Lower engagement among managers accounts for most of the recent downturn in employee engagement.

The Shrinking Perk of Being a Manager.

Since 2022, manager engagement has dropped by nine points. Individual contributor engagement also declined but has had a slight rebound. The largest year-over-year drop in manager engagement occurred between 2024 and 2025, when it declined by five points from 27% to 22%. In short, managers used to enjoy an “engagement premium” at work, but they are increasingly only as engaged as those they lead. South Asia’s decline in manager engagement suggests organizational flattening may be a factor. In 2025, South Asia (primarily India) experienced an eight-point decline in manager engagement, the largest decline of any region. At the same time, the percentage of managers in South Asia also declined, suggesting that employers are cutting management roles. Top IT firms add just 17 staff in nine months, hiring nearly freezes. Some evidence suggests that in 2025, India’s IT sector saw a substantial slowdown in hiring, along with cuts to mid-level and senior roles, possibly driven in part by AI adoption. With fewer managers in place, team sizes are likely to grow. A recent Gallup study of U.S. managers and team size found that manager engagement declines with larger spans of control, though manager talent and training can offset this effect. Declining manager engagement is by no means inevitable. Organizations of all sizes can achieve high levels of manager engagement. In 2025, Gallup found that within best-practice organizations, 79% of managers were engaged at work — nearly quadruple the global average. These world-class workplaces span all regions and industries, prioritizing employee engagement as part of their long-term business strategy.

Managers play a critical role in meaningful AI adoption. Based on Gallup’s Q1 2026 U.S. workforce survey, the top two drivers of frequent AI use within organizations are AI integration with existing systems and manager-led AI adoption. Gallup also finds that managers are key to employees' perceptions of AI value. Within U.S. organizations that are investing in AI technology, employees who strongly agree that their manager actively supports their team’s use of AI are: 98.7 times as likely to strongly agree that the AI has transformed how work gets done in their organization 97.4 times as likely to strongly agree that AI gives them more opportunities to do what they do best every day Despite these clear benefits, many employees report a lack of active support from their managers. Less than a third of U.S. employees in organizations that have begun implementing AI technologies strongly agree their manager actively supports their team’s use of the technology. A Gallup study in Germany found similarly low support: 21% of employees in organizations that use AI said their manager actively supports their team’s use of AI.

 AI could boost global employee engagement by improving management practices at scale. 

Effective people management is a skill. But few managers have natural management talent, and many have not received the training they need to successfully coach teams and individuals toward high performance. AI tools have the potential to provide real-time, personalized manager advice grounded in the best management science. Such capabilities could be a game-changer for the world’s workplace.