Current data from the Gallup Engagement Index Germany 2025 shows that only a small proportion of employees are emotionally highly committed to their work, while the vast majority are working in duty mode or have already distanced themselves internally. For Germany 2025, Gallup cites 10% highly engaged, 77% lowly engaged and 13% disengaged employees.
There are sentences that sound harmless at first and then hit you with full force. “I’m just doing my job.” At first glance, this seems reasonable, perhaps even mature. You fulfill your tasks, you arrive on time, you stick to agreements, you work. However, this often conceals something completely different: not a healthy distance, but a silent retreat. Not a consciously set framework, but a creeping exhaustion. People sit in the office, stand on the shop floor, work in hospitals, in administration, in their home office – and have long since taken some of their energy elsewhere. They no longer give of themselves, but only perform in the smallest possible doses. Not out of laziness, but because something inside them has stopped feeling connected.
This is precisely where the harshness of this situation lies. Inner resignation is rarely dramatic. It doesn’t come with a bang, but with habituation. In the beginning, there may have been interest, even enthusiasm or pride. At some point it became routine, then tiredness, then indifference. You can tell by the fact that you no longer think, you just work through things. You stop asking questions and don’t care whether things could be better. You protect yourself by withdrawing inwardly. And because this withdrawal looks reasonable, it often goes unnoticed for a long time – by others and sometimes even by yourself.
But work is never just work. Anyone who spends many hours a day in a place where there is no connection pays a price that cannot be limited to the end of the working day. The feeling of constantly pushing through something doesn’t stay clean in the office. It sits at the kitchen table when you’re more irritable at home than you want to be. It’s on your chest in the morning before the day has even started. It takes the lightness out of relationships, strength out of the body and breadth out of thinking. Those who only function for a long time do not continue to live neutrally. They live below their potential. This is perhaps the real pain of living on the back burner: It eventually feels normal. You get used to being tired, even though you haven’t done anything “special”. You get used to spending Sundays half tense because Monday is already on your mind. You get used to conversations that consist of nothing but complaints and a smile that is more a facade than an expression. A temporary state becomes a lifestyle. And why? Because people are capable of almost anything that is repeated often enough.
Many stay for this very reason. Not necessarily because the work is unbearable, but because it is bearable enough not to leave immediately. This is the perfidious middle ground in which so many get stuck. It’s not bad enough for a clean break, but it’s nowhere near good enough for a lively life either. You earn your money, you know the processes, you have colleagues you get on with, you know what is expected of you. Seen from the outside, there is little that would justify a rebellion. From the inside, however, many things have long since become empty.
Then there is the fear of change. It is rarely loud. It disguises itself as reason. “Right now is not the right time.” “It’s certainly no better elsewhere.” “I should be happy to have something solid at all.” Such sentences sound like realism, but are often one thing above all else: protective assertions against the unrest that a real decision would cause. Because if you look at it honestly, you might have to admit that you are not only dissatisfied, but that you have been avoiding yourself for a long time. That the biggest obstacle is not the job market, but the fear of admitting your own longing.
There are people who stay out of financial responsibility. This is real and cannot be argued away. Not everyone can quit, not everyone can reinvent themselves professionally, not every phase of life allows for movement. This is precisely why it would be too easy and too harsh to immediately turn every internal resignation into a personal failure. Some people carry mortgages, families, care responsibilities, insecurities that no one can see from the outside. But even then, the inner question remains. Perhaps not: Why don’t you leave immediately? But rather: Why do you settle so completely into a state that keeps you small? Where do you give up even though you still have room to maneuver – in conversation, in setting boundaries, in searching, in being honest with yourself? Because between blind perseverance and a radical new beginning lies a field of possibilities that many people no longer even see. Sometimes change doesn’t start with a resignation, but with a sentence. With the admission that things shouldn’t stay the way they are. With a conversation about tasks that no longer fit. With the courage to no longer treat your own exhaustion as a personal deficit, but as a signal. With the willingness not to confuse every form of loyalty with self-denial. Those who have inwardly resigned do not always need to leave immediately. But they do need a moment of truth. This moment is uncomfortable because it disrupts the familiar narrative. Many have learned to confuse perseverance with strength. Pulling yourself together is considered a virtue, even when nothing has been held together for a long time, only suppressed. But strength is not only shown in enduring something. Sometimes it is shown precisely in taking seriously what is no longer possible. Not every discomfort is a sign of weakness. Sometimes it is a healthy inner resistance to a life that fails to meet one’s own needs. It is particularly bitter that inner resignation often goes hand in hand with a loss of self-esteem. Those who only give the bare minimum for a long time, even though they once wanted more, also feel shame at some point. Not necessarily openly, but quietly. You no longer fully recognize yourself. You hear yourself talking and realize how cynical you have become. You experience that almost nothing touches you anymore, neither praise nor criticism, neither success nor failure. Everything becomes equally flat. And it is precisely in this flatness that not only motivation is lost, but also dignity. Because it makes a difference whether you experience yourself as a doer or just as someone who manages their days.
