One in four Romanian employees were at risk of burnout in 2025, according to the Employee Wellbeing Index 2025 developed by RoCoach and Novel Research

In 2025, the wellbeing of Romanian employees remained within a functional but fragile range, according to the Romanian Employee Wellbeing Index conducted by RoCoach and Novel Research on a nationally representative sample of 1,000 urban employees. While over 41% of Romanian employees managed to maintain a reasonable level of balance at work, one in four fell into a zone of psychological risk and burnout. At the same time, only 30% reported a genuinely high level of wellbeing, characterised by healthy relationships, autonomy, clarity and a sense of fairness in the workplace.

The Romanian Employee Wellbeing Index recorded a score of 70.3 out of 100 in 2025, indicating moderate safety alongside increased vulnerability to organisational shocks such as leadership changes, operational pressure or economic instability. This places Romania in a category of ”moderate security”.

In 2025, men reported higher levels of workplace satisfaction, with 72.1% indicating a good or very good state of wellbeing. Employees aged 18 – 29 were the most satisfied group. The sectors with the highest levels of workplace satisfaction were retail and sales (76.4%), banking services and healthcare (73.8% each), followed by the NGO sector (66.6%). At the opposite end of the spectrum, employees working in IT&C and public administration recorded the lowest levels of satisfaction.

The report shows that employees do not perceive wellbeing as a benefit or bonus, but rather as the result of how the organisation they work for is structured and led. Differences in wellbeing are neither random nor purely individual; instead, they follow clear structural patterns related to hierarchical position, tenure, sector and both formal and informal organisational rules. At the same time, the report highlights that as employees’ tenure within an organisation increases, their wellbeing tends to decline from an ”excellent” to a ”good” level, accompanied by a rise in manageable yet persistent tensions. Organisations often succeed in transforming initial enthusiasm into stability, but do not always manage to sustain energy and a sense of purpose over the long term.

Employees forced to compensate through personal effort for flaws in work design

”The data show that 2025 was not about an exhausted Romania, but about a Romania that functions at a high emotional cost. Most employees do their jobs, but organisational systems force them to compensate through personal effort for what is missing from work design: clarity, fairness, autonomy and healthy relationships with management. In 2026, the real challenge for companies is no longer retention, but maintaining people’s vitality as they grow in roles and responsibilities. An employee who stays but loses energy no longer creates value”, explains Mihai Stănescu, founder of RoCoach, Romania’s first coaching company and developer of the Organisational Transition Quotient (OTQ).

According to the Romanian Employee Wellbeing Index, the main sources of burnout in 2025 were high workloads (23.3%), constant deadline pressure (19.6%), lack of work-life balance (16.4%) and the absence of feedback (9.1%). At the same time, across almost all segments analysed, the direct manager emerged as a decisive factor influencing employee wellbeing (19.3%).

”Beyond the numbers, the index reveals how work is experienced in Romania in 2025: as a system of pressures, adaptations and compromises that people manage daily with far greater effort than is visible on the surface. The Romanian Employee Wellbeing Index measures the real quality of the relationship between employees and the organisations they work for – how fair the rules are, how clear expectations are, how much autonomy exists and how much support people receive when things become difficult. We see a very clear process of organisational wear and tear. Employees are not talking about benefits, but about fairness, respect, managers who listen and the freedom to organise their work without micromanagement. The language used is often emotional and sometimes harsh, showing that these issues are experienced as moral problems, not just procedural dysfunctions. When employees say ”competitions should no longer be rigged” or ”managers should treat us like people”, they are expressing a fundamental need for equity and dignity at work”, says Marian Marcu, Managing Partner at Novel Research.

Employee Wellbeing Index 2025

The Employee Wellbeing Index 2025 is a composite tool developed by RoCoach and Novel Research to measure the real quality of Romanian employees’ work experience in 2025. It is built around five core dimensions of organisational life: clarity, autonomy, recognition, fairness and human relationships.

Each dimension is standardised on a 0 – 100 scale, with the final score reflecting overall workplace wellbeing. The index has strong psychometric validation (Cronbach’s Alpha = 0.891), confirming that the dimensions coherently measure a unified construct of organisational wellbeing.

Data were collected between November and December 2025 using the CAWI (Computer Assisted Web Interviewing) method, on a sample of 1,000 urban employees.