On this page
- Engagement is at a decade low (Gallup puts it at 20% in 2025), and low engagement costs the world economy about 10 trillion dollars a year.
- Learning is the strongest lever an L&D leader controls: 88% of organisations name it their top retention strategy, and 84% of employees say learning adds purpose to their work.
- Managers are the multiplier, yet their own engagement has slid to 22%, down 9 points since 2022.
- Read forward into 2027 and beyond, none of these lines has found a floor, so the planning assumption is continued pressure rather than a natural recovery.
- For an enterprise, the read is simple: treat learning and development as a retention investment, arm managers to coach, and measure engagement movement, not just course completion.
- Disprz customers see a 70% lift in productivity and engagement running skills programmes this way.
Short answer: Global employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025, its lowest since 2020, and low engagement now costs the world economy around 10 trillion dollars a year (Gallup, 2026). Learning is the strongest fix: 88% of organisations name it their top retention strategy (LinkedIn, 2025).
Where engagement and retention hurt most: by size, industry, and role
The pressure is universal, but its shape changes with who you are. Read this first: it maps the engagement and retention pain that actually shows up by company size, by industry, and by the leader who owns it, each line anchored to a verified figure from this page.
The pattern underneath is consistent. Smaller organisations are starved of budget and structure, larger ones fight scale, fragmentation, and the demand to prove return, and every segment runs into the same manager bottleneck, the layer whose own engagement has already slid to 22%.
By company size
| Segment | The core pain | Backed by data |
|---|---|---|
| Small business | Least resourced, most exposed. Engagement work is side-of-desk with no dedicated function, so it stays ad hoc and is first to be cut, yet the cost of doing nothing still applies. | Low engagement drains around 10 trillion dollars a year from the world economy (Gallup, 2026), and no small workforce escapes the 20% engagement baseline that is the lowest since 2020. |
| Mid-market | Headcount scales faster than the manager layer can coach, so engagement dips just as teams grow and the operating model has to catch up. | Manager engagement is 22% (Gallup, 2026) and only about 13% of a manager's time goes to developing people (Deloitte, 2025), so growth outruns coaching capacity. |
| Enterprise | Not budget, but scale, fragmentation, and proof. Learning exists, so adoption and measured engagement movement, not activity, are the hard questions. | 88% name learning their top retention strategy (LinkedIn, 2025), yet the win looks like a median 85% platform adoption and a 70% lift in productivity and engagement (Disprz Skills Impact Index, 2026), not course completions. |
Note: hard size-segmented engagement data is thin across public sources, so the size read above interprets organisation-wide figures rather than claiming each is measured by company size.
By industry
| Industry | The core pain | Backed by data |
|---|---|---|
| BFSI | High-pressure, regulated roles where a disengaged specialist is slow and costly to replace, so growth paths are the retention lever. | 88% of organisations name learning their top retention strategy and 84% of employees say learning adds purpose to their work (LinkedIn, 2025), the levers that hold scarce regulated talent. |
| Retail | Constant churn across a largely deskless workforce, where onboarding speed decides whether a new hire stays past the first weeks. | 50% faster onboarding shortens the early window when new hires are most likely to leave, and 45%+ frontline completion against an industry average below 30% keeps the deskless majority in the engagement story (Disprz Skills Impact Index, 2026). |
| Healthcare and frontline services | The highest stakes with the thinnest time, so engagement erodes fastest at the front line where learning has to live inside the workflow. | Global engagement sits at 20% and manager engagement at 22% (Gallup, 2026), while 45%+ frontline completion against a sub-30% average shows the deskless layer can still be reached (Disprz Skills Impact Index, 2026). |
| Manufacturing and frontline-heavy | The deskless reach gap: the layer that runs the business is the least likely to be developed or engaged. | Frontline completion sits below 30% industry-wide against 45%+ on a fit-for-frontline platform (Disprz Skills Impact Index, 2026), even as around 40% of job skills change by 2030 with 22% job churn (WEF, 2025). |
| IT and ITeS | Fast skills half-life and high mobility, so people leave when growth stalls and content goes stale. | 84% say learning adds purpose and 88% name it the top retention strategy (LinkedIn, 2025), against roughly 40% of job skills changing by 2030 (WEF, 2025). |
Note: the engagement and retention figures on this page are global rather than industry-segmented, so the industry read above interprets those figures by sector context rather than claiming each is measured by industry.
By role: who feels the pain
The same numbers land on different desks as different problems. Each pain below has its matching move in Takeaways by role further down.
