Employee Engagement: Key Lessons from 2025 and What to Watch in 2026
That’s a wrap for 2025! It’s now time to look back and reflect on the key trends and patterns emerging from our benchmark database. This analysis draws on engagement survey data from hundreds of organisations across a wide range of industries and company sizes. By aggregating results across this diverse set of workplaces, the benchmark offers a robust and current view of employee sentiment and organisational health in 2025, and what we may expect to see in 2026.
Our in-house research examines movements across the core dimensions of engagement – Pride, Motivation, Advocacy, and Intent to Stay, providing a longitudinal perspective on how these measures evolve over time. With overall engagement stabilising and strengthening compared to 2024, the data points to a clear uplift in Motivation alongside consistently high levels of Pride and Intent to Stay. Here, we explore where organisations are gaining momentum in re-energising their people and the areas that continue to present the greatest challenges to engagement.
What do we see?
The end of 2025 marked a period of measured recovery and renewed momentum across employee engagement, following a slight decline late 2024. Overall engagement has strengthened year-on-year, rising from 80.6% in 2024 (1 year score) to 83.6% in 2025 (1 year score), bringing results back in line with long-term benchmarks and signalling a return to a more stable engagement baseline.
This improvement was not uniform across all areas. The most notable change has been a strong uplift in Motivation, which increased significantly from 75.0% in 2024 to 82.7% in 2025. This gain suggests that employees feel more energised and willing to invest discretionary effort – a critical leading indicator of future performance. Pride and Intent to Stay remained consistently high, reinforcing the view that emotional attachment to organisations has been resilient, even through periods of uncertainty.
2024 saw significant engagement drops, driven primarily by weaker motivation and advocacy scores, reflecting the cumulative impact of workload pressure, change fatigue, and external uncertainty. However, the first half of 2025 saw a significant rebound in engagement, with Motivation and Advocacy showing meaningful gains alongside sustained strength in Pride and Intent to Stay. The second half of 2025 paints a picture of stabilisation rather than continued upward trajectory, with engagement dropping slightly as we moved towards the end of 2025.
Overall, 2025 tells a story of recovery followed by consolidation. Organisations appear to have regained employee energy and commitment, particularly through improved motivation. However, the data also suggests that future gains will depend on converting this renewed effort into stronger advocacy and a deeper willingness for employees to actively recommend their workplace.
What is having the greatest impact on engagement?
Engagement levels in 2025 were shaped by a complex mix of economic, workplace, and external factors that extended beyond the immediate control of individual organisations. While many employees continued to feel proud of working for their employer and expressed a strong intention to stay, the broader environment influenced how much discretionary energy and advocacy they are able or willing to give.
Pressures related to the cost-of-living, evolving expectations around hybrid and office-based work, shifts in the labour market, and ongoing global uncertainty all contributed to this dynamic. Together, these forces help explain why engagement has stabilised rather than accelerated, with impacts most clearly felt in Motivation and Advocacy rather than in core attachment or retention intent.
1. Cost-of-living pressure and “pay not going as far”
Even with inflation easing, prices continued to rise in late 2025 (CPI 3.2% in the year to November 2025; housing-related inflation higher).
Financial strain tends to show up first in Motivation and Advocacy – people can still feel proud/loyal but be less inclined to go above-and-beyond or be an ambassador when they’re stretched.
2. Hybrid/return-to-office friction (wellbeing, fairness and commuting cost)
Through 2025 there was heightened noise around return-to-office expectations, with evidence that fear of being ordered back can harm wellbeing and that commuting costs are a major driver of resistance.
These tensions often depress Advocacy (people are less likely to recommend an employer if flexibility feels threatened/unequal) while Intent to Stay can remain stable if the external job market feels uncertain or switching costs are high.
3. Labour market cooling and rising insecurity
ONS data shows vacancies falling year-on-year and more unemployed people per vacancy (a “cooler” market).
In “cooler” job markets, Intent to Stay can stay strong (or even rise) because people are cautious about moving, while Motivation and Advocacy may decline if uncertainty increases and people focus on security over discretionary effort.
4. Persistent global geopolitical tensions and uncertainty
CEOs globally report that geopolitical tensions and economic uncertainty remain top business risks, affecting confidence, planning, and investment decisions, which can dampen internal morale and discretionary energy.
