Gallup has published its State of the Global Workplace: 2025 Report which shows that 79% of employees are disengaged. Organizations with low levels of employee engagement are likely to have lower levels of organizational resilience too.
Research in Frontiers in Communication (2022) highlights that organizational learning contributes to resilience by enabling anticipation, coping, and adaptation to change. The research states that engaged employees are more likely to participate in learning activities, thereby strengthening organizational resilience.
There is also both anecdotal and empirical evidence that engaged employees are more likely to go the extra mile to support their organization in times of crisis:
- Gallup studies consistently show that engaged employees are more likely to demonstrate discretionary effort and proactive behaviour during organizational challenges.
- Research on resilience and employee behaviour shows that engagement predicts higher levels of adaptability, persistence, and collaboration under stress (e.g., Bakker & Demerouti, 2008; Harter et al., 2009).
Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2025 puts the prime cause of the observed high levels of disengagement as a drop in manager engagement.
Manager engagement saw a large year-on-year fall from 30% to 27% and two types of managers were particularly affected: young (under 35) manager engagement fell by five percentage points; and female manager engagement dropped by seven points. Manager engagement affects team engagement, which affects productivity states the report. Business performance is at risk if executive leaders do not address manager breakdown; and by implication organizational resilience will be weakened.
References
- Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2008). Towards a model of work engagement. Career Development International, 13(3), 209–223.
- Harter, J. K., Schmidt, F. L., & Hayes, T. L. (2009). Business-unit-level relationship between employee satisfaction, employee engagement, and business outcomes: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(2), 268–279.