- CEO or enterprise business owner: a disengaged majority is a competitiveness risk. Only 20% of employees are engaged and low engagement drains around 10 trillion dollars a year from the world economy (Gallup, 2026), so growth stalls on capability, not intent.
- CXO (COO or CIO): execution capacity is the operational risk. Manager engagement has slid to 22% (Gallup, 2026) and the multiplier layer disengages first, so operational execution and any AI or change programme depend on re-equipping managers before you scale.
- CHRO or people leader: the talent base is developing and disengaging at once. Engagement is at 20%, its lowest since 2020, yet 88% of organisations name learning their number-one retention strategy (Gallup 2026, LinkedIn 2025), so retention and learning are one workforce strategy.
- L&D manager: mandate without a clear priority. 84% of employees say learning adds purpose to their work, yet only 15% say a manager helped them build a career plan in the last six months (LinkedIn, 2025), so visible skills paths and manager-led career conversations come before one-off course pushes.
- CFO or finance leader: the cost of inaction, hard to ignore. Because low engagement costs the world economy around 10 trillion dollars a year (Gallup, 2026), even a small movement inside your own workforce is a material number, so fund engagement work as productivity recovery.
So what for your plan. Wherever you sit, the pain resolves to the same three moves: map the engagement and skills gap before you buy content, equip managers as the multiplier, and reach the deskless majority. The rest of this page is the evidence for each.
Key highlights
- The cost: low engagement drains around 10 trillion dollars a year from the world economy (Gallup, 2026).
- The low: global engagement fell to 20% in 2025, the weakest reading since 2020 (Gallup, 2026).
- The lever: 88% of organisations make learning their number-one retention strategy (LinkedIn, 2025).
- The multiplier: manager engagement has dropped to 22%, down 9 points since 2022 (Gallup, 2026).
- The proof: Disprz skills programmes are associated with a 70% lift in productivity and engagement.
Top employee engagement and retention statistics for 2027 and beyond
Start here for the skim layer. Each figure below is sourced and self-contained, and pairs the number with a one-line read for an enterprise L&D or HR leader, so you can lift any line straight into a board paper or a business case. The question-led sections below go deeper on each. Full citations sit in the Sources list.
- Global employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025 (Gallup, 2026). The lowest reading since 2020, so plan for a disengaged majority as your baseline, not the exception.
- Low engagement costs the world economy around 10 trillion dollars a year (Gallup, 2026). Frame engagement work as productivity recovery, not a soft benefit, and it earns a line in the budget.
- Manager engagement dropped to 22% in 2025, down 9 points since 2022 (Gallup, 2026). The multiplier layer is disengaging first, so enable managers before you scale to their teams.
- 88% of organisations name learning their number-one retention strategy (LinkedIn, 2025). L&D already owns the strongest retention lever, so run the learning and retention budgets as one programme.
- 84% of employees say learning adds purpose to their work (LinkedIn, 2025). Growth, not perks, is what keeps people, so make progression visible with skills paths and internal mobility.
- The share who say learning helps them adapt during change rose to 68% in 2025 from 49% in 2022 (LinkedIn, 2025). Learning is a stabiliser as change accelerates, so position re-skilling as routine growth.
- Managers spend around 40% of their time on admin and only 13% developing their people (Deloitte, 2025). Coaching capacity, not intent, is the constraint, so protect manager time with in-the-flow learning.
- 73% of organisations want to reinvent the manager role, but only 7% are making great progress (Deloitte, 2025). Intent is common and execution is rare, so a focused manager programme is a quick differentiator.
- Only 15% of employees say a manager helped them build a career plan in the last six months (LinkedIn, 2025). Give managers a simple, repeatable career-conversation motion rather than leaving it to instinct.
- Around 75% of HR leaders report that managers are overwhelmed (Gartner, CHRO Top Priorities 2026). Add capacity to the manager layer before you add expectations to it.
- Around 40% of job skills will change by 2030, with 22% job churn (WEF, 2025). Constant re-skilling is the change load that erodes engagement, so build for it now.
- Across 47 Disprz enterprise deployments, skills programmes are associated with a 70% lift in productivity and engagement (Disprz Skills Impact Index, 2026). With a median 88% completion and 85% adoption, that is what closing the gap looks like in practice.
How much does low engagement cost?
Start with the number that reframes engagement as a P&L line rather than an HR sentiment score. Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2026 estimates that low engagement costs the world economy about 10 trillion dollars a year in lost productivity, the equivalent of roughly 9% of global GDP.