Of course, companies bear responsibility for this. Poor leadership, a lack of recognition, overburdening structures, meaningless processes and a climate of mistrust wear people down. Gallup describes low emotional engagement as a state in which employees perform their duties dutifully but do not go above and beyond; according to Gallup, a lack of engagement is associated with a clear distance from the company, low motivation and a drop in productivity. Those who are constantly monitored, who are never really seen, who are only treated as a resource rather than as a person, will eventually withdraw. It would be dishonest to describe inner resignation only as an individual problem. It is often also a symptom of working environments that demand performance but hardly allow for relationships. They talk about motivation without creating conditions under which motivation can grow at all.
And yet, even with all the justified criticism of structures, the personal question remains. Perhaps precisely because no company will answer it for us. Why are you still there? Because of the salary? Because of the security? Because of the convenience? Because of the hope that something will change on its own at some point? None of these answers are morally reprehensible. But each one deserves honesty. Because only what is clearly stated can be examined at all. As long as people calm themselves down with empty phrases, everything remains the same. Only when one’s own story is no longer glossed over will there be movement.
Perhaps this is precisely the turning point: not the spectacular decision, but the end of self-deception. To realize that a job doesn’t just cost time, but life time. That eight hours a day is not a sideshow, but a central part of existence. That indifference is not a harmless protective mechanism if it eats into your personality over the years. And that you shouldn’t lose yourself in the long term just because you have learned to function reliably. A fulfilling working life does not mean waking up euphoric every morning. Nor does it mean that every job has to be a vocation. But it does require at least a minimum level of inner approval. The feeling that you are not constantly working against yourself. The knowledge that your own strength is not just flowing away, but is arriving somewhere. That you have influence, can grow, make a meaningful contribution or at least remain at peace with yourself. If all this is missing for a long time, then the question of staying is not an organizational one, but an existential one.
Why are you still here? This question is not meant as a reproach, but as an invitation. Perhaps it leads to the realization that there are reasons to stay – good ones, even – but that something needs to be rearranged inside. Perhaps it leads to the decision to set clearer boundaries, to get help, to seek talks or to make plans. Perhaps it also leads to the quiet but powerful sentence: I don’t want to go on living like this. In any case, it brings you back from your stupor. Because in the end, it’s not just about job satisfaction. It’s about whether you are still present in your own life. Whether you let yourself be touched by what you do. Whether you take yourself seriously when something is permanently wrong. Inner resignation is therefore not just a problem for companies or the economy. It is a human warning light. It indicates that someone is still there, but has already lost themselves to a certain extent.
And perhaps this is precisely where the decisive hope lies. What has been internally dismissed can also be set in motion again – not through slogans or self-optimization, but through honesty. Through the willingness to no longer be satisfied with half a life. Through the courage not to gloss over your own condition. The most important question is then no longer: How can I put up with this for a while longer? It should be: What would have to change for me to really be there again?
written by Yasmin Floria Kreß – Business Partner of Frank Rechsteiner
Source
Gallup, Engagement Index Germany 2025: Results on emotional employee engagement in Germany, including distribution into high, low and no engagement and classification of “duty mode” and “internal dismissal“.
https://www.gallup.com/de/472028/bericht-zum-engagement-index-deutschland.aspx?utm