Survey of nearly 4,000 US employees reveals deepening gaps in engagement and burnout by role level
Employee wellbeing across the US workforce has fallen sharply since 2024, with financial health remaining the most persistent trouble spot for a third consecutive year, according to new research.
The findings come from a survey of almost 4000 full-time US employees and shows the proportion reporting high wellbeing dropped 11% over two years, while the share describing low well-being jumped 39%, leaving more than one in four workers in that category.
Of the five dimensions tracked (which include physical, mental, work, social and financial health) financial wellbeing ranked last with fewer than half of respondents, 45.5%, rating it as strong. The other four non-physical dimensions have each deteriorated at three to four times the rate of physical wellbeing over the same period.
"Physical health programs have long been the foundation of organizational well-being strategies, and their relative stability suggests those investments are holding," said Erin Seaverson, senior director of the Center for Research at WebMD Health Services, which carried out the survey. "But the sharper decline in mental, work, social and financial well-being shows that today's pressures extend beyond what physical health programs alone can address."
The report also surfaces a pronounced divide in how workers experience their jobs depending on where they sit in the organizational hierarchy.
Just 12% of individual contributors describe themselves as highly engaged, compared with 37% of senior leaders. Wellbeing scores follow the same pattern, with senior leaders reporting strong well-being at nearly three times the rate of frontline employees.
Middle managers, tasked with bridging leadership and the workforce, are absorbing a disproportionate share of the strain. Their burnout rates are more than three times those of individual contributors, even as their engagement and well-being scores remain comparatively modest.
"Every employee deserves to feel engaged, valued and well at work. But these gaps show that one-size-fits-all approaches are no longer enough," Seaverson said. "Organizations need well-being strategies that reflect the different realities employees experience at every level."
Artificial intelligence in the workplace surfaces as another dimension of the picture. Eight in ten employees now use AI tools at work, and daily users are far more likely to report feeling productive as a result. But employees who strongly agree that AI makes them more effective are 4.5 times more likely to face burnout than those who are neutral or disagree.
The survey also identifies trust as a central lever for both wellbeing and engagement. Employees who trust their organization highly are 27 times more likely to be highly engaged than those with low trust, a gap the report frames as far more than incremental.
"Trust is not peripheral to well-being; it is one of its most powerful drivers and must be treated as a core component of any strategy," Seaverson said.
