’ ability to manage it, HR leaders were less likely to see past change efforts as successful. Instead, they identified gaps in measurement, communication and alignment. The report concluded that change initiatives can often sputter due to people-related challenges.

Many workers didn’t feel confident about their organization’s ability to adapt to change, but still said they were optimistic about their futures with their companies, per the Wiley report. This disparity offers leaders an opportunity to “harness this momentum” and bring people into their decision-making process through transparency and trust, the report added.

"This optimism is real, but it's also precarious," Tracey Carney, a Wiley researcher who headed the study, said in the release. "Leaders have a brief window in 2026 to convert that optimism into action by rebuilding trust, improving communication, and reinvesting in their people. Organizations that don’t seize this moment may risk letting it slip away."

Many managers and employees suffered from significant stress and burnout during the past year as a result of “near constant change” resulting mainly from uncertainty and apprehension surrounding artificial intelligence adoption, Wiley said in the release, adding that only “a small fraction of employees truly thrived.”

Other factors in 2025 that led to challenges for organizational culture and employee engagement included rapid change, instability and return-to-office mandates, per the release.

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As engagement strategies mature, HR leaders are increasingly focused on a harder-to-measure driver, employee confidence, and its impact on performance, retention and adaptability.

For years, HR leaders have invested heavily in employee engagement: pulse surveys, recognition programs, wellbeing initiatives and flexible work policies. Despite these efforts, engagement scores have largely plateaued. Gallup data shows global engagement has remained stubbornly flat, even as organizations spend more to improve it.

This stagnation has created a growing sense that engagement alone is no longer enough, prompting leading frontline organizations to rethink their approach. Instead of asking only how employees feel about work, more leaders are asking whether employees actually feel capable of doing it well. That shift has brought renewed attention to employee confidence (i.e. the belief in one’s ability to perform job tasks effectively) as a critical but often overlooked driver of engagement.

Confidence isn’t a personality trait—it’s a workplace condition

In organizational contexts, confidence is frequently misunderstood as charisma or self-assurance. In reality, research on self-efficacy shows confidence is situational and learned. Employees develop it when they clearly understand expectations, have opportunities to practice skills, receive feedback, and see evidence of progress.

This distinction matters. An employee can be highly motivated and aligned with company values, traditional markers of engagement, but still hesitate, disengage or burn out if they feel unprepared for the demands of their role. According to the American Psychological Association, self-efficacy (a person’s belief in their ability to execute tasks successfully) influences how people approach goals, challenges and setbacks, making it a key factor in both performance and resilience at work.

Confidence is especially critical for frontline and deskless roles, where work is visible, customer-facing and often high-stakes. In these settings, uncertainty doesn’t just slow productivity; it can affect safety, customer satisfaction and retention.

Why employee confidence is breaking down

Several workplace trends are converging to weaken employee confidence. Roles are becoming more complex, while onboarding timelines continue to shrink. Many organizations rely on one-time training events that prioritize completion over mastery, leaving employees to fill gaps on the job.

At the same time, managers are stretched thin. Fewer supervisors are responsible for more direct reports, reducing opportunities for real-time coaching and reinforcement. For many deskless employees, limited access to ongoing learning and feedback compounds the problem.

The result is a confidence gap: employees are expected to perform at higher levels with less practice, less reinforcement and less validation. Over time, that gap shows up as disengagement, risk aversion, slower decision-making and ultimately turnover. Deloitte research indicates enabling human performance, including capability development, as a top organizational challenge amid uncertainty.

How organizations are rebuilding confidence at scale

Leading organizations are responding by rethinking how learning, feedback and engagement intersect. Instead of treating training as an event, they are embedding confidence-building into daily work.

One emerging approach is continuous, bite-sized learning reinforced over time. Learning science consistently shows that repetition and spaced reinforcement improve retention and skill transfer far more effectively than single-session training. When employees regularly practice core knowledge and skills, confidence grows naturally.

Another shift is the use of confidence assessments alongside traditional knowledge checks. Rather than measuring only whether employees answered correctly, these assessments capture how certain employees feel about applying what they’ve learned. This data can help organizations distinguish between true mastery and guesswork, and identify where coaching or reinforcement is needed before performance suffers.

This distinction is critical in frontline roles, where hesitation can impact customers in real time.

Some platforms, including frontline learning tools, have begun integrating confidence measurement directly into training workflows, giving HR and operations leaders early signals about readiness at both individual and team levels. Used thoughtfully, confidence data supports more targeted coaching and reduces unnecessary retraining, without adding friction for employees.

Finally, two-way communication plays a role. When employees can signal uncertainty, and see it addressed, confidence becomes a shared responsibility rather than an individual burden.

Why readiness is the next evolution of engagement

As work continues to evolve, engagement strategies are expanding beyond sentiment alone. Confidence offers a practical, measurable bridge between learning, performance and motivation.

Employees who feel capable are more likely to participate, adapt and stay for the long term. Organizations that prioritize confidence aren’t replacing engagement efforts. They’re strengthening them. In a workplace defined by constant change, belief in one’s ability to keep up may be the most durable form of engagement there is.

Sixty-nine percent of U.S. employees say their skills aren’t being fully realized in their current positions — a problem Resume Now's Untapped Talent Report says can lead to stalled career growth, disengagement and turnover. 

Nearly three-quarters of those surveyed said they’d look for a new job if they felt consistently underutilized, while 67% would consider leaving the company within a year. Additionally, 77% said not being used to their full potential has slowed their career progression, according to the results of Resume Now’s survey.

