Pull this one lever to fix your engagement score.

Engagement just hit a five-year low, and no region of the world improved. The fix isn't another initiative — it's the person your people report to.

Gallup's 2026 figures should stop every leadership team in its tracks: global employee engagement has fallen to 20% — the lowest since 2020 — costing an estimated $10 trillion in lost productivity. In the five years, no region of the world has improved.

 We keep treating this as a motivation problem. It's not. Instead, it's a connection problem.

The research is consistent. People who feel they belong stay longer and perform better. And belonging isn't built by strategies or action plans. For the most part, it's built, or broken, by line managers. Employees who feel included and respected by their managers are more than twice as likely to report improved trust, collaboration, and satisfaction.

The true value of engagament

Yet McKinsey finds only 43% of employees report a positive team climate — the single biggest driver of whether people feel safe to speak up.  That gap is your opportunity. You don't fix engagement with another all-staff campaign. You fix it one team at a time, by equipping the managers who determine the climate for everyone around them.

If managers are equipped and supported to cultivate belonging in their teams, engagement will go up across the organisation. While line managers set the tone, inclusion is and should be everyone's responsibility.

Where is belonging cultivated in your organisation? Find that, and you've found your lever.