Flat quits and quiet retention have convinced leaders their people are engaged. The data says something else is happening.
Liz Pavese
Workplace Psychologist
Workday
Executives have a new favorite phrase for this labor market: "The Great Stay." Voluntary quits and promotions are flat, and on a dashboard, that looks like stability — maybe even loyalty. It isn't. It's complacency dressed up as commitment, and mistaking the two could get expensive.
Here's the disconnect. Leaders are reading low turnover numbers as a signal that people are engaged, committed, and staying by choice. But when employees can't move, staying isn't necessarily a vote of confidence. It's the only option on the table.
Workday's own data backs this up: internal job changes, promotions, and headcount growth were all flat year over year. But while things may appear calm on the surface, employees have experienced rapid change, in large part due to AI and changing role responsibilities.
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Leaders have an opportunity to look beyond the surface and learn what their employees are missing. Particularly in the U.S., compensation often swallows most of a company’s operating budget, and once salary bands exist, many assume pay is "governed." It isn't because bands only set the boundaries; the discretionary choices made within them go largely unmonitored, quietly widening equity gaps.
Meanwhile, employees feel the least positive about their career prospects compared to other internal growth opportunities. According to our recent research, 63% of employees can see a path to advance in their current organization — trailing well behind mentoring (81%) and learning (79%). Employees are getting guidance and gaining new insights, but they are not necessarily seeing a way to advance.
Lateral moves are also harder to come by. Compared to the first half of 2025, lateral internal moves fell at 57% of employers. Meanwhile, promotion rates have gone nowhere, with 51% of employers raising them and 49% making cuts to promotions. When employees do try to move internally, they report hitting three walls: selection processes that don't feel fair (22%), roles that get paused, withdrawn, or changed mid-process (22%), and managers who quietly withhold support for a lateral move (17%).
Even more telling is what happens when employees don't bother putting themselves in the running at all. Yes, 44% say they're satisfied where they are. At the same time, 27% see no attractive internal opportunity, and others cite a lack of skills or support. In other words: satisfaction is not true satisfaction. Roughly two employees are weighing an exit for every one who actually leaves.
Lateral internal moves fell at 57% of employers year-over-year, according to the Workday’s October Global Workforce Report.
The most alarming split in the data isn't between companies, it's inside each employee. People still trust they have something to offer. Roughly two-thirds feel confident their skills will hold value and that they'll keep their job. But trust in the organization is a different story: only 59% feel their employer cares about them as a person, and just 58% think change has been handled fairly. Self-confidence is outrunning system trust, and in a slow labor market, that gap is easy to ignore because people will stay regardless. That's exactly what makes it so expensive to fix later.
This is Maslach's burnout framework playing out in real time. Trap capable people in rigid roles with no agency and no visible progression, and you get chronic burnout and cynical compliance. You get employees who execute tasks without investing in the outcome.
The research on psychosocial safety climate is unambiguous on the fix. You cannot coach, meditate, or wellness-app your way out here. Individual perks don't repair a systemic problem. Only a redesigned, visible career pathway does.
Individual perks don't repair a systemic problem—only a redesigned, visible career pathway does.
Leaders don't need a new “engagement survey.” They need to unfreeze the corridors they've already built and let people move through them, while thoughtfully understanding employee sentiment.
Unfreeze internal corridors. Manager talent-hoarding persists because it's rational under today's incentives—a manager who releases a strong performer looks like they're losing, not leading. Fix the incentive and tie leadership KPIs to talent exported to the broader organization, not just retained on a given team.
Redesign career progression around skills, not titles. Stop building career paths as a straight line up a single ladder. Build the infrastructure to understand work and skills to deploy dynamic frameworks that make lateral, non-linear moves visible, and match people's existing capabilities to open roles instead of screening for a job-title match that no longer reflects the work.
De-risk mobility with guided, transparent process. The 22% fairness gap in internal selection for lateral moves isn't a perception problem to be managed with better messaging—it's a process problem. Standardize criteria, make them visible before people apply, and remove the discretion that lets bias creep in.
Audit sentiment in real time, not just exits. Quiet detachment doesn't show up in a turnover report until the market thaws and people finally leave all at once. Track real-time signals on growth and career experience now, while the labor market is still slow enough to give you time to act.
The proof that this works already exists inside Workday's own walls. After rolling out Fetch, an AI capability that surfaces internal talent for open roles, internal mobility rose 45% year over year, and the internal promotion rate climbed from the low teens to roughly 35%. The lesson isn't complicated: opportunity depends on visibility and accessibility. Employees can't walk through a door they can't see.
"The Great Stay" will keep looking like a check mark in the win column as long as leaders keep measuring presence instead of movement. But a workforce that stays because it has nowhere else to go is simply stuck. And stuck talent doesn't just cost you retention. It costs you the very adaptability this moment demands.
Works Referenced
Dollard, M. F., & Bakker, A. B. (2010). Psychosocial safety climate as a precursor to conducive work environments, psychological health problems, and employee engagement. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 83(3), 579–602.
Schaufeli, W. B., Leiter, M. P., & Maslach, C. (2009). Burnout: 35 years of research and practice. Career Development International, 14(3), 204–220. https://doi.org/10.1108/13620430910966406
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