Bad news for 2025: Following years of unaddressed burnout, overworking and faulty support systems, a “manager crash” is set to hit the workplace.
That’s one of the four major predictions set out by meQuilibrium, a digital coaching platform aimed at bolstering workplace wellness. (The other three: change readiness becoming a priority; remote work wellbeing advantages slowly eroding; and Gen Zers struggling more with change than their older peers.)
“Like a market crash, we’ll see a significant downturn in manager well-being, performance, and the ability to continue taking the lead as the change champions,” Alanna Fincke, leader meQuilibrim’s content and learning, wrote in the report.
“If no one is minding the managers, they will be at higher risk of burnout and turnover than the people they manage,” Fincke stressed.
The prediction isn’t entirely surprising. Middle managers—non-executive level workers who oversee other workers—are historically less likely than their teams to feel supported by their superiors. But, dissatisfaction in middle management is particularly dangerous because happy, encouraged managers act as a “crucial force multiplier” for the success of the whole organization, meQuilibrium wrote.
To avoid the impending “crash,” organization leaders need to take decisive action before the new year to make clear the importance of mental wellbeing. It’s a worthwhile pursuit, Fincke explained: “The benefits will cascade throughout the organization, improving productivity, innovation, and overall workforce health.”
Likewise, don’t address the tsunami of burnout coming management’s way and their stress will trickle down. Employees who don’t feel supported by their managers tend to struggle during times of transformation. Workers—at any level—are more than four times as likely to quit their jobs, and twice as likely to report poor overall wellbeing when they don’t feel supported, Fincke warned.
The outlook isn’t promising. Employee sentiment has tanked this year across the board, but confidence among middle managers dropped to its worst-ever reading in February, per Glassdoor. It’s because “middle managers are under pressure to do more with less,” Glassdoor’s lead economist Daniel Zhao said at the time. And witnessing all the middle management layoffs has left remaining workers “increasingly pessimistic about their employers’ prospects,” Zhao added.
Burnout is a consistent issue for middle managers, which shouldn’t come as a shock.