
Employee sentiment slipped in June
Health care led the decline, with more than half of the sectors we track losing ground. Retail trade bucked the trend.
Mary Hayes, Ph.D. • Jared Northup
June 16, 2026

Mary Hayes, Ph.D.

Director of Research, People & Performance
Mary Hayes earned her doctorate in educational leadership from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Her master's degree in educational psychology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln was focused on qualitative, quantitative, and psychometrics methodology, with additional work in survey research methodology. Both of Mary's degrees focus on the psychology of people and how these people flourish through positive psychology.
Beginning in 2005, she worked with the Marcus Buckingham Co. in the development of the StandOut Assessment and other StandOut tools and resources, assuming the role of senior researcher in 2015 and research director of People and Performance in 2018.
Mary's research focuses on engagement, turnover, knowledge worker performance, and workplace teams. She has designed reliable and valid tools to help people get more out of their work experience. As a practitioner-scientist, she taps the best of both worlds to make a difference for knowledge workers, focusing on sound research to help organizations understand the relationships between employee engagement and performance, engagement and turnover, and other relevant workplace issues.

Health care led the decline, with more than half of the sectors we track losing ground. Retail trade bucked the trend.
Mary Hayes, Ph.D. • Jared Northup
June 16, 2026

We asked 39,000 workers worldwide, both those with a diploma and those without, to tell us if their education had prepared them to advance.
Mary Hayes, Ph.D. • Jared Northup
May 26, 2026

Health care led the decline, but half of the sectors we track lost ground. Knowledge workers were one bright spot.
Mary Hayes, Ph.D. • Jared Northup
May 19, 2026