In the News
61% of US Workers Are Languishing at Work, Not Flourishing, According to a New National Study.
A new report from the University of Illinois’s Gies College of Business, surveying a nationally representative sample of 2,000 US workers, found that a clear majority, 61 percent, are languishing: struggling with engagement, motivation, or fulfillment in their day-to-day roles. Only 39 percent report actually flourishing.
This isn’t a one-off dip. The 2026 findings closely mirror the same study’s 2025 results, which means this isn’t a temporary post-holiday slump or a one-quarter blip. It’s a stable, repeating pattern.
What Actually Moves the Needle
The researchers, led by Professor Oscar Ybarra, point to a two-part answer: skills and conditions. Employees can practice things like reframing a stressful day or resetting between meetings, but those individual habits only go so far without organizational conditions, like autonomy and psychological safety, to support them. Skills without conditions is a coping strategy. Conditions without skills is an unused opportunity.
That’s the throughline across Ybarra’s research: flourishing isn’t just a personality trait some employees happen to have. It’s something organizations can measurably build or measurably erode, largely through how much real agency and genuine connection employees experience day to day.
Speakers on Resilience & Workplace Wellbeing
Trying to move your team from languishing to flourishing?
Tell us whether the gap is more about individual coping skills or organizational conditions like autonomy and connection. That distinction shapes the right speaker more than the industry does.