There is no particular headline incident that causes a company to fail because of disengagement; no stock collapse or scandal. Instead, there is just a slow bleed.
Employees who come to the office, perform their basic duties, and at the same time, organizational leaders congratulate themselves for having low employee turnover. According to statistics, this silent failure has reached the crisis level.
Gallup’s 2026 report on the state of the world’s labor market reports that only 20 percent of employees worldwide were engaged in 2025, the lowest level since 2020. The lack of employee involvement is divided between those who simply do not care and those who do not want to work.
The data reveal that 64 percent of employees are "not engaged," and 16 percent are disengaged at work. This means that approximately 80 percent of the workforce around the globe puts less effort into their jobs than they could. The cost of disengaged workers is huge.
Gallup estimates that they lead to a $10 trillion loss in productivity, which equals around 9 percent of the GDP. In other words, one percent of people being engaged means 21 million employees. Therefore, a two percent drop of engagement level does not mean some small number of people not being satisfied with their job.
This is not an example of lazy junior employees. This is an example of poor management. Starting in 2022, manager engagement has plummeted by 9 points, with the greatest drop occurring between 2024 and 2025, when it fell by 5 points — from 27% to 22%.
Managers aged under 35 experienced a five-point drop, whereas female managers recorded a seven-point drop, which is precisely the demographic that companies are making investments in. Managers were previously the most engaged people in any organization, but that engagement premium has disappeared, which is significant since disengaged managers not only underperform but also infect their subordinates.
The global scene can be illustrated by national cases. In the United States, during the last quarter of 2025, for the first time in history,, more people reported "struggling" (49%) than "thriving" (46%), which runs counter to the US self-imposed image of a strong labor market.
On a global scale, the losses accumulate from year to year: the drop in engagement in 2023-2024 alone cost the world economy 438 billion dollars in nonproductive work. At the same time, this crisis is not inevitable, since successful companies have engagement at around 70%, which is three times the average level worldwide, indicating that the 20% baseline is not an inevitable aspect of nature but rather the consequence of leadership errors.
In part, this crisis is emotional. Gallup research has shown that 40% of employees report stress, 22% report anger, 23% report sadness, and 22% report loneliness on a daily basis. These are not just concepts; they are indicators of resignation, absenteeism, and quiet quitting ahead of productivity losses.
Disengagement is not declared — it manifests itself in missed deadlines, poor service quality, and a lack of innovation. By the time directors understood the problem, $10 trillion had already been lost. The solution is not a new survey — it is fixing managers because the results are clear — poor leadership brings problems, and everything else is just bleeding.