In the same report, global employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025, its lowest level since 2020. For an enterprise L&D or HR leader, that pairing is the whole argument: disengagement is both wide (four in five employees) and expensive, and it is trending the wrong way.
The picture gets sharper when you add managers. Gallup found manager engagement dropped to 22% in 2025, down 9 points since 2022. Managers set the tone for the teams they run, so a decline at that layer tends to cascade. The chart below shows just how narrow the engaged share of the workforce has become.
What it means for your budget. If disengagement is a 10 trillion dollar drag globally, even a small movement inside your own workforce is a material number. Frame engagement work as productivity recovery, not a soft benefit, and it earns a line in the plan.
Does learning improve retention?
The good news for L&D is that the function already owns the strongest response. LinkedIn's 2025 Workplace Learning Report found 88% of organisations are concerned about retention, and learning is the number-one retention strategy they name, ahead of pay and perks.
Employees agree it works on them: 84% say learning adds purpose to their work, and the share who say learning helps them adapt during change has climbed to 68% in 2025 from 49% in 2022. That last movement matters, because change fatigue is exactly what erodes engagement.
For an enterprise buyer, this is the case for treating your employee retention strategy and your learning strategy as one programme rather than two budgets. People do not leave because they lacked a webinar, they leave when they stop growing, so the pages of your L&D plan that build visible progression are the same pages that hold your best people.
Why does manager engagement matter so much?
Engagement rises and falls with the direct manager, which is why the drop in manager engagement to 22% in 2025 (down 9 points since 2022, per Gallup) is the most worrying number on this page. A disengaged manager cannot manufacture engagement in a team, and the effect compounds across every report they have. Yet managers are also the most controllable lever an L&D team has, because their behaviour is trainable.
The deeper problem is that most managers are not set up to do the one thing that lifts engagement. Deloitte's 2025 Global Human Capital Trends found managers spend around 40% of their time on problem-solving and admin and only 13% developing their people, and while 73% of organisations recognise the need to reinvent the manager role, only 7% are making great progress.
On top of that, 36% of managers say they are insufficiently prepared to be people managers. The capacity to coach is simply not there, so the coaching that would move engagement never happens.
Employees feel the gap. In LinkedIn's 2025 Workplace Learning Report, only 15% say their manager helped them build a career plan in the last six months (down 5 points), and 50% say managers lack the proper support to develop their teams.
The pattern that Gallup, Deloitte and LinkedIn describe is the same one from three angles: the layer that most determines engagement is the layer that is most stretched and least equipped. That is also why leader and manager development sits at the top of the HR agenda for 2026, with around 75% of HR leaders reporting that managers are overwhelmed.
(Gartner, CHRO Top Priorities 2026)
For an L&D leader the read is precise: do not treat the manager layer as a broadcast audience for the same content everyone else gets. It is a distinct population that needs its capacity protected, its coaching skills built, and a team-level view of skills and engagement it can actually act on.
- Coach the coaches: managers who run regular growth conversations lift both retention and engagement, so make manager enablement the first cohort, not an afterthought.
- Give them the signal: managers act when they can see a team-level skills and engagement view, not a spreadsheet they have to decode.
- Protect their capacity: with only about 13% of a manager's time going to developing people, lightweight, in-the-flow learning beats another full-day workshop.
- Close the career-plan gap: since only 15% of employees say a manager helped them plan their growth, give managers a simple, repeatable career-conversation motion rather than leaving it to instinct.
If you are rebuilding the manager layer, treat it as its own workstream inside your employee engagement strategy for L&D: equip managers to coach, then measure whether their teams' engagement and retention actually move.
Employee engagement and retention benchmarks
Use this as your benchmark snapshot. These three figures are the current, verified read on the state of engagement, and all three come from one source, Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2026 (2025 data), so they sit on a single, consistent methodology. Read each against your own workforce before you set a 2027 target.
Benchmark source: Gallup, State of the Global Workplace 2026 (2025 data). gallup.com
So what for your plan. Engagement at 20% is a P&L cost, not a survey line, and the manager reading of 22% is the earliest warning signal. Treat both as the baseline you are working against into 2027 and beyond, and hold any programme to a movement on them rather than to course completions.
Trends: what is moving
The strongest sources here are not snapshots, they are trajectories. Read year over year, three verified movements show where engagement and retention are heading, and all three matter for 2027 and beyond.
- Global engagement fell to its lowest level since 2020, reaching 20% in 2025 (Gallup, 2026). The line is still falling with no floor in the latest data, so plan for a disengaged majority as your baseline.
