Jim Harter is Chief Scientist for Workplace Management and Wellbeing at Gallup and one of the world’s leading researchers on employee engagement, wellbeing, and organizational performance.

For decades, Jim has studied how people experience work—what helps them thrive, what drives performance, and why some organizations consistently create stronger cultures than others. His work has shaped global conversations around engagement, strengths, leadership, and the future of management, and the annual State of the Global Workplace report has become one of the most widely referenced studies on the modern workplace.

In this episode, Jim returns to Culture Matters to unpack the findings from the 2026 report and what they reveal about the current state of work globally.

We explore:

• Why employee engagement has now declined for the second consecutive year
• The growing pressure and emotional burden managers and leaders are carrying
• What organizations with highly engaged managers are doing differently
• Why AI adoption is ultimately a management and leadership challenge
• The tension between productivity gains and rising fear around AI-driven job loss
• How leadership and management roles may need to fundamentally evolve
• The relationship between engagement, wellbeing, burnout, and performance
• And why this moment may represent a genuine inflection point in the future of work