5 insights from our 2026 research report that will affect your workplace experience

Your workplace today looks different than it did just a few years ago. Return-to-office debates are largely settled. For many orgs, the new reality is that work happens everywhere. It’s become more flexible…but also more fragile. 

Your people are clamoring for clarity. They want to know what’s happening inside the business, and how it will affect them. If you don’t provide that insight, productivity suffers and employees walk. 

So how do you keep your distributed workforce aligned without adding to all that digital noise? To find out, we surveyed 1,000 workers across the U.S. and U.K. for our 2026 report on workplace experience trends and insights.

Here’s a speed round of the five biggest findings, how they compare to our 2025 report, and what they mean for the future of your company.

Finding #1: Channel chaos is growing increasingly costly

One of the biggest hurdles your team is facing today isn’t a lack of information – it’s a lack of consistency. 

Our 2026 research found that 81% of employees believe their organization’s messaging lacks a unified voice across different channels. Compare that to our 2025 report, where that number was 69%.

Here’s what this 12% jump means: As companies add more tools to their tech stack, they inadvertently create more confusion. More doesn’t necessarily mean better. Adding a new chat app or video tool might solve a niche problem, but if it doesn’t talk to your other systems, it contributes to this consistency gap.

From an HR perspective, this inconsistency erodes trust. If your employees get conflicting or overwhelming updates about company policy or culture, they stop keeping track of those updates altogether. 

Your 2026 goal: Move away from channel chaos. Prioritize creating a unified and reliable source of truth that employees can easily access on their schedule.

Read more about this finding in the report >

Finding #2: Why collaboration is getting harder, not easier

You might expect that as we get more experienced with remote and hybrid work, collaboration would become second nature. Not so.

In this year’s report, we found that the workforce’s biggest daily struggle is collaborating across teams and locations. It was the most likely factor for employees to rank as their top challenge, with 24% of respondents saying so.

Compare that to our 2025 report. At that time, collaboration was also the biggest challenge, but only 17% of workers put it at the top of the stack. So why the increase? 

Put simply, the novelty of hybrid work has worn off. In its wake comes friction-filled processes that have been made disconnected through their distribution. You know that a tool is only as good as its adoption rate; if your people have to jump through hoops to find a teammate or share a document, they just won’t do it.

Your 2026 goal: Rethink the way your teams work together. How can you make collaboration not feel like a chore? A few quick wins: Connecting in-person and remote employees so they feel equally represented in every conversation, as well as changing up your office spaces to prioritize intra-team co-working opportunities.

Read more about this finding in the report 

Finding #3: You need to mend the physical/digital divide

Your office spaces are becoming increasingly abandoned and disconnected from your digital environment. At least, that’s what the research is telling us.

In our 2026 report, 55% of employees said that their org struggles to bridge the gap between the physical office and the digital workspace.

One of their most common frustrations is the information blackout that happens when people move between environments. An employee working from home might feel perfectly informed – at least until they head into the office and realize they’ve missed out on all kinds of local-only updates.

And that’s if they’re willing to go into work at all. If employees don’t have visibility into when the rest of their team is visiting the office, they’re much less likely to make the trip. If they arrive to discover that they’re the only one on the floor, they might as well have stayed home.

Your 2026 goal: Integrate your hardware and software. Your space schedulers and digital signage shouldn’t live in silos. No matter where your employee chooses to work, they should have the same access to information, resources, and culture.

Read more about this finding in the report >

Finding #4: Poor communication is a business risk

Lousy corporate comms isn’t just an engagement problem anymore. It has knock-on effects on greater business success.

In our 2026 report, 67% of employees said that disconnected systems and fragmented communications are actively putting their organization’s success at risk.

When your people aren’t in the know, they’re more likely to make mistakes or just plain check out. 97% of employees say missing out on key information updates has negative impacts on their work. Specifically:

• Emotional impacts like stress, frustration, and isolation.
• Tactical impacts like errors and productivity loss.
• Strategic impacts like reduced trust in leadership.

Your 2026 goal: Simplify and codify how your organization shares information. HR wants a healthy, low-stress environment, while IT wants reliable systems that reduce technical debt. Aim to build a communications environment that provides both. You aren’t just making your company a nicer place to work; you’re de-risking your daily operations.

Read more about this finding in the report 

Finding #5: We measured the dividends of engagement

The challenges are certainly real. But the upside of getting it all right is even bigger.

In the 2026 report, we found that when employees are consistently kept in the know: 

• 91% are more likely to be more motivated and engaged
• 89% are more likely to contribute new ideas and solution
• 94% feel more confident in their role
• 91% feel more aligned with their organization’s goals

Think about that for a second. All you have to do is give your teams the right info at the right time, and nearly your entire workforce is willing to go the extra mile.

That’s one of your strongest arguments for investing in better workplace experience tools. As shown above, it has a direct effect on your worker retention rates, corporate bottom line, and overall brand as an employer.

Your 2026 goal: Find ways to keep your employees more informed and connected. Look for opportunities to reposition your current tools, or introduce new ones (so long as they work harmoniously alongside the rest of your tech stack, of course). Carve out budget and work hours to increase your comms efforts. 

Read more about this finding in the report 

Next up: Build a workplace that works for everyone

The shift between our 2025 and 2026 reports shows that the honeymoon phase of hybrid work is ending fast. Your employees are no longer satisfied with slap-dash solutions. They want a workplace experience that’s collaborative and consistent.

Big opportunities lie in that gap between the physical and digital workspace. If you focus on making everyone feel seen and heard (regardless of their zip code), you can turn these research trends into a real competitive advantage.

But this is just a high-level summary. Read the full report to see all our findings, plus actionable recommendations for putting these insights to work.

Get the 2026 Workplace Experience Trends and Insights Report