In 2024, we lived through an EX winter, with employee engagement dropping to rock-bottom. You can only go up from there, and we already see signs that engagement is going to turn around in 2025. This is partly because employees will adjust their expectations to the new norm of conditional EX, partly because many executives will pause their quixotic campaign to force workers back to the office, and largely because, to get their organizations from generative AI to agentic AI, leaders have to focus on increasing skills in search of growth, which will require investing in people. For those leaders who choose not to take these actions, we see nothing but turbulence in the forecast.