Trend summaries

Jul 14, 2026

AI trust gap widens · Employees are twice as likely as employers to distrust AI (25% vs 12%); 52% of employees cite privacy/security as a top concern. Relevant as an anonymity-adjacent theme, but handle carefully — never near a de-anonymisation implication.

Jul 14, 2026

Closing the loop remains the weak link · Nearly three-quarters of organisations have no clear action steps after a survey, and 52% of employees feel their feedback is ignored — yet employees who feel their feedback is valued are 4.6x more likely to do their best work.

Jul 14, 2026

Continuous listening keeps compounding · Organisations with continuous listening programs see ~24% lower turnover than annual-only shops, and pulse surveys catch disengagement ~90 days earlier. Pulse is now the second-most-used feedback channel (53%).

Jul 14, 2026

Gallup’s manager collapse is the sleeper story · In State of the Global Workplace 2025, manager engagement fell from 30% to 27% while individual contributors held flat at 18%. The 2024 engagement drop cost the world economy US$438 billion; low engagement overall costs ~US$10 trillion (9% of GDP). Manager training can halve extreme manager disengagement.

Jul 14, 2026

The channel gap is now quantified · Email surveys reach frontline workers at just 5–30% response; SMS hits a 98% open rate within ~90 seconds. Yourco’s research with 150 HR leaders found 91% say SMS increases frontline response rates, versus 36% satisfied with mobile apps.

Jul 14, 2026

goHappy + LHRA “State of the Frontline Worker Report 2026” · 52,971 frontline responses across 7 industries and 12 engagement dimensions. Headline: a 27% engagement gap between employers who invest in frontline teams and those who don’t; frontline engagement sits at 59%, with every dimension improving year on year.