CEO’s Top Priority in 2025: Retaining and Engaging Workforce Talent
Back in January 2024, the Chief Executive Group’s survey of 197 CEOs underscored a clear concern: 60% of leaders identified employee retention and engagement as their top priority and challenge.
Fast forward to 2025, and that focus hasn’t faded—it’s deepened. According to the Oliver Wyman Forum and NYSE CEO Survey (March–April 2025), 75% of CEOs now see talent attraction, retention, and workforce development as a significant opportunity for their business over the next three years, marking a sharp rise from just 50% a year earlier. This places workforce and culture second only to technology and financial strength as long-term success drivers.
The problem is that most of our workplaces suck. For example:
- A Forbes study reports job burnout is at 66% in 2025, an all-time high, with suggested links to return-to-office mandates exacerbating stress for many workers.
- Gallup reports a global plunge in employee engagement—from 23% to 21%—marking the sharpest drop since the start of the pandemic.
- An analysis from June 2025 by Access Perks, based on DHR Global data, showed that 69% of employees cited a toxic company culture as a leading reason for quitting or considering quitting.
In this environment, quick gains in retention, engagement, and recruitment are not possible.
Today’s reality is that employees of all generations desire and deserve workplaces where they are respected and validated for their aligned ideas, efforts, and accomplishments daily.
Today’s reality is that employees of all generations desire and deserve workplaces where they are respected and validated for their aligned ideas, efforts, and accomplishments daily.
When respect and validation are the foundation of your work culture, retention, engagement, and recruitment naturally follow.
Senior leaders cannot delegate the authority or responsibility for culture creation to others. Senior leaders must champion this change themselves by defining their ideal culture, then aligning players, plans, and actions to that ideal culture.
Alignment necessitates that senior leaders hold themselves, formal leaders, and team members accountable for treating others with respect and validation in every interaction. That requires modeling, celebrating, measuring, coaching, and mentoring all staff so they demonstrate the desired behaviors.
Culture refinement isn’t a quick fix. Building your ideal work culture takes 18-24 months. Maintaining your desired culture requires the attention of senior leaders every month.
Discover more about proactive culture refinement at GoodComesFirst.com.
Want new articles before they get published? Subscribe to our Awesome Newsletter.