FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Executive leaders carry the heaviest workload of any role, onsite workers are twice as likely to be at risk of burnout, and meetings are the number one barrier to focus.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, October 7, 2026. Five to Flow^®, the neuroscience based diagnostic and change management partner, today released The State of Global Burnout and Flow, an analysis of every assessment completed since the company launched on October 1, 2020. The report draws on 2,930 completed assessments, 90,483 scored answers and 3,007 open text responses from more than 1,594 people across more than 28 organizations in North America, Europe and the Middle East, Asia Pacific and Latin America.

The findings challenge common assumptions about who is struggling at work and why. Six stand out:

● Leadership altitude. Executive leaders report the heaviest workload of any role, scoring 2.57 out of 5. They also score lowest on distraction management (2.76) and dedicated time for focused work (2.88).

● The say do gap. People rate their workload as manageable, yet 42% postpone or cancel personal commitments to meet work deadlines. The widest gap is control: people believe they have input (3.83), but their behavior tells a different story (2.98).

● Where people work. Onsite workers are twice as likely to be at risk of burnout as remote workers, 31% versus 15%, and 41% of onsite workers are locked out of flow, versus 16% of remote workers.

● Flow breakers and makers. Meetings are the number one flow breaker, named in 38% of open answers, followed by messages and notifications (25%). Creative problem solving (36%) and meaningful impact on others (25%) are the top flow makers.

● The flow gender gap. Men are more than twice as likely as women to score in the healthy flow range, 32% versus 12%. Women are also more likely to be at risk of burnout, 21% versus 15%.

● AI belief versus practice. Respondents rate staying current with AI as critical (4.39), yet score 3.79 on actually doing it. Using AI to reach deeper focus scores lowest of all, at 3.49.

The report also confirms a self reinforcing cycle Five to Flow sees in organizations of every size. Process (3.37) and Technology (3.36) are the two lowest of the Five Core Elements^™ measured by the Wellness Wave^®. Workload (3.13) is the lowest of six burnout drivers measured by BurnoutIQ^™. Distraction management (3.12) is the lowest of 15 flow triggers measured by FlowIQ^™. Broken process creates workload, workload creates distraction, and distraction keeps anyone from fixing the process.

The findings arrive as Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2026 reports that global employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025, its lowest level since 2020, costing the world economy an estimated $10 trillion in lost productivity, about 9% of global GDP.

Six years ago we set out to measure what most organizations only guess at. The data is clear: people are not complaining about their workload, they are compromising their lives for it. And the people setting the priorities have the least time to think. The number one competitor to fixing this is not another company. It is doing nothing,” said Kate Visconti, founder and CEO of Five to Flow.

Five to Flow holds a high bar for healthy performance. Every item is scored from 1 to 5, and any average below 4.20 is treated as a signal to act. By that standard, 87% of BurnoutIQ^™ respondents and 81% of FlowIQ^™ respondents fall below healthy. The report also introduces the at-risk population: people whose own average falls below 3.00. Across six years, 18% of BurnoutIQ^™ respondents and 21% of FlowIQ^™ respondents are at risk.

Five to Flow began in March 2020 as a services company running global onsite retreats. Eleven days later the world closed, and the team pivoted to digital diagnostics, publicly launching on October 1, 2020 with a semi automated Wellness Wave 1.0. The company was founded in honor of Kate Visconti’s father. Its diagnostic suite now includes the Wellness Wave^®, FlowIQ^™ (launched April 2025), BurnoutIQ^™ (May 2025), Change Readiness^™ (September 2025) and AI Adaptability^™ (October 2025). Each assessment takes about 5 to 10 minutes, and all five together take under 30 minutes. More than 80% of all assessments were completed in the last 21 months.

The full interactive report is available here. Individuals in any role, from leaders and team members to the self employed and those between roles, can take a BurnoutIQ^™ and receive their own results immediately.

About Five to Flow

Five to Flow^® helps organizations make sure their initiatives actually land. Every engagement is a change initiative, whether a team is implementing technology, restructuring, launching products or adopting AI. Five to Flow’s diagnostic suite finds the specific barriers that stand in the way, sets a measurable baseline and provides before and after proof that the work delivered results. Its approach is built on the FIT Model^™, combining Flow principles, Integrated AI and the Five Core Elements^™, and on the Know. Can. Do.^™ framework. Programs include Discover Flow^®, Achieve Flow^™, the Performance Accelerator^™ and the Access Flow^™ AI coaching platform. Reality-Adjusted Scoring^™, Five to Flow’s proprietary algorithm, weighs every score against what people write and do, so leaders see the truth rather than the optimism.

Methodology

The analysis covers all completed Five to Flow assessments from October 2020 through September 26, 2026, excluding 412 internal, test and placeholder records. Scores are raw averages on a 1 to 5 scale. Results are reported in aggregate only, no organization or individual is identified, and groups under five respondents are suppressed.

Media contact: Dr. Alexis Yamokoski, Five to Flow, Alexis@fivetoflow.com

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