If you're a changemaker in a Fortune 2000 company, you've already felt it: a fundamental shift in your workforce. Employees seem more detached, initiatives are harder to launch, and that sense of shared purpose feels increasingly elusive.
The data confirms what you're experiencing. Employee engagement in the U.S. has plummeted to a 10-year low of just 31% – matching levels not seen since 2014. This represents 3.2 million fewer engaged employees compared to just last year.
Any hopes for an influx of optimism will remain out of reach, after the Wall Street Journal reported 20% of U.S. employers surveyed by the Conference Board are slowing hiring during the latter half of 2025. Organizations may have to do even more in 2026 with the teams they have in place, which puts greater pressure on everyone — causing even greater disconnect. In the face of possibly losing long-term employment, employees lose their leverage and quietly disengage.
The real number that should keep every executive awake at night regardless of other potential cutbacks, is one that calls their own competence into question: The cost of the current disengagement crisis is approximately $2 trillion in lost productivity annually.
Are you fit to turn the tide?
Gallup's extensive research with thousands of employees reveals four core themes driving this unprecedented detachment:
Workers describe their workplaces as "isolated" or "impersonal." For Gen Z workers, this jumps to 44%, and remote employees report feeling disconnected at 41% rates.
"More team building; more feedback," one employee shared when asked what would make them feel more connected to their employer.
Nearly three in ten employees say they lack clear, honest communication from leaders. They want transparency and two-way trust – not top-down directives delivered in isolation.
"My employer stopped being receptive to ground-up communication. That was a giant blow to morale," reported another survey respondent.
A quarter of employees say their organizations are underinvesting in people, pay, tools, and staffing.
Employees cite lack of feedback, recognition, and development opportunities as major detachment drivers.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: 75% of transformation projects fail in some form. The reason isn't strategy or technology – it's that rather than marketing the change, we’re trying to just manage it with tired tactics:
If you’re attempting to ignite change in this way, you may want to dust off the resume, because your employees aren't just workers – they're your first customers. And customers don't buy products because you tell them to with PowerPoint decks. They buy because they believe in the story.
Based on Gallup's meta-analysis of 347 organizations, companies with engaged employees experience:
Calculate Your Potential Impact: Take your current revenue and divide by total FTE count to get Revenue Per Employee. Now multiply by your employee count and these engagement lift percentages. For a 10,000-person company with $100K revenue per employee, just a 5-point engagement increase could deliver:
Leaders who brush employee engagement aside as “soft skills” should be held to account.
The #1 thing this research reveals employees want from leaders is hope – a clear vision of the future and their role in it.
Hope isn't vague optimism, and it isn’t for the dismissively weak. It comes from:
This is exactly what Change Marketing™ delivers – turning abstract strategies into hopeful, human stories that employees can see themselves in.
At LOCAL, we've pioneered Change Marketing™ – a methodology that treats employees as customers and uses proven marketing techniques to drive engagement and transformation success.
Here's how it works across our three-phase approach:
Instead of just creating business cases, we help leadership teams craft compelling narratives that translate business strategy to tangible human impact. Learn more
We develop consumer-grade creative and storytelling that makes complex change initiatives feel personal, meaningful, and actionable. Learn more
We integrate new initiatives across every touchpoint in the employee lifecycle, making change feel natural rather than imposed. Learn more
Challenge: Transform customer service culture across 36,000 frontline workers
Solution: LOCAL partnered with the CHRO for 3+ years to turn a major customer-centric initiative from a McKinsey deck into an employee-driven movement
Results: NPS scores exceeded management targets, and customer service excellence became so embedded it was integrated into performance reviews and recognition programs
Challenge: Drive Workday adoption across 60,000 employees in 175 countries
Solution: Applied consumer app principles and game theory to create a robust, week-long engagement campaign
Results: Achieved 80% adoption within two weeks – a timeline typically measured in months
Challenge: Create ongoing inspiration for operational modernization across a diverse frontline workforce
Solution: LOCAL developed a cohesive story platform with 23 consumer-grade videos, mobile-friendly infographics, and a CEO-approved central platform
Results: Successfully engaged 70,000+ employees in a transformation journey with consistent, inspiring communications that leadership called "the best piece of communication I've seen from this company in 25 years"
"LOCAL is my favorite meeting of the week." — Anonymous Client (LOCAL maintains a 9.8 Client NPS score)
"This is the impetus of our work. We adapt the company's plans into stories that win hearts. Because when your employees feel seen, understood, and valued, they'll own the change." — Global Group Director, Coca-Cola
"LOCAL is like no other partner I've worked with. We brought them in as creative consultants, but quickly benefitted from their strategic approach to communications and understanding of technology and process change." — VP of Transformation, UPS
The engagement crisis is real, but it's not inevitable. Forward-thinking leaders are already reversing these trends using Change Marketing™ principles.
Schedule a conversation with Neil or Andrew, to discuss your specific challenges, and share how other companies in your industry have successfully navigated similar transformations with us.
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Help other changemakers tackle the engagement crisis:
[1] Harter, J. (2025, January 13). "U.S. Employee Engagement Sinks to 10-Year Low." Gallup Workplace. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/654911/employee-engagement-sinks-year-low.aspx
[2] Agrawal, S. & Bueno, A. (2025, August 5). "Anemic Employee Engagement Points to Leadership Challenges." Gallup Workplace. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/692954/anemic-employee-engagement-points-leadership-challenges.aspx
[3] Gallup, Inc. (2024). "State of the Global Workplace: 2024 Report." Gallup Press. Meta-analysis based on 347 organizations, 183,806 business units, and 3,354,784 employee responses. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx
