From risk to advantage: why manager engagement is the game-changer in 2025
Published on 25 April 2025 • Written by Dr Lisa Colledge
Why employee engagement is falling again — and why manager capability is the real issue
I was saddened, but not surprised, to see Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2025 report [1].
Since Gallup began tracking global engagement in 2009, employee engagement has fallen only twice. The first time was in 2020, driven by the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic. Engagement rebounded in the years that followed, reaching a high of 23% in 2022 and holding steady in 2023.
This year, it has fallen again — by the same 2% margin.
Global employee engagement now sits at 21%. In other words, only one in five employees feels meaningfully connected to their organization’s mission, supported by leadership, or able to contribute in a way that feels worthwhile.
In Europe, engagement appears flat. But given that Europe already reports the lowest engagement globally (13%), this is more likely to reflect a floor effect than stability.
Why engagement matters: organizational health and performance
Organizational health is defined by McKinsey [2] as how a business is run — regardless of who leads it or what external pressures it faces.
The most resilient organizations maintain balance between:
Performance metrics and people metrics.
Long-term vision and short-term execution.
Engagement is one of the most comprehensive people metrics available, integrating leadership, strategy, accountability, communication, learning, development, and performance. [3].
And the cost of disengagement is not abstract.
Gallup estimates that this latest 2% global drop equates to $438 billion in lost productivity worldwide [1], due to the direct impact of engagement on many key business outcomes, as illustrated below [4].
The real signal in the data: manager engagement is collapsing
The most important insight in the 2025 report is not about employees.
It’s about managers.
Manager engagement fell by 3% overall [1].
Among female managers, it dropped 7% [1].
Among young managers, engagement dropped 5% [1].
Manager wellbeing also declined from 57% to 52% [1].
Employee engagement, by contrast, remained stable — for now.
This matters because managers account for around 70% of the variance in team engagement. When managers disengage, team engagement follows — often with a delay [5].
What we are seeing is not a workforce problem.
It’s a systemic manager overload problem.
Context matters: managers are carrying systems that no longer fit
Most managers today are operating in conditions defined by:
Budget constraints.
Staffing reductions.
Strategic uncertainty.
Increasing emotional and coordination load.
They are expected to deliver results, maintain morale, coach their teams, manage performance, and absorb volatility — often without updated tools or training.
Disengagement here is not a failure of motivation.
It’s a predictable outcome of systems designed for a more stable era being pushed beyond their limits by today’s pace, complexity, and uncertainty.
One system, one solution: manager capability as performance infrastructure
Gallup highlights a three-pronged approach in ensuring that people are trained in the foundational skills to be managers, learn effective coaching techniques, and enjoy improved wellbeing due to this training [1].
In practice, these are not three separate interventions.
They are all outcomes of investing in manager capability — particularly capability that enables managers to:
Support diverse working styles.
Create clarity in complex environments.
Connect daily work to organisational purpose.
Coach performance rather than police behavior.
Managers want to succeed. They experience success when their teams are productive, growing, and contributing meaningfully to the mission. The literature clearly shows that employees engage productively and contribute when they feel a strong connection to the mission, and have opportunities to development their capabilities to contribute to that mission [6].
This is where neuro-inclusive design matters.
Because people engage — and perform — when systems are designed to support how different minds actually work.
➡️ Curious how neuro-inclusive design strengthens performance infrastructure?
This short overview shows how neuro-inclusive systems improve engagement, decision-making, and resilience across teams.
Download the impact of neuro-inclusion PDF here.
From crisis response to competitive advantage
This moment is serious — but it is also a strategic opportunity.
Organizations that treat engagement as a compliance issue will struggle.
Those that treat manager capability as performance infrastructure will pull ahead.
Manager capability is not a “soft” investment.
It is a multiplier of resilience, adaptability, and sustained performance.
This is not about perks.
It is about designing conditions where teams can thrive — even when the unexpected happens.
➡️ If these ideas resonate, you can explore how I approach neuro-inspired team and leadership design on the Services page.
Most organizations already have the cognitive diversity they need.
The opportunity is designing systems that allow those different ways of thinking to work together effectively.
References
Chris Gagnon, Elizabeth John, and Rob Theunissen, 2017, Organizational health: A fast track to performance improvement, McKinsey & Company.
Jon Clifton and Kristen Lipton, 2024, Announcing the 2024 Gallup Exceptional Workplace Award Winners.
Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2024 Report: The Voice of the World's Employees.
Jim Harter, 2024, World's Largest Ongoing Study of the Employee Experience, Gallup.
Aaron De Smet, Marino Mugayar-Baldocchi, Angelika Reich, and Bill Schaninger 2023, Some employees are destroying value. Others are building it. Do you know the difference?
