Quiet Quitting Never Left

As workplace leaders, we all talk about productivity. We’ve been through the return-to-work cycle, policies have been written and rewritten, and expectations have shifted, whether we like it or not.

The conversations I’m having now, with both clients and peers, have moved on from where people work to something more fundamental: how well it’s actually working. How do you get the best out of people, and how do you really know if you are?

The obvious place to start is with employees themselves. That’s why, for the second year running, we partnered with WORKTECH Academy on the State of the Workplace report, to get a clearer view of what people are experiencing day to day.

Quiet quitting: present but not productive

This year’s findings are slightly concerning. The number of highly engaged employees has dropped from 42% to 36%, yet at the same time fewer disengaged employees are actively looking to leave, down from 70% to 53%. That leaves us with a sizeable group of people who feel disconnected and uninspired, but are staying put anyway.

A couple of years ago we called this “quiet quitting”. The language may have shifted - from engagement, detachment - take your pick, but the behavior hasn’t really gone anywhere. People are still doing what’s required of them, but not bringing much more than that, even when they know their environment isn’t helping them perform at their best.

That raises a more interesting question about what’s really going on beneath the surface. Some of the drivers are familiar enough: friction in the working day, time lost on basic tasks, difficulty focusing, and a lack of flexibility that doesn’t reflect how people actually live and work. On their own, though, these aren’t new problems, and they don’t fully explain why people aren’t moving on.

How Is AI Affecting Employee Confidence and Workplace Productivity?

AI adds another layer into the mix. Usage has increased significantly among the most disengaged employees, rising from 25% last year to 61% now, but it’s not being driven by curiosity or innovation. For many, it’s about keeping up. More than half of that group believe they’ll need significant reskilling in the next two years, compared to just 18% of engaged employees, which creates a noticeable gap in confidence. Without the right support, AI doesn’t feel like an opportunity to do things differently, it feels like something to catch up with out of fear of becoming irrelevant.

Without the right support, AI doesn’t feel like an opportunity to do things differently, it feels like something to catch up with out of fear of becoming irrelevant.

This highlights an increasingly important challenge for organisations trying to build a more resilient and productive workplace: technology adoption alone is not enough. Businesses also need a human-centric AI strategy that supports employee experience, learning and long-term workforce productivity.

What Impact Does Economic Uncertainty Have on Employee Experience?

At the same time, it’s impossible to ignore what’s happening outside the workplace. The cost of living continues to bite, commuting remains expensive, and the job market has cooled. UK vacancies are down, US hiring has slowed, and leaving without a plan simply isn’t a viable option for many people. So instead, people stay where they are, get on with what’s required, and manage as best they can.

For business leaders, that context matters more than ever. When people don’t feel they have a real choice about staying or leaving, engagement stops being a purely cultural concern and starts to show up much more directly in performance. You see it in the quality of output, in how quickly decisions are made, and in how effectively teams work together. Work still gets delivered, but it often lacks pace, energy and momentum, which over time has a very real impact on both customer outcomes and operational efficiency.

How Can Organisations Create a More Productive Workplace Experience?

So, the question isn’t simply how we make people feel better about work. It’s how we create environments that genuinely enable people to do their best work more consistently. That means taking a hard look at where friction exists in the day-to-day experience, being honest about what isn’t working, and recognising that employee experience and productivity are closely linked rather than separate conversations.

For many organisations, that also means rethinking workplace services, workplace technology and operational support models to reduce unnecessary friction and create more flexible, connected working environments. Solutions such as hybrid workplace support, digital workplace services and intelligent process automation are increasingly becoming part of the productivity conversation rather than separate operational initiatives.

Ultimately, this lands in business outcomes. Organisations that invest in engagement tend to see a stronger performance across the board, from better quality work and faster decision-making to improved retention and more consistent client delivery. In contrast, where disengagement is allowed to settle in, the impact may be less visible day to day but builds steadily over time in the form of inefficiency, missed opportunities and increased cost.

In a market where many employees may stay regardless, that difference becomes more pronounced. The organisations that get this right won’t just reduce the impact of quiet quitting; they’ll create a more resilient, higher-performing business as a result.