Most workers hide work stress, survey finds

A new survey of 2,000 U.S. working adults finds concealment is the default response to workplace distress, with 3 in 4 workers hiding stress in the past year. The report also shows limited use of employer mental health resources and growing reliance on AI chatbots for support.

Why it matters: - Work-related stress is often going unreported, which can leave employers blind to burnout, absenteeism and retention risk. - The findings suggest workers are turning first to concealment and AI tools, not managers or HR, when they struggle.

What happened: - Founder Reports surveyed 2,000 U.S.-based working adults for its 2026 Workplace Wellbeing Report. - 75% of workers did something to hide work-related distress in the past year. - Only 10.8% told a manager or HR representative what they were going through. - 38.8% of workers called in sick in the past year and gave a fake reason. - Among workers experiencing daily work-related stress, 52.3% said they had done this.

The details: - 67.5% of the full workforce concealed something and never told anyone at work. - That share rises to 78.7% among workers affected weekly or daily. - Among workers affected by work stress daily, 88.3% concealed something. - In that daily-stress group, 26.9% used three or more concealment behaviors. - Each step up the strain scale roughly doubled the odds of concealment in the study's regression model. - Full-time workers were roughly 33% more likely than part-time workers to report a fake sick day. - Women were about 25% more likely than men to do the same. - Among the 949 workers affected by stress weekly or daily, 76.7% had neither used an employer benefit nor had anyone inside their company they could be honest with. - About one in five workers in the full sample was dealing with weekly or daily distress while having no formal support, no internal confidant and no AI-based outlet. - In that group, 86.3% had concealed their stress. - Also in that group, 45.8% had called in sick under a false reason. - 38.8% of workers said their employer offers no mental health support. - Another 11.2% were not sure whether any support exists. - Among workers who did have a benefit available, only 21.3% had ever used it. - Workers affected a few times a year used employer mental health support at 21.8%. - Workers affected daily used it at 23.0%. - Over the same range, AI chatbot use for work stress rose from 38.3% to 52.9%. - Overall, 42.6% of workers had used an AI chatbot to talk through work stress or frustration. - By comparison, 10.7% had ever used their employer's mental health resources. - Concealment rates were similar for managers and individual contributors, at 76.7% and 76.0%. - Managers and above were more likely to turn to AI for work stress, with 50.2% reporting AI use versus 39.3% of individual contributors.

Between the lines: - The report points to a workplace culture where workers handle distress privately unless they see a low-friction alternative. - Low employer benefit use, even among workers with the highest stress, suggests access alone is not enough to change behavior. - Higher AI use among managers may indicate that senior employees also want confidentiality, speed or convenience when they need support.

What's next: - Founder Reports is positioning the 2026 Workplace Wellbeing Report as a benchmark for how workers cope with stress and where support systems break down. - Employers may use the findings to reassess whether mental health benefits are visible, trusted and easy to use. - The company’s publication and research arm, FounderReports.com, continues to cover entrepreneurship, workplace trends and small business topics through original research and interviews.

The bottom line: - Most workers are hiding stress, and many are bypassing employers altogether in favor of concealment or AI.