Senior leaders: You’ve lost the confidence of your employees. Here are several reasons why

In a year of a hiring recession and increasing anxiety about AI and return-to-office policies, employees are feeling less confidence in their employers than ever. Glassdoor, the online review platform for employees, recently revisited some workplace and job market trends it had predicted at the end of 2025. This week, its research team published a mid-year report that showed a significant disconnect between employees and senior leadership. Here are the key findings: Leaders are misaligned, disconnected, distrusted, hypocritical, and bad communicators Employees showed low satisfaction rates between 2024 and 2025, and those rates have only plummeted further, according to Glassdoor Economic Research. Average senior leadership ratings in Glassdoor reviews fell below 3.5, the lowest since 2017. In reviews that mentioned leadership, year-over-year change in keyword prevalence included “misalignment” with a 95% increase, “disconnect” with a 52% increase, “distrust” with a 18% increase, “hypocrisy” with a 4% increase, and “miscommunication” with a 9% decrease. When the layoffs never stop As part of its research, Glassdoor analyzed WARN Act notices—which are required by U.S. law and mandate that employers inform employees, local governments, and state agencies 60 days before a mass layoff or closing. These notices showed that small layoffs made up 50% of fillings in 2026, slightly lower than in 2023 to 2025, but higher than prior years. Glassdoor’s report shows that layoffs loom large in employees’ minds, and anxiety about layoffs and job security is skyrocketing. In 2026, mentions of insecurity increased 63%, while explicit mentions of layoffs increased 29%. Even employees who have survived layoffs are still left with anxiety. Layoffs are shown to have a persistent negative effect on workplace culture, lasting multiple years. Return-to-office policies During the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of people p