[K-Women Talk]In the Era of Low Engagement, It's Time to Redesign Organizational Culture

As a headhunter, this is a complaint I have recently heard frequently from executives and HR managers: "Employees these days are not like they used to be. The turnover rate isn't surging, but there's also no atmosphere where people voluntarily step up to do more." On the other hand, candidates' perspectives are quite different: "Will my life really change if I work harder at this company?" Rather than declaring an immediate intention to leave, there is a sense that individuals have already set their own limits on how much energy they are willing to invest in the organization. These people remain quietly, but their emotional distance from the company has already grown. In the field, this is referred to as "low engagement."

According to Gallup's "State of the Global Workplace 2025," only 21% of employees worldwide are engaged at work, while the remaining 79% are either indifferent or actively expressing dissatisfaction. In the publishing industry, it is said that work-related self-improvement books no longer sell as well as they used to. Readers' interests have shifted from personal healing activities such as handwriting practice or meditation to asset-building, like stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). This is because securing personal economic freedom and safety nets has become a much more urgent and assured form of reward than achievement within an organization. The energy that should be channeled into workplace engagement is now being dispersed into individuals' mobile securities applications. Low engagement is not just a matter of personal attitude; it seems to have become a new flow of social energy.

In this era of low engagement, opinions on solutions among leaders are divided.

This is the perspective of a leader I met recently: "I couldn't just stand by, so I wondered whether it was best to let go of the person who has the worst impact on the organization." Management scholar Dylan Minor has analyzed that the cost incurred by a single toxic employee in an organization outweighs the profit generated by a superstar. There are also warnings that even high performers, if they tear down their colleagues and disregard organizational values, can gradually erode trust and morale in the long term—a point that resonates with many.

A CHRO I recently spoke with suggested a different prescription: "The company needs to recruit the very best star talent it can afford, even if just a few. Those people will revive the culture." The saying popularized by Steve Jobs comes to mind: "A players hire A players, B players hire C players." The logic is that when star talent physically demonstrates that "this is the new standard for this organization," it raises the bar for everyone and can redefine the organization's identity.

However, there are pitfalls on both sides. Layoffs carried out without clear standards and principles can sow anxiety and distrust among those who remain. Recruiting star talent can also backfire in organizations where fairness and trust have already been undermined, intensifying internal anxiety and competition. In the end, the choice between "layoffs or star recruitment" may not be the core issue. As Satya Nadella of Microsoft has said, "The CEO is the curator of organizational culture." Real change only begins when leaders themselves take ownership of designing the culture, rather than relegating low engagement to just an HR issue.

Low engagement is not a term for blaming anyone; it is a warning that the current approach no longer works automatically. Defining what standards of culture you want to uphold, and what principles to apply to behaviors that do not meet those standards—perhaps that is the most essential task for leaders in the era of low engagement.

Moon Sunkyung, Executive Director at Unico Search

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