The Numbers
Only 21% of ANZ workers feel engaged at work, according to Gallup's 2025 data. That is down 2 points from the prior three-year average. Remote workers are getting destroyed: just 7% report engagement, compared to 17% for office-based staff and 15% for hybrid.
For sales leaders, this matters. Disengaged reps do not hit quota. Gallup estimates low engagement costs the global economy $10 trillion annually, roughly 9% of GDP. In ANZ specifically, 65% of employees are "not engaged" and 12% are "actively disengaged."
What Is Driving It
EnterpriseWorks research shows the average ANZ organisation now uses 305 systems. Only 16% are centrally managed. Sales teams are drowning in tech stack bloat: CRM, sales engagement platform, forecasting tool, comp calculator, Slack, Zoom, the thing finance makes you use for expenses.
Workers spend 45% of their week in meetings. Less than half of those meetings move work forward. Senior leaders spend 62% of their time on manual reporting. Your AEs are building decks when they should be closing.
Meanwhile, only 25% of managers feel adequately trained for their role. This tracks with the engagement data: managers account for most of the recent decline. When your frontline sales managers are undertrained and overloaded, your team checks out.
Why AI Will Not Fix This
Gallup's Q1 2026 US data shows 18% of employees fear job elimination due to AI within five years. That number jumps to 23% in organisations that have already implemented AI. You cannot boost engagement while your team is worried about being automated out.
Reward Gateway's 2025 data shows recognition is now the top driver of productivity in Australia, up 10% year over year. But only 23% of employees feel appreciated. AI cannot make your team feel valued. It cannot run a good one-on-one. It cannot fix unclear quota structures or comp plans that no one understands.
What Works
Australian workers cite three main engagement drivers: strong leadership (41%), engaging job scope (27%), and feeling valued (25%). For sales teams, that translates to: train your managers, give reps autonomy over their territory, and build transparent comp structures.
Cut the system sprawl. Consolidate where you can. Kill the meetings that do not drive pipeline. Let your AEs sell instead of reporting on selling.
The gap between strategy and execution is real: 83% of employees understand their organisation's strategy, but only 51% believe their daily work connects to it. If your team does not see how their calls and demos tie to company goals, they will disengage. Make that line explicit.
The Bottom Line
Engagement is a leadership problem, not a technology problem. Your remote sellers are struggling. Your managers are undertrained. Your systems are a mess. Fix those first, then talk about AI.