As organizations navigate change and transformation, understanding employee sentiment has never been more important. The 2025 Integral Index: Employee Experience, Engagement & Activation, in partnership with The Harris Poll, sheds light on what employees really think, feel, and expect from their workplaces. This year’s report offers actionable insights to help leaders foster stronger engagement and build resilient, thriving cultures. Read a few takeaways below, and access the full report here. 

Change Communications

Only 54% of employees say major organizational changes are clearly communicated. Meanwhile, only 57% of employees say that “major organizational changes such as reorganizations, leadership changes or layoffs are communicated in a way that is consistent with the organization's values.”

Employee’s belief that their organization communicates clearly about major organizational changes is highly correlated with positive behaviors. 

Diversity and Belonging

Despite significant controversy around DEI programs, employees’ views of these programs remain solidly positive – and unchanged since last year’s study.

Interestingly, Black and Hispanic employees are more positive than average on their organization’s commitment to DEI programs. Black and Hispanic employees are also more likely to say that these programs have led to positive changes

Overall, 73% of employees say their organization provides equal opportunities to all. Black employees are most likely to say this; LGBTQ+ employees, those with visible disabilities and other non-white employees are the least likely to say this.

How Employees use AI Tools

68% of employees using AI tools say they improve productivity -- meanwhile nearly half use these tools on their personal computers. 

Employees 26-44 – a group that aligns almost perfectly with the Millennial generation – are substantially more positive about AI than those younger or older than themselves. 

The younger and older groups are similar in their attitudes – even though they differ in their usage. For example, those 18-25 are as likely to say they use AI on a work computer as those 26-44 (61% vs. 60%), while those 45-54 and 55+ are much less likely to say so (52% and 47%, respectively).

Employees whose organizations use AI tools and have policies for those tools’ use score 14 points higher on positive emotions than employees of organizations that do not.  

The Sunday Scaries

More than two-thirds of employees say they experience Sunday stress at least a little, and almost 30% say they experience “a great deal” or “a moderate amount” of such stress.

Throughout the Index, we’ve seen that more seniority almost always correlates with more positive emotions and attitudes. Here is an exception: The more senior you are, the more stress you experience. Sunday stress is far more common among the youngest workers, and declines steadily with age.