Hybrid and remote employees in organizations adopting AI experienced the sharpest declines.
U.S. employee engagement fell to 29% in the third quarter of 2026, its lowest level since 2011 and down two percentage points from the previous quarter. The share of actively disengaged employees rose from 17% to 18%, while 53% were not engaged.
The latest decline was sharpest among remote and hybrid employees, particularly those in organizations that have adopted artificial intelligence. Employees also reported less clarity about what is expected of them at work and were less likely to feel that someone at work cares about them as a person. These findings raise questions about whether communication and manager support are keeping pace with AI integration.
We have jobs to survive.
It doesn’t necessarily mean we like them.
Alienation from one’s work and eventually from society, is an inevitable outcome of capitalism.
The latest decline was sharpest among remote and hybrid employees
They really will do anything they can to try and force RTO.
So great, make people waste fuel and energy to go to a different place where more energy is wasted in a time when AI datacenters are wasting even more energy. In a time when conservation should be key given how far into climate change we’ve already drifted.
Every company I’ve worked for saw an uptick in productivity moving to remote.
Every company I’ve worked for saw improvement in morale.
Something doesn’t align here.
The article includes numbers that show remote workers are more engaged than onsite.
Yeah, when you have executives boasting about increased production and record profits while employees don’t get any raises/promotions, and then the company has massive layoffs leaving the remaining employees with more work and still no raises, that’s kinda what you get.
I was so angry when we were required to use AI as much as possible, that now I don’t make a decision, write an email, give an update, or answer a ping without telling AI to do it, waiting for the result, and copy/pasting whatever slop it gives me.
They want the slop? They get only slop.
Why even do the copy paste? Just set up an AI agent to answer your emails, and go home!
I got paranoid that would be too obvious
Management material, more like it
I know I’m old and everything (42 yrs in the work force), but I never once felt that my employer cared about me. I went into work knowing that I was there to make money for the firm, and that’s it. I spend as much time as it takes getting the job done so I can get my paycheck, and that’s it. If I win the lottery, I’m outta there. I don’t know why people ever think that their boss cares about them…?
There’s not caring about you and then there’s not caring about you working. I don’t expect my boss to ‘care’ about me but I expect them to care about me being a good cog in their machine.
Employee disengagement is largely driven by inconsistent directive because, if the robot can create enough slop and my boss doesn’t seem to notice, why bother doing more?
If you like me didn’t know what this means: Employee engagement is a subjective measure of how committed Employees feel to their jobs.
Unless you’re on the executive team (or a Baby Boomer who doesn’t realize that we’re all being exploited), what kind of stupid asshole is committed to their job in this day and age?
The last job I had was nearly five years at Colonial Williamsburg as a scheduler. My work directly impacted the happiness of about fifty people working at the museum. Scheduling them well meant hopefully nobody had too much to do and nobody had too little. It was a constant dance trying to make it all not only work, but work well.
I also derived personal satisfaction from a job well done.
I also like the mission of Colonial Williamsburg. They are the largrest outdoor museum in the Americas, about a mile wide and half a mile tall, with historic and recreated houses and buildings from the colonial era. But not only can you talk to people portraying Nation Builders like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson et cetera, in the 1980s they started a focus on the less savory aspects of our nation’s founding by including people portraying enslaved people, with programming educating about those experiences. And about 25 years ago, the American Indian Initiative brought Native Americans into the mix as well.
There’s a lot of struggles - as a nonprofit, funding is always a difficult task. And people are people, and people in organizations act like you think they do.
But I absolutely put effort into that job, not only for the sake of the mission of Colonial Williamburg, but also in the hopes of making the lives of the folks I scheduled easier.
But I’ve always tended to want to do a good job wherever I’ve worked. Sure, some of the places I’ve worked I really haven’t cared much about, but I still had personal pride.
Now, as I’ve gotten older, I think I’ve gotten wiser in general about balancing how much I care to somewhat match how much my employer cares. Were I to find myself in a corporate job today doing stupid corporate things in an environment where nobody ask the employees what changes might make employee lives better while also making the company more efficient… sure, I’ll put in less effort and care.
But your comment was about putting any committment to one’s job, and I’d definitely say it absolutely quite depends.
Being committed to a job is a wild metric, considering commitment requires loyalty from both parties and companies have shown over and over again that they are not loyal to their employees.
Is there a corresponding employer engagement metric?
Yeah it is, so is this metric set to blame the employee or the company as the reason for the drop? The company should hold the blame here.
Stagnating wages do that
I agree, and I’d call it a weird metric, and I am not sure this says much, except that if people feel they are underpaid, of course their enthusiasm will drop. So my guess this is a result of people feeling underpaid or treated poorly.
The employee engagement thing sounds 100% like something designed for the employers, so they can see how “dedicated” their workers are.
I have been in corporate management at the executive level and can tell you that’s exactly what that is. They also have a set of metrics they don’t talk about with employees where each manager essentially rates their direct reports based on what they think their skill levels are, contributions throughout the year, how replaceable they are, and if they are a flight risk.
Yep. in most companies employees are just a resource.
What’s the metric that measures a company’s commitment to its employees? I’m sure that one is way worse and would probably explain this one
42 year old engineer here … my entire career was disengaged
I work at a multinational mega Corp, but not one you’ve probably heard of. I am very disengaged.
For one thing, I’m technically a “contractor”. I have to go to all the meetings, but I don’t technically work for them. They give me the legal minimum of paid time off, but only after I looked up what my rights are and fought them for it. They don’t pay for holidays. They say “have a nice Thanksgiving” and then dock me two days pay.
The pay is insulting. I’m making less than I made ten years ago.
There’s no technical leadership. These people are supposed to be doing python. They don’t know what unit tests are. They barely know how imports work. Trying to change everything is a months long battle and emotion massaging exercise. The people in charge don’t understand or care.
They do love AI though. Lots of AI generated code. They don’t understand it but it looks so slick. Vomit.
So fuck them. I used to go out of my way to fix problems and promote good practices. Not anymore. I hope the upper management and owners suffer.
They’re probably not even renewing contractors past the end of the year anyway.
These people are supposed to be doing python. They don’t know what unit tests are. They barely know how imports work.
Clearly you need to “pivot” to using the latest shiny things, and all will be fixed. Let’s say, an “agentic” “AI architecture” with all new code written in, umm, Rust, yeah that’s it. Problem solved. You’re welcome.
So telling everyone they had to return to the office after COVID actually did jack shit then?
Right, got it.
This survey shows the biggest drop in engagement among remote workers. This is going to be just another justification for more RTO.
It’s kinda crazy to me that it’s this high.
Sounds about right. Rewards seem to have no relation to contributions in my workplace, and I’m guessing I’m not alone. Might as well try to give them as little as possible of yourself. You’ve seen so many people work hard and end up looking like fools for it.
I was one of several people hired to a team that dangled a single promotion in front of us. I had enough self awareness to know I wasn’t in the race but man this one guy did so much brown nosing it was actually embarrassing and ultimately he lost out on it. He totally crashed and disengaged. Painful to watch. You’re right about the rewards: one person got rewarded and the rest of us are taking inflation paycuts every year because there are no raises or bonuses.