- Manager engagement dropped 9 points since 2022 to 22% in 2025 (Gallup, 2026). The multiplier layer is disengaging first, which tends to lead the wider workforce number down.
- The share who say learning helps them adapt during change rose to 68% in 2025 from 49% in 2022 (LinkedIn, 2025). The one line moving up is the one that ties learning to change, so learning becomes a more important stabiliser, not a less important one, as change accelerates.
Where do engagement and retention point through 2027 and beyond?
No source forecasts an engagement figure for 2027, so treat what follows as a reading of the direction the verified data is already moving, not a new number. Two of the headline figures on this page are trend lines, and both point down.
Global engagement is at its lowest level since 2020, and manager engagement has fallen 9 points since 2022 to 22%. Nothing in the 2026 data suggests a floor has been reached, so the safe planning assumption for 2027 and beyond is that engagement stays under pressure rather than recovering on its own.
The reason sits in a different report, and it is a structural one that runs well past 2027. The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025 projects that around 40% of job skills will change by 2030 and that 22% of jobs will churn over the same period.
Constant re-skilling is exactly the change load that Gallup and LinkedIn link to falling engagement, so the pressure on the engagement number is cumulative, tightening each year to the end of the decade rather than easing after a single season. The LinkedIn number that moved most is telling: the share of employees who say learning helps them adapt during change rose to 68% in 2025 from 49% in 2022.
In other words, as change accelerates through 2027 and beyond, learning becomes a more important stabiliser, not a less important one. The organisations that hold engagement will be the ones that make growth and adaptation feel routine rather than threatening.
Because these figures refresh on an annual cycle (Gallup mid-year, LinkedIn each Q1, Deloitte each spring), the practical move is to re-baseline against the new reports as they land and to watch the manager line specifically: it is both the earliest indicator and the most controllable one. If the manager number keeps sliding across the next refresh, the whole workforce number tends to follow, so the read for 2027 and beyond is to build the internal capability engine now rather than wait for the market to supply engaged, ready people.
How do you turn engagement data into a retention plan?
Read together, the latest statistics point an enterprise L&D or HR leader towards a few decisions, not just a few slides. This table turns each headline figure into the action it should trigger in your plan for 2027 and beyond.
Table 1: from statistic to L&D decision
| What the data says | What it means for you | The move to make |
|---|---|---|
| Engagement at 20%, low engagement costs 10 trillion dollars | Disengagement is a productivity cost, not a morale footnote | Put an engagement metric next to your training spend in the business case |
| 88% make learning their top retention strategy | L&D already owns the strongest retention lever | Merge the retention and learning budgets into one programme |
| 84% say learning adds purpose to their work | Growth, not perks, is what keeps people | Make progression visible with skills paths and internal mobility |
| Manager engagement at 22% | The multiplier layer is disengaged first | Enable and measure managers before rolling out to teams |
| Managers spend ~13% of time developing people, only 15% helped an employee plan a career | Coaching capacity, not intent, is the constraint | Give managers a lightweight, repeatable career-conversation motion in the flow of work |
| Learning helps adapt during change rose to 68% from 49% | Learning is a stabiliser as change accelerates to 2030 | Position re-skilling as routine growth, and track engagement through each change |
Sequenced across a first 90 days, the same figures become a plan rather than a list. Each phase below is anchored to a metric already on this page, so you can show progress against the numbers the board saw in the business case.
Table 2: a first-90-days retention plan
| Phase | Focus, and the figure behind it | What you measure |
|---|---|---|
| Days 0 to 30: baseline | Set an engagement and attrition baseline for one workforce, because engagement at 20% is a P&L cost, not a survey line | Starting engagement score, voluntary attrition, and completion for the group |
| Days 30 to 60: managers first | Enable that group's managers to coach, since manager engagement is 22% and only about 13% of their time goes to developing people | Manager enablement completion and number of career conversations held |
| Days 60 to 90: visible growth | Stand up visible skills paths and internal mobility, because 84% say learning adds purpose and 88% of firms treat it as the top retention lever | Adoption, path progress, and movement in engagement versus a matched group |
Measure what you are trying to move. Course completions tell you activity happened. Engagement and retention movement, tracked by team and cohort, tell you the programme worked. Report the second, and the budget conversation changes.
How Disprz moves engagement and retention
The statistics above describe the problem. Disprz first-party data describes what closing it looks like in a real enterprise workforce. These figures come from the Disprz Skills Impact Index, drawn from 47 enterprise deployments, and are the unique, sourced layer you will not find in the third-party reports.
