US$10 trillion is Gallup's estimate of what low engagement cost the world economy, equal to roughly 9% of global GDP according to the 2026 workplace findings cited in the Australia-relevant summary of Gallup's data via Epic for America. For executive teams, that shifts engagement out of the “soft metrics” category and into operating risk.
It is that time of year again. Gallup has released its latest State of the Global Workplace report, which means we have a fresh set of numbers to help make sense of what is happening inside workplaces around the world.
This year’s report is based on data collected throughout 2025, and while there are some positive signs, the overall picture is not especially comfortable reading. Global employee engagement has fallen again, stress remains above pre-pandemic levels, and managers appear to be feeling the pressure more than most.
And because our work sits right in the middle of teams, culture and performance, we pay close attention to these reports.
At Corporate Challenge Events, our job may look like serious fun on the surface, but the lasting impact is always the point. We help teams perform better together, which means we need to understand what is shaping the way people are showing up at work.
For leaders, this is not a report to skim and file away under “HR”. It is a useful snapshot of what employees are experiencing at work right now.
Gallup’s report puts numbers around things leaders may already be sensing but cannot always see clearly. In this case, what you do not know can hurt you, because disengagement, stress and manager pressure all have a direct impact on how well teams are able to work.
So, we have read through the report and pulled out the key findings leaders need to know.
Table of Contents
The Latest Workplace Report Card Has Arrived
Before we get into what this means for teams, it is worth looking at the numbers themselves.
Gallup’s 2026 report found that global employee engagement fell to 20% in 2025. That is the lowest result since 2020, and the second year in a row that engagement has declined.
Globally, the engagement picture looks like this:
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20% of employees are engaged
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64% are not engaged
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16% are actively disengaged
Gallup also estimates that low engagement cost the global economy US$10 trillion in lost productivity in 2025, which is equal to 9% of global GDP. So while engagement can sometimes sound like a people-and-culture metric, Gallup is very clearly linking it to productivity.
The wellbeing numbers are also mixed.
Globally:
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34% of employees are thriving
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56% are struggling
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9% are suffering
That thriving figure has improved by one percentage point, which Gallup notes is the first improvement in global employee wellbeing in three years. At the same time, emotional strain is still sitting above pre-pandemic levels.
On daily emotions, Gallup found:
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40% of employees experienced a lot of stress the previous day
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22% experienced anger
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23% experienced sadness
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22% experienced loneliness
The stress result is one of the big ones to watch. Global daily stress was 38% in 2019, rose during the pandemic years, and is still sitting at 40% in 2025. So while the number has come down from its peak, it has not returned to where it was before 2020.
The report also looks at how employees feel about the job market. Globally, 52% of employees say it is a good time to find a job where they live. That is up one percentage point from the year before, although Gallup notes that job market confidence is still below the high point reached during the post-pandemic recovery.
For Australia and New Zealand, the numbers are especially worth paying attention to.
Gallup reports that employee engagement in Australia and New Zealand is 21%, which is only slightly above the global figure of 20%.
The local engagement breakdown is:
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21% engaged
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66% not engaged
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13% actively disengaged
The wellbeing picture looks stronger on the surface, with 55% of employees in Australia and New Zealand classified as thriving. That is well above the global figure of 34%.
But the daily stress number tells a different part of the story.
In Australia and New Zealand:
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49% experienced a lot of stress the previous day
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14% experienced anger
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21% experienced sadness
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14% experienced loneliness
That means almost one in two employees across Australia and New Zealand reported high daily stress. So locally, the report shows a region where overall life evaluation is comparatively strong, but the workday experience still appears to be carrying a high level of pressure.
The job market figure is also interesting for local leaders. In Australia and New Zealand, 60% of employees say it is a good time to find a job where they live. That still places the region high globally, but Gallup notes this was a sharp year-on-year fall of 12 percentage points.
Why Manager Pressure is the Real Story
One finding matters more than headline engagement data. Manager strain is weakening the layer of the organisation responsible for turning strategy into consistent day-to-day execution.
As noted earlier, recent workplace reporting points to manager engagement as a major driver of the broader decline. That should change how leaders interpret the rest of the data. If managers are depleted, the organisation does not merely feel harder to work in. It becomes harder to run.
Managers sit at the centre of execution
One of the clearest findings in Gallup’s report is that managers are under significant pressure.
Gallup reports that manager engagement fell from 31% in 2022 to 22% in 2025. That is a sharp drop in only three years, and Gallup notes that the decline in manager engagement accounts for most of the recent fall in overall employee engagement.
Managers have a direct influence on the day-to-day experience of work. They are often the people employees turn to for clarity, support, feedback, priorities and problem-solving. They are also usually the people asked to translate strategy, respond to change and keep teams moving when pressure increases.
The report also shows that managers are experiencing higher levels of daily stress than individual contributors.
Globally:
• 45% of managers experienced a lot of stress the previous day
• 39% of individual contributors experienced a lot of stress the previous day
Managers also reported higher levels of daily anger:
• 25% of managers experienced anger the previous day
• 21% of individual contributors experienced anger the previous day
Gallup’s data suggests managers are not just responsible for supporting engagement. Many are also experiencing the same pressures, and in some cases higher levels of pressure, than the teams they are expected to support.
For organisations, this makes manager support a major part of the engagement conversation. It is hard for managers to create clarity, energy and confidence for their teams if they are feeling unclear, depleted or unsupported themselves.
The report does not make managers the problem. It makes them one of the pressure points leaders need to understand.
How to Read Between the Lines of Global Data
Gallup’s report is useful because it gives leaders a broad, evidence-based view of what is happening across the global workforce. It shows where engagement is sitting, how employees are feeling, how managers are coping and how Australia and New Zealand compare with the rest of the world.
What it cannot do is diagnose the exact reason those patterns may be showing up inside your organisation.
That is the part leaders need to look at locally. A low engagement result in one workplace may be linked to manager pressure. In another, it may be linked to unclear priorities, poor communication, constant change, limited recognition or teams not spending enough meaningful time together.
This is why the report should not be read as a checklist of problems to solve one by one. It is better understood as a workplace snapshot that helps leaders notice where to look more closely.
Turn Insight into Impact with Purposeful Play
The response should not be another reminder for people to be more engaged or resilient.
Leaders have been asking for those outcomes for years, yet the Gallup data shows the gap remains. That is because engagement is not created by asking for engagement. Sustainable performance is not created by pushing people harder through the same systems that are already producing pressure.
This is where play changes the conversation.
Play is a neurobiological mechanism. It works with how humans learn, adapt, recover and engage. It activates intrinsic motivation, which means people are drawn into the experience rather than pushed towards it through another message, mandate or meeting.
That is where play offers a competitive advantage. Traditional efficiency measures can optimise process, but they cannot unlock the human capacity of a team. Play reaches the part of performance that cannot be managed through productivity tools alone.
At Corporate Challenge Events, this is what we mean by serious fun with lasting impact. The fun is visible, but the value sits in the shift it creates: people enter a different state, and from that state, better work becomes possible.
If you are a curious leader willing to take a new approach, download our free 12 Week Play Plan and start building play into the rhythm of work with purpose. Or book a free 30-minute call with one of our play specialists to explore what this could look like for your team.
Corporate leaders looking to turn these insights into action can explore Corporate Challenge Events, Australia's leading play-based team building provider. Their programs are designed to strengthen connection, communication and collaboration in ways that carry back into everyday work. For teams planning an offsite, conference or culture reset, it's a practical way to treat team experience as performance infrastructure rather than a side activity.
