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.
You (really) can’t afford to lose your mid-level managers
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.
Middle managers have had it the worst—and Gen Z is taking note
Burnout is a consistent issue for middle managers, which shouldn’t come as a shock.
They are often caught in the impossible position of appeasing demanding executives and quelling the concerns and needs of entry-level workers. No wonder nearly half of middle managers surveyed in a 2023 UKG report said they’d likely quit within the year due to the stress of the role.
“We put so much pressure on the manager, and we don’t give them enough scaffolding,” Pat Wadors, UKG’s chief people officer, told Fortune, describing a recipe for overwork and burnout.
Providing ample, constant support to the oft-forgotten middle managers is surprisingly effective at staving off burnout—and is especially meaningful to workers, who perform best when they feel advocated for. “You can’t expect them to lead if they don’t feel supported, and there is no one that has their back,” Tapaswee Chandele, global vice president of talent, development & system partnerships at The Coca-Cola Company, said at Fortune’s Impact Initiative conference in 2023.
But even if middle managers stick it out—burnout and all—the trouble keeps coming.
Last year, middle-management roles comprised nearly one-third of all layoffs, per a Bloomberg report, up from one-fifth five years earlier. (Look no further than Mark Zuckerberg’s stated “Year of Efficiency” for Meta, which focused largely on “slimming” the company’s levels of management.)
If these issues aren’t addressed in the new year, companies could soon face a dearth of middle management. The unappealing nature of a middle management role has become difficult to hide—and as current leaders quit, entry-level workers are becoming turned off by the prospect of taking on the role.
Nearly three-quarters of Gen Z workers would rather move forward in their careers as individual contributors than level up and become managers, a recent study by recruiting firm Robert Walters, highlighted. More than a third of the respondents who nonetheless believe they’ll become managers one day admitted they’re not looking forward to it. Clearly, they have good reasons.