Engagement and retention move when learning is something people actually use, so adoption is the number that matters most here. Across 47 Disprz enterprise deployments, learning programmes reach a median 88% course completion and 85% platform adoption, and are associated with a 70% lift in productivity and engagement.
Disprz also documents 50% faster onboarding, which shortens the window in which a new hire is most likely to leave, and 45%+ frontline completion against an industry average below 30%, so the deskless majority is not left out of the engagement story. See the full, sourced Disprz Skills Impact dataset for the per-industry cuts.
Where to start. Pick one population where turnover hurts most (often new hires or a frontline function), stand up a visible skills path, enable their managers to coach it, and track engagement and retention against a matched group. Prove the movement, then scale.
Use and cite these engagement and retention figures
Free to reference in your reports, decks, and articles. Please cite the original source for each figure (listed below) and link back to this page so readers can reach the full dataset.
Suggested citation. Disprz. "Employee Engagement and Retention Statistics 2027 and Beyond." Disprz Blog, 2026, disprz.ai/blog/employee-engagement-retention-statistics. To embed a chart, link the image to this page and credit both Disprz and the underlying source (Gallup or LinkedIn) named in its caption.
Key takeaways
- Engagement is at a decade low (20% in 2025) and disengagement costs the world economy around 10 trillion dollars a year.
- Learning is the number-one retention lever: 88% of organisations name it first, and 84% of employees say it adds purpose.
- Managers are the multiplier, and their engagement has fallen to 22%, so enable them before you scale to teams.
- Treat engagement work as productivity recovery and measure engagement and retention movement, not just completions.
- Disprz skills programmes are associated with a 70% lift in productivity and engagement, with 88% completion and 85% adoption.
Which workforce should you start with?
The latest data makes the direction clear, and the forward view sharpens it: engagement is falling, it is expensive, the pressure is structural through 2030, and learning is the lever leaders already trust to fix it. For an enterprise, the win is not another engagement survey but a programme that builds visible growth, arms managers to coach it, and reports the movement on engagement and retention.
Start with the population where leaving hurts most, make progression visible, and measure the change before you roll it wide.
Takeaways by role
The same figures land differently depending on the seat you hold. Here is the one line each leader should carry into 2027 and beyond, each anchored to a number already on this page.
- For the CEO or enterprise business owner: with only 20% of employees engaged and low engagement draining around 10 trillion dollars a year from the world economy (Gallup, 2026), a disengaged majority is now a competitiveness risk, so treat closing that gap as a growth lever rather than an HR nicety.
- For the CXO (COO or CIO): manager engagement has slid to 22% (Gallup, 2026), and the multiplier layer disengages first, so operational execution and any AI or change programme depend on re-equipping managers before you scale a new capability across their teams.
- For the CHRO or people leader: learning is the strongest retention lever you control, since 88% of organisations name it their number-one retention strategy (LinkedIn, 2025), so run retention and learning as one workforce strategy rather than two competing budgets.
- For the L&D manager: 84% of employees say learning adds purpose to their work (LinkedIn, 2025), so prioritise visible skills paths and internal mobility, and design manager-led career conversations, ahead of one-off course pushes.
- For the CFO or finance leader: because low engagement costs the world economy around 10 trillion dollars a year (Gallup, 2026), even a small movement inside your own workforce is a material number, so fund engagement work as productivity recovery and hold it to engagement and retention movement, not course completions.
Key terms defined
Quick definitions for the terms used across this page, so each figure is read the same way.
- Employee engagement: The share of employees who are involved in and enthusiastic about their work; Gallup puts the global figure at 20% in 2025.
- Employee retention: An organisation's ability to keep its people over time; 88% of organisations name learning their top retention strategy (LinkedIn, 2025).
- Manager engagement: Engagement measured specifically among people managers, the multiplier layer for their teams; it sits at 22%, down 9 points since 2022 (Gallup, 2026).
- Adoption versus completion: Completion is finishing a course; adoption is whether people actually use the learning, so adoption is the better signal that engagement and retention will move.
- Voluntary attrition: Employees choosing to leave, the retention outcome an engagement programme is trying to reduce, tracked against a baseline and a matched group.
- Frontline or deskless workforce: Employees without a fixed desk or computer, the majority in many enterprises, who are reached only when learning is mobile-first and in the flow of work.
Related statistics. Leadership development statistics, Training ROI statistics, Soft skills statistics, and the L&D statistics hub.
Reviewed for accuracy on 28 Sep 2026.
