Top Ten Insights from 2025: Stress, Change, and the Power of People

As we reflect on a year when change was constant and pressure was high, one thing became abundantly clear: the workplace isn’t just evolving, it’s being reshaped in real time. Over the last year, Wiley Workplace Intelligence has continued to listen deeply, analyze thoroughly, and translate our learning into practical insights designed to help organizations thrive.

Here are the top ten findings from 2025—insights shaped by people, powered by data, and urging all of us to lead with greater clarity and compassion as we go into the new year.

1. Stress Reached a Breaking Point

2025 marked the year when workplace stress stopped being a temporary response to busy seasons and became an embedded part of the work experience. An overwhelming 95% of employees reported significant stress, with 36% describing it as severe.

This wasn’t just emotional strain, it was a measurable drain on productivity, engagement, and focus. Many employees described feeling like they were constantly operating in “survival mode,” with no opportunity to reset or recover. The message is unmistakable: stress is now structural, not situational, and organizations must treat it as a systemic issue if they want to avoid a burned-out workforce.

2. Managers Hit Crisis Levels

No group felt the pressure more acutely than people leaders. Nearly 47% reported severe burnout—numbers that should give any organization pause. These leaders are being asked to support well-being, drive performance, manage change, coach teams, and adopt new technologies, often without the support or training to do so sustainably.

They are operating in a widening gap between executive expectations and the day-to-day realities of employee needs. And when managers falter, entire teams feel the impact. Building manager resilience and capability isn’t optional, it’s foundational.

3. Meetings Became a Major Stress Multiplier

Meetings continued to balloon in volume and intensity. For employees spending more than 15 hours per week in meetings, overwhelm skyrocketed. These workers weren’t just busy—they were cognitively depleted.

Many reported feeling that they had no time to actually work, forcing critical tasks into nights and weekends. This insight underscores a painful truth: meetings, when unchecked, harm clarity and decision-making. Redesigning meeting culture—purpose, cadence, and attendance—has become a strategic imperative for any organization looking to reclaim focus and reduce employee exhaustion.

4. Frequent Feedback Became a Secret Support System

The data was striking: teams that relied on weekly check-ins or quick debriefs felt dramatically more supported. 92% of employees receiving frequent, informal feedback felt their leaders had their back, compared to just 59% of those who only received annual or semiannual reviews.

Employees told us that consistent touchpoints created psychological safety, kept expectations clear, and made problems feel more manageable. In a year filled with uncertainty, regular feedback didn’t just boost performance—it grounded people. The path forward is clear: small conversations create big stability.

5. Trust Didn’t Automatically Translate to Healthy Conflict

Even in high-trust cultures, the majority of employees—88%—still avoided conflict. This reveals a critical misconception: trust alone doesn’t make difficult conversations easier. People need skills, language, and confidence to navigate disagreement productively.

Without those tools, teams default to silence, resentment, or surface-level collaboration. Healthy conflict isn’t about fighting; it’s about surfacing ideas, challenging assumptions, and moving work forward. In 2025, we learned that conflict competence is the missing link between trust and true team effectiveness.

6. The Empowerment Paradox Intensified

While 77% of employees reported feeling “empowered,” their experiences told a more complicated story. Many felt encouraged to take initiative but were not actually authorized to make decisions. This disconnect created frustration, bottlenecks, and stalled innovation.

Closing this gap requires pairing empowerment with clarity: Who decides what? What authority do people truly have? Empowerment without structure is wasted potential.

7. AI Sparked Curiosity and Anxiety

AI adoption surged in 2025, and employees responded with a blend of optimism and apprehension. While 68% said they were excited about AI’s potential, over half of managers reported feeling unprepared to lead AI-driven change.

This readiness gap posed a real challenge: employees looked to their managers for vision and confidence, while managers themselves often felt unclear on what AI meant for workflows, expectations, or performance. Organizations now face a pivotal moment: to make AI an enabler, not a disruptor, leaders must be equipped with both the knowledge and the communication skills to guide their teams forward.

8. Only a Small Fraction of Employees Truly Thrived

Just 17% of workers landed in the “sweet spot” where motivation was high and stress manageable. Most employees were operating at one extreme or another—burned out, disengaged, or stretched to unsustainable limits.

Striking the balance to find that sweet spot is about a combination of support, clarity, meaningful work, and manageable load. This insight reinforces a crucial point: employee experience can’t be treated as a one-size-fits-all initiative. Organizations need a more nuanced understanding of what fuels people and what drains them.

9. Human Skills Emerged as the Real Performance Engine

This year reaffirmed what our research has long shown: emotional intelligence, effective leadership, and strong interpersonal skills were the top predictors of high-performing teams. Even as technology advanced, what set successful teams apart wasn't the tools they used—but the dynamics they created.

Leaders who fostered psychological safety, clarity, and trust saw teams that adapted faster, collaborated better, and delivered more consistently. In an increasingly digital landscape, human connection proved to be the competitive advantage.

10. 2025 Proved Performance Starts with People

Across all our findings, one truth rose above the rest: organizations thrive when people do. In a year marked by rapid change, complex debates about work models, and tighter-than-ever resources, human-centered leadership became the bedrock of performance.

Trust, clarity, well-being, and skillful communication are no longer “nice-to-have”—they are the conditions under which work can actually happen. The future of performance isn’t about squeezing more efficiency from people. It’s about creating environments where people have what they need to contribute their best.

Taken together, these insights paint a picture of a workplace at a crossroads—one filled with stress and uncertainty, but also with possibility. The data from 2025 makes something unmistakably clear: performance, innovation, and growth don’t emerge from pressure alone. They emerge from people who feel supported, connected, and trusted.

This year showed us that the fundamentals matter more than ever. Managers need support, not just expectations. Employees need clarity, not just empowerment. Teams need trust, not just skills. And organizations need to invest in the human elements of work with the same rigor they apply to technology, process, and strategy.

As we look toward the future, the path forward isn’t complicated—but it is intentional. Build healthier systems. Equip leaders for the realities of modern work. Create cultures where conflict is constructive, feedback is continuous, and well-being is non-negotiable. When organizations commit to these principles, people don’t just survive, they thrive. And when people thrive, performance follows.

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Wiley Workplace Intelligence conducts in-depth research on key workplace issues by gathering insights from individual contributors, managers, and leaders. Wiley Workplace Intelligence then analyzes these findings to provide actionable solutions that are shared in our blog.