6 Trends Shaping Cold Work in 2026

The post-pandemic promise of freedom and autonomy is colliding with a resurgence of control. Employees want to work on their own terms, but many feel micromanaged and mistrusted. 1 in 5 employees say they feel scrutinized for how they spend their time during the workday. And 26% report micromanagement, including excessive oversight and premature check-ins.

Our study found that nearly 60% of employees feel invisible, undervalued, or replaceable – treated like cogs in a faceless corporate machine. One engineer summed it up: “Management doesn’t care… Everybody is just a body.”

The stories are stark. A customer service rep described being ghosted during training: “They left us in the room for hours without anyone there.” A sales associate who never misses a deadline told us: “I do a great job. I work hard. But I get no recognition.” An office clerk, after losing a parent to cancer: “They didn’t even give me a sympathy card.”

It's not just feeling invisible, there’s a growing sense that work feels meaningless. 30 hours a week in meetings is the norm for many. As workplace culture expert Bruce Daisley put it: “Even if your job was to watch 30 hours of TV a week, your soul would eventually feel sucked.” He added, “Employees … don’t feel consequential.”

Managers aren’t blind to the issue, but their hands are often tied. One financial services manager described advocating for a junior employee’s promotion, only to admit, “The dollars don’t exist. We’ve just given her false hope.”

The corporate culture of long-term loyalty between employee and employer is dissolving. Employment has become more transactional, and it’s creating distrust that’s reshaping workplace relationships. A Fulfillment Associate put it bluntly: “I don’t feel like I have to be loyal to a company. That’s just business.”

The inevitability of turnover makes everyone anxious: 1 in 4 employees are nervous about losing their job in the next year. “I’m just always thinking I could be next.” A manufacturing employee told us “It’s no way to work.”  

And 57% of employers are concerned about unexpected resignations. One logistics manager said, “I quit trying to learn people’s names. They quit. I have other things to do.”  

Though layoffs and reorgs are common, they take a toll on managers who are on the front line. 28% of employers say they’ve had to manage layoffs or role eliminations they didn’t agree with. The emotional fallout is deep: “I was the butcher,” said one manager. “Now my team is scared. They’re just waiting to be next.”

Even high-profile leaders are signaling a shift. AT&T CEO John Stankey’s viral memo declared that employees should not expect loyalty from the company. The message? Performance matters more than tenure.

If trust and loyalty are going to be rebuilt, employers and employees will need to forge a new agreement around those values. This requires crafting win-win arrangements that identify and deliver upon the specific nuances of what each side truly cares about – leading to a working relationship both sides can get behind.

Workplace conflict is inevitable, but repair is optional – and when conflict goes unaddressed, negativity festers and impacts how we work. 55% of employees and employers say moments of tension, harm, or conflict often go unrepaired.  

Employees describe a culture of silence. One consultant said, “All my friends were fired the day before, and I was supposed to just show up and keep working without anyone acknowledging it.” Another recalled a town hall where the CEO laughed at a question about morale.

Managers cite fear and time constraints. 38% say they’re too busy to address conflict, and another 38% fear making things worse.

Others don’t think the effort is worthwhile. 30% believe issues should resolve themselves, while 26% don’t see it as important. One HR leader told us “A conflict between two employees didn’t get resolved because the supervisor didn’t want to do the paperwork.”

Even when feedback is solicited, it’s often ignored. One HR leader described a pulse survey that led to a generic “we hear you” response, then no follow-up. “I don’t even fill out the surveys anymore,” they said.

Further, inauthentic morale boosters, like pizza parties during layoffs, only deepen the disconnect. One-third of employees say they’ve experienced these “band-aid” solutions during times of high stress. As one HR professional put it, “We needed a tourniquet, not a band-aid.”

Organizations must normalize repair, building workplaces where conflict isn’t avoided, it’s metabolized. Failed projects, layoffs, mistakes, misalignments, and harm will be inevitable. What matters is having the tools and trust to mend them.

The generational rift isn’t loud – it’s subtle, cultural, and corrosive. 1 in 4 employees report experiencing tension due to generational divides in work style, communication, or values.  

“The older generation is like ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’” a Financial Services Manager told us, “whereas the younger generation says ‘it’s not broken, but is it great?’”  

Due to this generational disconnect, workers are navigating multiple challenges:

Employees want to grow, experiment, and embrace new tools like AI. Employers say they value this – with 85% of employers saying it’s very or extremely valuable to help employees learn, grow, and experiment.

But the reality often falls short, as opportunities to learn and develop within organizations feel increasingly limited. One marketing employee said, “The jobs I’ve loved the most are the ones where I feel like I’m always growing… I have no time right now to do that and it sucks.”

It’s not necessarily a managerial decision to limit growth… but a byproduct of a system with limitations. Darren Murph points out that corporate systems are designed for a 9-to-5 world. This excludes talent with different needs—parents, retirees, portfolio workers. “A smart company would build a system that enables them to come in,” he said.

This is particularly apparent in adopting AI, where employees report haphazard approaches from leadership. “they’re asking us how to use AI. But we’re siloed… and in meetings all the time. How can we have time to figure it out?” one employee told us. “There was no vision.”

In fact, across our research only 7% of employees are satisfied with how their company is implementing AI.  

Without vision, support, and structure, new ways of working just remain ideas. And employees are left siloed, overwhelmed, and stuck. Truly facilitating growth requires creating space and allocating resources for people to build new skills, try new tracks, and grow in non-linear ways, whether they’re full time, contract, or somewhere between.

These tensions, and how leaders respond to them, will dictate employee experience in 2026. Leaders who confront these tensions head-on – with empathy, vision, and action – can rebuild trust, reignite engagement, and reshape the employee experience.

Our full Cold Work Study 2025 is now available. Over the next several weeks, we’ll investigate each tension, offering strategies and solutions for leaders ready to thaw the freeze.

Read the full report. Start the conversation. And let’s build a better future of work, together.