New report reveals workplaces are making it challenging for employees to remain curious
Curiosity remains alive and well among employees, but workplaces are making it hard to stay that way, according to a new report.
The report, released by SurveyMonkey, surveyed 1,925 workers to find that while 95% describe themselves as at least somewhat curious and 60% say they are very curious, only 30% say their workplace strongly rewards curiosity.
"We set out to understand what was happening with curiosity at work, and found that curiosity isn't the problem. The way we work is," said Katie Miserany, chief communications officer and head of global marketing at SurveyMonkey, in a statement.
The report introduces the concept of "curiosity capacity," defined as the ability to stay open, ask sharper questions, and keep learning alongside AI.
As artificial intelligence makes polished answers faster and easier to generate, SurveyMonkey argues the new workplace differentiator is not what workers produce, but the questions they ask and what they notice that AI missed.
What drains curiosity at work?
But three workplace dynamics, the report says, are actively draining the workforce's curiosity capacity.
The first is what the report calls the "AI middleman." Directors and VPs are nearly three times as likely as individual contributors to use AI instead of asking a colleague a question – 33% compared to 12%.
"AI allows us to impersonate leadership without doing the hard work of actually leading," said Anne Morriss, founder of The Leadership Consortium.
The second is the "scroll reflex." More than a third of workers who use AI say they accept a generated response as-is or after only a quick check, even though 58% say they trust colleagues more than AI.
The third is what the report calls the "efficiency squeeze." Only 38% of workers say most meetings feel like spaces for open discussion and idea exploration. More than half say more unstructured time would help them be more curious at work.
"These three forces don't just smother curiosity. They blur what workers think curiosity even is," the report read.
Impact of losing curiosity
The cost of suppressed curiosity is tangible. Half of workers say they have had to redo work because the right questions were not asked at the start. Nearly as many (46%) say they have seen time or money wasted because assumptions went unchallenged.
Fear plays a role too. Nearly half (44%) of all workers say asking too many questions makes them look incompetent.
Gen Z workers report the sharpest pressures, as 45% said they feel pressure to already know the answer, 42% say they stay silent because they feel they have already asked too many questions, and 41% admit to pretending they understood something they did not.
Jack Soll, a professor of management and organisations at Duke's Fuqua School of Business, warned of a deeper risk.
"AI might make us individually smarter," he said, "but the opposing force is going to make us all the same, which might make it harder to be creative and be innovative."
Rebuilding curiosity at work
According to the findings, employees said it would be easier to be curious on the job if they have:
- More opportunities to brainstorm with colleagues (77%)
- More psychological safety to ask questions (70%)
- Stronger connections across teams (61%)
- Reduced workload (55%)
- More unstructured time (53%)
"It's still in our workers: the vast majority describe themselves as curious, and most want more room to act on it," the report read.
"Workers are telling employers what they need – psychological safety to ask, cross-team connection, and time to be curious – and a handful of organisations are already proving these conditions can be designed back into the workday."
