Fuelling ‘The Great Pile-On’
A growing share of employees are absorbing extra work without promotions, pay raises or formal title changes. Welcome to The Great Pile-On
WE’RE NOW A few months into 2026, but for many workers, it feels like the rough end to 2025 just keeps rollin’ on. Maybe your team is a little leaner now, with a few faces let go. Perhaps your boss is constantly chirping at you to make more use of Copilot to pick up the slack.
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Congratulations, you’ve been piled-on. And you’re not alone.
A new study from Wiley, which surveyed around 2,500 workers, has put a name to the phenomenon of how work is being redistributed among the now-reduced headcount, calling it ‘The Great Pile-On’. Nearly a third of respondents said they’d recently absorbed additional duties, with more than half saying those duties landed on them in the wake of layoffs or restructuring.
The phenomenon itself isn’t new; survivors have been picking up the slack after layoffs as long as there have been layoffs. What Wiley’s study is probing is the degree to which it has become the operating logic of many companies, which are taking ‘do more with less’ to its most literal end.
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Wiley’s data suggests that, at first, workers were happy to pitch in a little more. Engagement actually increased, productivity went up and morale held. “On the surface, The Great Pile-On appeared to be working,” the report’s authors wrote. But the early lift was also short-lived: after the three-month mark, disengagement rises quickly.
“As weeks turn into months, the cracks begin to show. What was once a motivating opportunity to pitch in during a challenging time has now become a more permanent strain.”
Where the strategy looks set to fail, experts are suggesting, is that it is all stick, no carrot. And at the same time as the work is being redistributed, employees surveyed say the doors to promotions are being closed — there’s no timelines to promotions, no talk of salary growth and many are just being told to deal with it (a formalization of the ‘ghost growth’ trend we saw discussed last year).
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What comes next will be an indicator to watch. Firms cut nearly 55,000 jobs citing AI last year, which is certainly a major part of the Great Pile-On, but some are predicting the rebalancing of work will require additional headcount in 2026.
“In many instances, companies are laying off workers for AI capabilities that don’t exist yet, betting on future promises rather than proven technology,” wrote HR Executive’s Jill Barth, citing research from Forrester Research. “When that bet fails, companies face a choice: admit the mistake and rehire at previous salaries, or quietly fill gaps with lower-cost offshore labour. Forrester predicts most will choose the latter.” 
Kieran Delamont