What’s Trending: 2026 Workplace Trends
December 29, 2025
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2026 is two days away! So we’ve got all the trends we’re expecting to make an impact on the workplace ready for you. Think of back-to-office mandates, digital workplace tech, employee engagement, and other trends that made waves in 2025 and how they are evolving in 2026.
Read some of the top publications’ predictions in the article below!
Glassdoor just released its 6 worklife trends for 2026, a post written by its Glassdoor Economic Research team. In this article, they managed to break down the work and hiring trends that have begun picking up steam and might make or break 2026’s job market.
The main workplace trends are as follows:
1. Disengagement will continue.
2. A potential “forever layoff” is brewing.
3. Companies will continue their RTO policies.
4. AI isn’t taking jobs—yet.
5. Job seekers will take whatever they can.
6. Recent grads may get better pay.
Now that you have the general idea, let’s dive a bit deeper into what this means.
“Words highlighting this disconnection are up in Glassdoor reviews – 24% for disconnect, 25% for miscommunication, 26% for distrust and a whopping 149% for misalignment.”
This year’s trends are somewhat bleak, as they reveal that employed workers have little trust in their leadership, companies continue to cut jobs, and have reduced employee freedom with return-to-office policies. Not only that, but the consequence of cutting jobs includes the “forever layoff,” which affects the laid-off workers and remaining employees, as in a low-hire market, people can’t find jobs, and companies do quiet layoffs that have their workers anxious and fearful.
The laid-off employees appear to become desperate, as the 10-year low job market means that instead of making strategic career moves, they settle for whatever they can get.
Now, there are two expected silver linings, the first one being that AI hasn’t taken any jobs yet. In fact, many companies haven’t been able to utilize AI like they thought they would, leading to workslop and the fear of an AI bubble burst—which in turn favors workers. The other good news is that there is some projected earnings growth for 2026, especially for new grads and early-career workers. This is because from 2020 to 2022 wage growth was down 4.1% thanks to high inflation, but in 2026, new workers are expected to have some real spending power.
In a piece for Forbes by Janice Gassam Asare, PhD, she concurs with several of the trends reported by Glassdoor, and adds a couple of suggestions on how to improve the workplace. The big tip: companies should earn the trust of employees and the general public.
Things like AI, layoffs, and the cut of DEI initiatives have made many fear for their job security. Even employees who are relatively secure report that only 49% trust their employer, according to Randstad’s 2025 Workmonitor report.
“Employees want environments where they feel supported and can thrive; equity-centered policies and practices often addressed these needs.”
As such, the biggest trends for 2026 should be winning back the employee-driven culture through value alignment. This makes sense, as Gen Z has been repeatedly focused on values, to the point that, according to Workmonitor’s report, half of the respondents refuse a job if it isn’t aligned with their social or environmental values. Not only that, but 29% of surveyed subjects have quit a job because of the leadership’s point of view.
In turn, for companies that are not willing to compromise, Gassam Asare predicts some public pressure with customers continuing to voice their concerns and boycotts, as happened in 2025.
Based on Indeed’s 2026 report, HiringLab published an extensive piece written by Allison Shrivastava & Cory Stahle & Daniel Culbertson & Laura Ullrich & Sneha Puri. The biggest problem appears to be unemployment, which is expected to continue rising.
“A series of new economic forecasts from Indeed Hiring Lab suggest that in 2026, job openings are poised to stabilize, but may not grow much; unemployment is likely to rise, but not alarmingly so; and GDP growth looks to remain positive, but somewhat anemic.”
This is not the only trend, as the government shutdown and the cut in federal jobs will have ramifications in a low-hire market. A big part of the GDP is expected to be carried by high-income households spending at elevated levels.
A big issue that other reports didn’t talk about is immigration, as the current policies have both international workers and international students applying less to get to the United States. This will have a direct impact on sectors that are relying on international workers to get by, like STEM, agriculture, construction, cleaning, and sanitation. It is expected that the full impact won’t be observed until March 2026, when the FY2026 application period ends, which could hurt highly skilled workers, such as those in tech and medicine, who rely on H-1B visas.
An unstable economic and labor market creates big gaps between companies and their employees. Having such a shift, like what happened with the pandemic, where a lot of white-collar employees got the taste of working from home, flexibility, and choosing between different employment options. Now that the scales have tipped back in favor of companies, and with the dawn of AI and other technologies, they are feeling unprotected. Productivity and loyalty are essential for companies, and the best way to ensure them is through employee engagement, so companies must prioritize turning disengagement around in 2026 to reap the full reward.
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