The Real Reason Your Workers Will Quit in 2026 (And Yes, Managers Are Still the Problem) |
The Real Reason Your Workers Will Quit in 2026 (And Yes, Managers Are Still the Problem)
Pay and perks aren’t the real issue. The problem is a leadership style employees are no longer willing to tolerate.
EXPERT OPINION BY MARCEL SCHWANTES, INC. CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, EXECUTIVE COACH, SPEAKER, AND AUTHOR @MARCELSCHWANTES
Let’s first flashback to 2021, when an unprecedented surge in employees leaving their jobs—over 24 million Americans alone between April and September —occurred. This phenomenon, known as the Great Resignation, left business leaders grappling to understand the underlying reasons behind this mass exodus.
Despite much media attention focusing on employee dissatisfaction with wages, one analysis of 34 million online employee profiles ranked compensation 16th among all factors in predicting turnover.
The reality? According to the same study, toxic work culture was found to be 10.4 times greater than compensation in predicting a company’s attrition rate relative to its industry average. The crucial takeaway is that workplace toxicity is the primary factor driving employees to leave during the Great Resignation.
Things have not changed.
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A recent Monster survey found that 80% of workers saw their workplaces as toxic in 2025, up from 67% in 2024. An eye-opening 71% of employees reported their mental health as poor (40%) or fair (31%). Workers identified a toxic workplace culture as the leading cause of poor mental health (59%), closely followed by bad management (54%).
Employment platform iHire surveyed 1,781 workers and 504 employers across 57 industries in the United States in December, 2024. According to their first-ever Toxic Workplace Trends Report, nearly 75.0 percent of the employees surveyed said they had worked for an employer with a toxic workplace.
When asked what made a workplace toxic, those who had experienced a toxic work environment reported that poor leadership or management was the top response, as 78.7% of employees reported unethical, unaccountable, or unsupportive company leaders.