Faculty Fast Take: The Workplace Problem That Can No Longer Be Ignored

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Bryan Lipiner

Bryan Lipiner is the Senior Manager for Social Media and Content Marketing at Babson College. Since arriving at Babson in 2019, he has dramatically scaled engagement and followings on Babson’s social media channels, led award-winning social media campaigns, written for Babson Thought & Action, and more. Prior to Babson, he worked as a reporter and editor at the Record-Journal newspaper in central Connecticut. Bryan received his undergraduate degree in journalism from Quinnipiac University in 2015.

November 12, 2026

An empty open space office with desks, chairs, and computers.

(Photo: Adobe Stock)

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The numbers are not to be overlooked.

U.S. employee engagement, in this instance defined as employees’ involvement in and enthusiasm for their work and workplace, has fallen to its lowest levels in 15 years, reports Gallup.

Why? Because organizations today are placing too large a priority on cultures of performance over development, shares Babson College Professor Scott Taylor, the Arthur M. Blank Endowed Chair for Values-Based Leadership.

Babson College Professor Scott Taylor, the Arthur M. Blank Endowed Chair for Values-Based Leadership. (Photo: Photo by Nic Czarnecki/Babson College)

“You need a focus on both performance and development cultures, and one cannot be in favor to the other or you will erode the motivation for engagement,” Taylor says. “The younger generation has little tolerance for the workplaces we were socialized to put up with.”

With such a significant emphasis on performance, Taylor says employers are placing less weight on genuine relationship building, employee development, and a sense of purpose and meaning.

Employee engagement numbers have steadily declined since the pandemic, and have been compounded in recent years by increases in loneliness and screen time. Gallup also found in its report that employees are unclear about what’s expected of them at work, and were less likely to feel that their organizations care about them as a person.

“If we do not change, engagement will continue to fall,” says Taylor. ”The workplace will deal with greater employee emotional and mental health issues and have a very hard time retaining their future talent.”