Dive Brief:
- Global employee engagement dropped for the second consecutive year, declining from 23% in 2022 to 20% in 2025, according to Gallup’s latest State of the Global Workplace report.
- Sinking engagement among managers is driving the downturn, the report said. Between 2022 and 2025, manager engagement dropped nine points, from 31% to 22%, Gallup’s research found. Nonmanager engagement stayed low but constant, dipping from 20% in 2022, to 18% in 2023 and 2024, then slightly rebounding to 19% in 2025.
- Despite the global downturn, engagement in the U.S. and Canada held steady and remained among the highest, according to the report.
Dive Insight:
Worldwide, employee engagement is eight percentage points higher than it was in Gallup’s first measurement in 2009, and five points higher than it was a decade ago, indicating that “for millions of workers, the workplace has improved,” the report said.
Yet, the downturn in overall engagement as well as manager engagement specifically is cause for concern, Gallup emphasized.
One reason is because managers “play a pivotal role in emerging workplace trends, including artificial intelligence adoption,” per the report.
“Businesses are investing heavily in AI, but the results are not showing up in the bottom line. Gallup’s data points to an answer the corporate world has largely ignored: the manager,” Gallup CEO Jon Clifton stated in a media release.
The research found that employees who believe their manager supports their team’s use of AI are 8.7 times more likely to strongly agree AI has transformed how much work gets done in their business and 7.4 times as likely to find that AI gives them more opportunities to do what they do best daily, Gallup said.
“In organizations investing in AI, the strongest predictor of employee adoption, aside from technical integration, is whether their manager actively champions it. Even the most sophisticated neutral network cannot overcome an indifferent team leader,” Clifton wrote in the report’s introduction.
However, there is a troublesome disconnect between how managers and employees perceive manager support, according to an October 2025 report from the American Management Association.
An AMA survey of more than 1,300 workers worldwide found that while 59% of managers believe their engagement increased during the past year, 80% of employees said it stagnated or declined.
Managers think they’re stepping up, but employees don’t see it, AMA’s CEO said. Closing the gap requires sharper communication, stronger coaching and intentional collaboration, he stressed.
But recent reductions in middle management make that difficult, an August 2025 report from workforce communication platform Firstup revealed.
Having fewer direct managers puts pressure on workplace communication — as well as on organizational productivity and the employee experience — because front-line workers depend on direct managers as their primary source of company information, clarity and support, Firstup explained. Employees reported that since layoffs, managers seem stretched thin and less accessible.