According to Gallup’s 2025 Global Workplace Report, only 1 in 5 employees feel emotionally connected to their team, even when performance metrics are being met.
At first glance, that might not sound too alarming. But put it in context: in a team of 9, that means just one person feels truly connected. The rest are quietly disengaged, showing up, delivering tasks, and keeping the wheels turning, but not bringing their full energy, trust, or creativity.
Closer to home, CCE’s 2025 Industry Insights revealed that most leaders describe their teams as “promising” or “warming up” – functioning, but not thriving. Very few say their teams feel like champions.
This is the current state of workplace culture: teams that aren’t broken, but are undeniably off.
And the signs aren’t dramatic. They’re subtle:
- Collaboration feels slower
- Meetings feel flatter
- Wins don’t spark energy the way they used to
- Leaders feel like they’re managing output, not momentum
These aren’t isolated issues. They’re symptoms of a deeper drift; one that can’t be solved with another all-hands or end-of-year party. Because the real challenge isn’t productivity. It’s connection. And the reset your team needs is simpler than you think.
%
of employees feel they are thriving at work
%
say they’re in “survival mode” - doing just enough to get by.
What Disconnection Really Looks Like
Across Australia and the Asia-Pacific, the signs of team disconnection are subtle but widespread. While most leaders aren’t facing cultural collapse, they are reporting a “slow fade of energy and trust.” Teams are functioning but culture feels heavier than it should.
According to O.C. Tanner’s 2025 report on workplace culture in APAC:
- Only 25% of employees feel they are thriving at work
- 43% say they’re in “survival mode” – doing just enough to get by, with minimal emotional or social investment
Meanwhile, Gallup’s 2025 Global Workplace Report confirms that global engagement is at just 21% with APAC trending even lower in emotional connection and cultural energy.
These aren’t just statistics. They’re daily realities for leaders managing teams that are technically performing, but emotionally disconnected.
In practical terms, that means:
- Teams showing up, but no longer speaking up
- Less courage in decision-making, safe choices replace bold ideas
- Recognition rituals are shrinking or feel obligatory
- Managers feel like morale monitors, not momentum drivers
- Team interactions are transactional; efficient, but emotionally flat
This isn’t burnout. It’s slow-drip disengagement, a quiet erosion of trust, energy and shared purpose.
And if you’re seeing it, you’re not alone. You’re just ahead of the curve.
- Globally, manager engagement fell from 30% to 27%, with younger managers under 35 experiencing a sharper five-point drop. 27%
- Female managers saw a seven-point decline. 23%
Break the Belief: “Fine” Is Where Culture Fades
It’s easy to overlook a team that’s doing “fine.” But here’s the danger: it’s not the obvious problems that erode culture.
“Fine” doesn’t trigger alarms. It shows up as:
- KPIs being met
- Tasks completed on time
- Quiet meetings that stay on schedule
But under the surface, energy is draining. Trust isn’t deepening. And play, those small moments of joy, ease, and spark have disappeared.
This is what we call Culture Drift: when performance remains steady, but the team’s emotional heartbeat slows down. It’s not failure. But left unchecked, it leads there.
Gallup’s 2025 State of the Global Workplace report highlights a critical factor: manager engagement. Globally, manager engagement fell from 30% to 27%, with younger managers under 35 experiencing a sharper five-point drop. Female managers saw a seven-point decline.
In the APAC region, these trends are particularly concerning. Managers are the corner stone of engagement, and their disengagement has a cascading effect on teams, leading to decreased morale and productivity.
This isn’t just about individual well-being, it’s about organizational health. When managers disengage, the entire team feels the impact, even if the metrics still look “fine.”
Introduce the Culture Barometer
If culture had a dashboard, it wouldn’t just measure deadlines or project velocity. It would track something far more telling: the emotional undercurrent of your team.
We call it your Culture Barometer.
This isn’t about morale posters or ping pong tables. It’s about reading the signals that matter:
- Laughter (and who initiates it)
- Curiosity in meetings
- Willingness to speak up, even when it’s hard
- Shared rituals that build trust, not just task alignment
A high-performing team without connection is like a car with no suspension, it’ll get you there, but the ride will be rough. Culture doesn’t collapse overnight. It fades, quietly, consistently and when leaders stop checking the barometer.
Quick Culture Barometer Check:
Ask yourself:
- Who’s stopped contributing lately?
- When did we last share a genuine laugh as a team?
- Who’s showing up but no longer leaning in?
- What’s the mood at the start of your meetings? tense, flat, or energised?
These aren’t soft questions. They’re strategic. Because when culture becomes invisible, performance will eventually follow.
Shift the Lens
When teams drift, it’s tempting to look for a fault; who dropped the ball, what went wrong, what needs fixing.
But what we’re seeing across APAC workplaces isn’t a crisis of failure. It’s a pattern of rhythm loss.
Your team isn’t broken.
They’ve just stopped resetting together.
And it’s no wonder. Between hybrid schedules, wellbeing fatigue, and constant output demands, even the most capable teams lose their sync.
What used to bring connection – quarterly offsites, Friday drinks, team shout-outs, no longer cuts through the noise or builds momentum in a sustainable way.
The good news?
Rhythm is recoverable. But it needs to be intentional.
Before you add another team lunch or drop a “How’s everyone doing?” in Slack, take a step back. The answer isn’t more activity. It’s better cadence.
Where to next
Here’s where most leaders get stuck: they try to solve cultural drift with one-off events, calendar fillers, or vague wellbeing gestures.
What’s actually needed isn’t more noise. It’s a new rhythm.
That’s where Structured Play comes in. It’s not about forced fun. It’s about embedding micro-moments of connection, courage, and care into the team’s existing rhythm.
We call it Periodic Play– a system of low-lift, high-impact rituals that reset energy, rebuild trust, and spark momentum in real time.
That could mean:
- A five-minute Micro Play challenge at the start of your Monday meeting
- A “Win of the Week” moment where every team member nominates someone else
- Swapping one update-heavy Zoom for a Playful Meeting with shared problem-solving
Deloitte reports that companies embedding emotional energy into team rhythms outperform their peers in retention, engagement, and adaptive capacity.
Gallup consistently links psychological safety, a key outcome of structured play to higher productivity, lower absenteeism, and stronger collaboration.
And from the frontline of team culture, the evidence is clear:
When play becomes part of the process, not an afterthought; teams reset faster, connect deeper, and sustain momentum longer.
So no, you don’t need to redesign your culture from scratch. You just need to reintroduce rhythm. And the smartest way to do that? Start playing again.
If your team’s not broken, just off - what will you do about it?
Here’s the truth:
High performance without high connection isn’t sustainable. And culture doesn’t course-correct on its own.
The smartest leaders aren’t waiting for their team to burn out or bounce. They’re rethinking how culture gets built in the moments between the meetings.
We believe every team deserves the permission to play. Not just once a year, but regularly, rhythmically, and without needing a massive budget or blank calendar.
That’s why we’ve created The Play Hub, a free, always-accessible resource for anyone who’s participated in a CCE program in 2025. It’s packed with tools, templates, rituals, and ideas designed to help you embed play into your workflow, not bolt it on as an afterthought.
Want a taste?
Download our Periodic Play Gift Pack, a curated starter kit of four low-lift, high-impact rituals you can run immediately with your team. No sign-up forms. Just the tools to reset the rhythm and spark a new wave of connection.
Because your team’s not broken.
They’re just waiting for someone to press play.
