Two thirds of Australian workers are not engaged at work.
Not actively causing problems. Not about to resign. Just... switched off. Doing what's asked, and nothing more.
The 2026 Gallup State of the Global Workplace Report shows ANZ managers are still ahead of their teams on engagement, 27% versus 17% for individual contributors. That's actually good news. But it also means 73% of the people leading your teams aren't fully engaged themselves.
And that gap, between a manager who's going through the motions and one who's genuinely present and connected, is where those 66% of not-engaged workers are either reached or lost.
I've written about why the manager is still the single most powerful lever in any organisation, and what it actually takes to use it.
Almost half of Australian workers are significantly stressed. Every. Single. Day.
That's not a wellness problem. That's a leadership problem.
The 2026 Gallup State of the Global Workplace Report just dropped, and the numbers for Australia and New Zealand should make every leader pause. We're running nine percentage points above the global average on daily stress, and it's been climbing for over a decade.
Stress that goes unacknowledged doesn't disappear. It curdles into resentment, disengagement, and eventually the kind of team dysfunction that lands on someone's desk as a complaint, a conduct issue, or a wave of exits nobody saw coming.
I've written about what's influencing it, and more importantly, what leaders can actually do about it.
According to SafeWork Australia's 2025 Key Statistics Report, mental health conditions accounted for 17,600 serious workers' compensation claims in 2023–24, a staggering 161% increase since 2013–14. Harassment and workplace bullying represent the largest single category of those claims at 33.2%. Mental stress claims cost, on average, four times more than other serious claims and result in five times more lost work time.
Most of it was preventable. Not with policies. Not with posters. Not with another tick-and-flick compliance module that people click through and immediately forget.
It was preventable much earlier, in the small moments where silence became permission. This blog explores why ‘Just Speak up’ is terrible advice and what to do instead.
An open door policy is not a speak up culture.
I've walked into a LOT of organisations over the last 13 years that were genuinely proud of their open door policy. Their survey scores. Their "we encourage feedback here" rhetoric.
And I've also walked into the same organisations and met the person who hadn't raised something in eight months because they had no idea how to say it without blowing everything up.
The door was open.
They just couldn't walk through it.
That's not a speak up culture. That's a really well-intentioned gap. This blog explores this concept in more detail, the cost of getting it wrong, what the neuroscience tells us and the three key ingredients to having a Speak Up Culture.
You know the cost of staying silent and that intervention is about skills, not just courage. This post breaks down practical steps to go from reader to upstander, including reflection, low-risk interventions, finding your language, training, and building a supportive network. Every action creates a safer, more inclusive workplace.
