The feeling of “languishing” is likely relatable for many workers—even if they don’t quite have that exact language for it. And new research shows that it’s not many workers who feel this way. It’s most.
“What gets a little confused in people’s minds is that they assume languishing is almost like distress and mental illness,” says Oscar Ybarra, a business professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. “But it’s more like: I’m just kind of stuck. I’m not really engaged. I don’t know where I’m going.”
Ybarra wanted to capture the malaise that employees often experience in the workplace, which doesn’t always rise to the level of mental illness. When he first polled workers in 2024, he learned that a majority of them identified as languishing at work, rather than flourishing.
A new survey that UIUC conducted in partnership with research and analytics firm YouGov has found that workers seem to be doing even worse: About 61% of the 2,000 respondents said they were languishing, compared with 57% the year prior. Nearly 18% of them claimed to be “languishing severely.” The study found that there is little variation along demographic lines, and the experience of languishing tends to be correlated with high rates of burnout.
“I feel very conflicted about that,” Ybarra says of the uptick in languishing. “As a researcher, you always want some consistency—but that consistency suggests there’s a lot of people who are just not doing super well at work.”
Beyond just documenting the phenomenon of languishing at work, Ybarra hopes to offer some potential relief for organizations and employees. The spectrum of languishing to flourishing is a useful framing because it “broadens how psychologists tend to think of well-being,” according to Ybarra, who has a PhD in experimental social psychology.
“Especially when you apply it to the work setting—which is something that hasn’t been done—it really provides a lot of targets for potential intervention,” he adds.
There are certain common elements across workplaces with flourishing employees: Many of them report a high degree of autonomy alongside strong support from colleagues and managers. The study characterizes this as an “empowered squad,” and found that 68% of employees in such workplaces were flourishing. A “muted squad,” in which employees have high levels of support but less autonomy, yielded a lower rate of flourishing employees, at 42%.
Ybarra points out, however, that there is such a thing as too much autonomy—someone who works entirely remotely and very independently might actually feel isolated.
On the whole, the survey’s findings indicate that the work environment seems to inform an employee’s experience more so than demographic background. Companies that boast a strong sense of ethics and hold people accountable for their behavior also had a higher share of flourishing employees.
But there are steps individual employees can take to thrive more at work, even if their workplace lacks structural support. Flourishing workers rely on a number of strategies for emotional regulation, which Ybarra describes as the “three R’s”: reframe, reach out, and reset.
- Reframing is a common technique in psychotherapy, in which you might try to find the positive in a difficult situation or remind yourself that it won’t last.
- Reaching out can involve connecting with family or friends or even consulting your colleagues—though Ybarra notes that seeking this kind of support is not the same as venting frustrations, which is “a little less healthy.”
- Resetting really depends on what works best for you, whether that’s physical exercise or meditation, or something else altogether.
“What previous research has shown is that the more of these [strategies] you have in your tool kit, the better,” Ybarra says. “It gives you more things to choose from.”
As workers are up against a tough job market and growing pressure from their employers to adopt artificial intelligence—not to mention the political unrest in our midst—any strategies to protect their peace may come in handy.
“The conditions can be so overwhelming that you could have the perfect tool kit in your head for thinking differently about things, but it’s just working against too much,” Ybarra says. “There will always be stress and difficulties at work. But when we have those supports in place, individuals may be better able to use [them] to some good effect.”