“When employees consistently feel underused, job searching feels rational, not reactive. Even otherwise acceptable jobs can lose their appeal when growth and contribution feel capped,” the report found.

The potential turnover risk from failing to fully realizing workers’ capabilities leaves little room for error, the report found. 

“When employees feel their skills are consistently underused, most do not envision staying long-term, and many anticipate leaving within months,” Resume Now said. 

Of the more than 1,000 U.S. adults surveyed, 67% said they would leave their company within a year if their skills continued to be underused; nearly half put the timeline within six months, including 17% who would leave in less than three months. Only slightly more than a third of workers said they’d stick around longer than a year. 

“Feeling underused accelerates how quickly employees envision leaving, shrinking what might have been a long-term role into a short-term stop,” the report found.

Employees overwhelmingly pointed to a lack of leadership action regarding the problem. Of those surveyed, 80% said leaders either don’t realize they aren’t given an opportunity to reach their full potential or they do and don’t act on that knowledge, the report found. 

“Many organizations have an incomplete picture of what their employees are actually good at, leading to roles that don't fully reflect and leverage individual strengths. This misalignment can leave employees feeling overlooked and miscast in their own jobs,” Resume Now said. 

In a May 2024 report, Mercer and Marsh identified ineffective leadership as the biggest people risk facing U.S. companies. HR and risk professionals surveyed raised concerns about leaders having an effective workforce strategy to acquire, grow and deploy talent based on their skills.

Almost 8 in 10 (79%) millennial knowledge workers are satisfied with their current role, but their loyalty isn’t guaranteed, especially if better pay, clearer growth paths or stronger learning opportunities are on the table, according to recent research by global tech career and training firm General Assembly.

If hiring conditions improve, 49% of the 515 U.S. and UK millennial knowledge workers (aged 29-44) surveyed in said they would actively begin looking for a new role. Managers are particularly likely to move as well as workers in hospitality, education and professional services.

“Millennials aren’t disengaged — they’re pragmatic. They’re paying attention to the market and weighing whether their current role will support long-term growth,” GA wrote in an analysis.

The message for employers is that if they want to retain experienced, mid-career talent once the job market picks up, they’ll have to provide learning opportunities, internal mobility and career path clarity — not just compensation, GA said.

The findings spell it out. Millennials who are satisfied with their job also said they have a clear path forward, don’t need to leave their company to advance and that their company would support reskilling for a new internal role.

“Career clarity doesn’t just boost engagement — it builds confidence in staying,” GA stressed.

Employees do have higher expectations than in the past, but meeting these expectations boosts retention, SHRM researchers found in a recent survey of U.S. employees and HR professionals.

For instance, among workers who said their employers were addressing their needs, 91% reported job satisfaction. Conversely, more than half of employees at organizations that didn’t do well at meeting workers’ needs said they were at least somewhat likely to leave their job within a year.

According to GA, job satisfaction is strongly connected to internal opportunity, a factor that’s been on everyone’s radar for a while. To counter low turnover and hiring freezes, many HR leaders have shifted their strategy from external hiring to internal mobility, prioritizing upskilling and reskilling, outplacement company Careerminds reported in September 2025.

Employees have also shifted their priorities, according to a January workforce trends report from Adecco. Tangible job security has overtaken personal fulfillment as the top retention factor, with workers now prioritizing stable income, job certainty and “robust” employer support for professional agility, the report said.

Yet, GA’s research found that 39% of employees believe their company overlooks internal candidates, indicating a gap between what employers say they intend to do and what gets implemented, GA noted. 

One reason could be a lack of relevant information, the Adecco report suggested. Its research found that while nearly two-thirds of organizations struggle to transition workers into new internal roles, only a third invest in the data required to understand internal skills and capabilities.

In a “historic reversal,” employees now prioritize organizational stability — such as confidence in senior leaders and a company’s ability to adapt to change — over belonging and feeling valued, Perceptyx revealed in recent research.

That shift may be driven by economic uncertainty, Perceptyx said. In turn, employees want to work at companies with credibility, stability and effective leadership.

“For nearly a decade, the strongest drivers of engagement were emotional and culture-based,” Brad Wilson, global head of workforce insights and innovation at Perceptyx, said in a statement. As of 2025, that has flipped. “Employees aren’t asking, ‘Do I feel valued today?’ They’re asking, ‘Do I believe this company will succeed and will I succeed with it?’ This is the biggest shift we’ve ever recorded.”

The research analyzed 20 million worker responses collected from a ten-year longitudinal study. Feelings of belonging and feeling valued were previously ranked the consistent top two engagement drivers from 2016 to 2024, Perceptyx said. In 2025, they fell to the bottom two positions (4th and 5th place, respectively).

Now, the top driver of engagement is the feeling that change is handled effectively at the company, according to the research.

Unfortunately for employers, change management may be consistently viewed as an organizational weakness, an Eagle Hill Consulting report noted in December. Only 1 in 4 U.S. workers surveyed said their organization effectively manages major change — though generations varied on whether that change actually made organizations better.

And while HR professionals report confidence in managing change, according to a Conference Board report, workers are limited in their ability to absorb change, a report from The Grossman Group said. More than half of business leaders surveyed said they expect to implement three or more changes in the next two years, but workers said they could only handle 1 to 2 major changes in a year.

Notably, employee engagement is “extra vulnerable” during change, Perceptyx said. Layoffs, reorganizations and M&A activity prompt declines in intent to stay, “further highlighting the importance of handling change effectively in today’s economic climate,” according to the report.