The difference between average organizations and those that are world-class isn’t a secret. Gallup’s latest data tells us exactly where that gap exists and how to close it.

There’s a number that every sales leader should have committed to memory right now.

According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace: 2025 Report, just 21% of employees worldwide are engaged at work. That number fell two points in a single year – a drop equivalent, Gallup notes, to the decline recorded during the year of COVID-19 lockdowns and shelter-in-place orders.¹

That’s the global average. But here’s the number that shifts the conversation: the best-practice organizations Gallup tracks – winners of the annual Gallup Exceptional Workplace Award – are operating at 70% employee engagement.¹

A 49-point gap. Not between good companies and struggling companies, but between great companies and average ones. That gap shows a huge amount of untapped potential, and research indicates exactly how world-class organizations achieve it.

Engagement Lives or Dies with the Manager

There’s a tendency to view employee engagement as just an HR initiative – a survey, a recognition platform, increased or tailored perks. Gallup’s data cuts through that framing entirely.

According to the 2025 report, 70% of team engagement is attributable to the manager.¹ Not the company mission. Not the compensation package. Not the office perks. The manager.   The reality is that people leave their manager, not their company.

This is a finding with profound and significant implications for sales organizations, especially since managers already play a large role: coaching reps, driving forecast accuracy, closing deals, selling on behalf of their team, developing talent, and owning results. When the person in that role is disengaged, burned out, or undertrained, the downstream effects are both measurable and significant.

Gallup found that when employees are engaged, they are more productive, stay longer, miss fewer days, build better customer relationships, and close more sales.¹ The inverse is equally true. And the manager is the leader that moves all of it.

What Best-Practice Organizations Do

Gallup is direct about what separates organizations operating at 70% engagement from those operating at 21%. When leaders build a company culture around employee engagement, following science-based management practices, the result is higher productivity and profitability – and those benefits are not industry or culture specific. ¹

The 2025 report identifies three specific, evidence-backed actions that drive the shift:

• First: Ensure every manager receives training. 
  Fewer than half of the world’s managers – just 44% – report having received any management training.¹ That is a staggering figure. Gallup found that managers who receive training are half as likely to be actively disengaged as those who don’t.¹ Even basic role training, the data show, can stop a manager from feeling like they’re drowning.  This is especially significant as many leaders are promoted from within and this is their first leadership role, with little to no experience.

• Second: Teach effective coaching techniques. 
  Some managers are naturally gifted at developing people. Many are not, and that’s okay, because Gallup’s research confirms that coaching skills can be developed. In one study of a management training course focused on best practices, participants experienced up to 22% higher engagement than non-participants. Their teams saw engagement rise by up to 18%. Manager performance metrics improved by 20 to 28%. Critically, these results held nine to eighteen months after training, suggesting the effect isn’t a short-term boost but a lasting change in how managers. lead.¹    An important aspect of development is that the manager’s leader must reinforce them and also continue to coach to the skills invested in by the organization.

• Third: Support ongoing development – not just one-time training. 
  When employers provide manager training, manager thriving levels improve from 28% to 34%. But when training is combined with leaders who actively encourages a manager’s ongoing development, thriving jumps to 50%.¹ The message is clear: development is a system, not a one-time event.

The Implication for Sales Leaders

Gallup estimates that if the world’s workplace were fully engaged, $9.6 trillion in productivity could be added to the global economy – equivalent to 9% of global GDP.¹ Full engagement across the global workforce may be aspirational, but the point is directional: even meaningful movement toward higher engagement at your organization has real, measurable economic consequences.

For sales leaders, this translates to a simple business question: what would a 10-point improvement in your team’s engagement do to your numbers? To your retention?  To your coaching culture?  To your first line leaders?

The organizations that answer that question, and act on it, are the ones operating at 70%.

“When managers thrive, so do their teams. The choice for executives is simple: Invest in the future of management or risk the consequences of inaction.”

— Gallup, State of the Global Workplace: 2025 Report

At Carew International, we’ve spent more than 50 years studying what separates high-performing sales organizations from the rest. The answer Gallup’s research points to – investment in manager development, coaching capability, and ongoing skill-building – is the same answer our clients have found through programs like Excellence in Sales Leadership (ESL) and Dimensions of Professional Selling (DPS).

The data exists. The path is clear. The organizations willing to take it are already at 70%.

Ready to Close the Engagement Gap on Your Team?

Carew’s Excellence in Sales Leadership program is built around the management science Gallup’s research points to – coaching technique, structured development, and the skills that make managers want to lead. Let’s talk about what’s possible.

Explore ESL →

Sources

1. Gallup. (2025). State of the Global Workplace: 2025 Report. Gallup, Inc. Data cited includes global employee engagement figures, manager engagement attributability, best-practice organization engagement levels, manager training prevalence (44%), coaching training outcomes (20–28% performance improvement, 18% team engagement increase, 22% manager engagement increase), manager thriving data (28% → 34% → 50%), and global productivity estimate ($9.6 trillion). Results cited for manager training outcomes were measured nine to eighteen months post-training. Best-practice organization percentages represent annual averages across Gallup Exceptional Workplace Award winners.