Unpredictable external conditions can increase anxiety among employees about business prospects and stability, which often shows up first in Motivation and Advocacy before Pride or Intent to Stay.
What can we expect to see in 2026?
1. Engagement will be increasingly defined by motivation, not attachment
Pride and Intent to Stay are expected to remain comparatively high in 2026, particularly if labour market uncertainty persists. However, Motivation is likely to remain the most volatile and differentiating dimension of engagement.
Organisations that fail to address workload sustainability, flexibility, and meaningful recognition risk seeing motivation stall or soften again – even if retention intent remains strong. In contrast, those that actively support employee energy, autonomy, and purpose are likely to pull ahead.
What this means for 2026: Motivation will become the clearest early indicator of future performance, burnout risk, and productivity – well before turnover shows up in the data.
2. Advocacy will become the most stubborn engagement area to shift
The 2025 data suggests that while employees are willing to stay, they are more cautious about actively recommending their employer. This pattern is expected to continue into 2026.
Cost-of-living pressures, hybrid work tensions, and broader economic uncertainty are likely to keep Advocacy lagging behind other engagement dimensions, unless organisations make deliberate efforts to strengthen trust, fairness, and employee voice.
What this means for 2026: Advocacy will increasingly reflect how safe, fair, and sustainable the employee experience feels – not just how satisfied or loyal people are.
3. “Staying but withdrawing” will be a growing risk
Wider research points to an increased risk of passive disengagement in 2026 – where employees remain in roles due to uncertainty or limited external options but reduce discretionary effort.
Our 2025 data already hints at this pattern: strong Intent to Stay paired with softer Motivation and Advocacy.
What this means for 2026: Headline retention metrics may look healthy, while underlying engagement and performance risk quietly builds. Organisations will need to look beyond turnover data to spot early warning signs.
4. Flexibility and fairness will remain central to engagement
Hybrid work expectations are unlikely to “settle” in 2026. Instead, engagement outcomes will increasingly depend on how fair, consistent and transparent decisions around flexibility and hybrid working are perceived to be, rather than on any single policy stance.
Employees are expected to become more sensitive to:
- Perceived inequity between roles or teams
- Lack of clarity around flexibility expectations
- The financial and wellbeing costs of commuting
What this means for 2026: Engagement will be shaped less by where people work, and more by whether flexibility feels equitable, predictable, and genuinely supported.
5. Financial wellbeing will continue to influence engagement more than pay alone
Even if inflation continues to moderate, cost-of-living pressure is expected to remain a significant backdrop in 2026. Research consistently shows that financial stress erodes Motivation and Advocacy before it affects Pride or Intent to Stay.
Organisations that broaden their approach – through financial wellbeing support, clearer reward communication, and realistic workload expectations – are likely to see more sustainable engagement outcomes than those relying solely on pay increases.
What this means for 2026: Employees will increasingly judge employers on how well they acknowledge and respond to financial pressure, not just on remuneration levels.
6. Leadership capability will be a key engagement differentiator
As external uncertainty persists, the role of leaders – particularly in communication, trust-building, and sense-making – will become even more critical. Wider research indicates that in uncertain environments:
- Clear, honest communication supports engagement
- Visible leadership builds psychological safety
- Poor communication accelerates disengagement
What this means for 2026: Variability in engagement will increasingly reflect leadership effectiveness, not organisational intent or strategy.
How we can help!
The 2025 results show that many organisations have successfully recovered lost ground in engagement and rebuilt momentum following the challenges of 2024. Motivation has strengthened, Pride and Intent to Stay remain high, and overall engagement has stabilised at healthier levels. However, the data also makes clear that this progress is fragile, with external pressures continuing to constrain advocacy and discretionary effort.
This is where targeted, insight-led actions matter most. Understanding where engagement is holding steady, where it is softening – and why, allows organisations to focus their efforts on the issues that will have the greatest impact – whether that is addressing flexibility concerns, supporting employees through cost-of-living pressure, strengthening trust and communication, or converting renewed motivation into stronger advocacy.
Our engagement surveys and benchmark insights help organisations move beyond headline scores to identify the specific drivers shaping employee sentiment in their context. By combining robust data with practical, actionable insights, we support leaders to make informed decisions that sustain engagement gains and build resilience into 2026 and beyond.
If you’d like to understand how your organisation compares to these benchmark trends, or explore the key factors that strengthen Motivation and Advocacy in your workforce, our team is here to help – Contact us today!