Employee engagement and retention statistics FAQs
The questions L&D and people leaders ask most about this data.
What is the current global employee engagement rate?
Global employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025, its lowest level since 2020, according to Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2026. That means around four in five employees worldwide are not engaged at work.
How much does low employee engagement cost?
Gallup estimates that low engagement costs the world economy about 10 trillion dollars a year in lost productivity, the equivalent of roughly 9% of global GDP. For an individual enterprise, the cost shows up as lower output, higher turnover, and slower onboarding.
Does learning and development improve retention?
Yes. In LinkedIn's 2025 Workplace Learning Report, 88% of organisations concerned about retention name learning as their number-one retention strategy, ahead of pay and perks, and 84% of employees say learning adds purpose to their work. Growth opportunities are consistently among the strongest predictors of whether people stay.
Why does manager engagement matter so much?
Managers set the tone for their teams, so their engagement cascades. Gallup found manager engagement dropped to 22% in 2025, down 9 points since 2022. Because manager behaviour is trainable, enabling managers to coach is one of the most controllable levers an L&D team has for lifting team engagement and retention.
How should we measure whether training improves engagement?
Track engagement and retention movement by team and cohort, not just course completions. Set a baseline, run the programme with a matched comparison group, and report the change in engagement scores, voluntary attrition, and internal mobility alongside completion and adoption rates.
Is employee engagement getting better or worse?
Worse, on the current data. Gallup's State of the Global Workplace 2026 puts global engagement at 20% in 2025, the lowest reading since 2020, and manager engagement has fallen 9 points since 2022 to 22%. Neither line shows a floor yet, so the sensible planning assumption for 2027 and beyond is continued pressure rather than a natural recovery.
Why does learning matter more as work changes faster?
Because change is the load that erodes engagement, and learning is what makes it manageable. The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025 projects that around 40% of job skills will change by 2030 with 22% job churn. Over the same window, the share of employees who say learning helps them adapt during change rose to 68% in 2025 from 49% in 2022. As the pace of change rises, learning works as a stabiliser, which is why re-skilling and retention belong in one plan.
Where should we focus our engagement budget first?
On managers. They set the tone for their teams, yet Deloitte's 2025 Global Human Capital Trends found managers spend only about 13% of their time developing people, and just 15% of employees in LinkedIn's 2025 report say a manager helped them build a career plan in the last six months. Because manager behaviour is trainable and the manager line moves earliest, enabling managers to coach is usually the highest-return first spend, before any team-wide rollout.
What results do Disprz customers see on engagement and retention?
Across 47 enterprise deployments in the Disprz Skills Impact Index, skills programmes are associated with a 70% lift in productivity and engagement, with a median 88% course completion and 85% platform adoption. Disprz also documents 50% faster onboarding and 45%+ frontline completion against an industry average below 30%. See the full dataset at disprz.ai/skills-impact.
Sources
- Gallup. State of the Global Workplace 2026 (2025 data). Global engagement 20%, low engagement cost of around 10 trillion dollars, manager engagement 22% (down 9 points since 2022). gallup.com
- LinkedIn Learning. 2025 Workplace Learning Report. 2025. 88% concerned about retention with learning the top strategy, 84% say learning adds purpose, 68% say learning helps them adapt during change (up from 49% in 2022), only 15% say a manager helped build a career plan in the last six months, 50% say managers lack proper support. learning.linkedin.com
- Deloitte. 2025 Global Human Capital Trends. 2025. Managers spend around 40% of their time on problem-solving and admin and only 13% developing people, 73% recognise the need to reinvent the manager role but only 7% are making great progress, 36% of managers say they are insufficiently prepared. deloitte.com
- World Economic Forum. Future of Jobs Report 2025. 14 January 2025. Around 40% of job skills will change by 2030, with 22% job churn over the period. weforum.org
- Gartner. CHRO Top Priorities for 2026. 2025. Leader and manager development is the top HR priority, with around 75% of HR leaders reporting managers are overwhelmed. gartner.com
- Disprz. Disprz Skills Impact Index, 2026. First-party learning and skills outcomes from 47 enterprise deployments: 70% productivity and engagement lift, median 88% completion and 85% adoption, 50% faster onboarding, 45%+ frontline completion. disprz.ai/skills-impact
Related reading
More on engagement, retention, and the data behind them.
- Employee retention strategies that actually hold your best people
- Employee engagement strategies for L&D
- L&D statistics 2027 and beyond: the state of corporate learning
- Soft skills: the complete guide with examples and a full list
