Employee Engagement in Australia and New Zealand Healthcare and Public Sectors: Gallup Insights and Solutions

ANZ Healthcare and Public Sectors Face Growing Workforce Challenges

Australia and New Zealand public sector and healthcare workforces deliver a broad range of essential services to residents and local communities and keep hospitals and governments functioning at every level. Despite their dedication, these workforces are under strain from unprecedented disruption and budget constraints.

According to Gallup's State of the Global Workplace: 2026 Report, employee engagement in Australia and New Zealand has declined two percentage points to 21% of the workforce, while the ANZ region’s workplace stress is the second highest globally. The share of ANZ employees rating their lives as "thriving" dipped slightly to 55%, while the share of employees who say it is a good time to find a job fell 12 points to 60%.

Australia and New Zealand Regional Summary

For leaders in local government, public administration and healthcare, these are not abstract statistics. Rather, they reflect the lived reality of their workforces and have a meaningful impact on service delivery, infrastructure, public health and safety, and sustainability.

Gallup has partnered with thousands of organisations to measure, analyse, and improve workplace engagement and culture for decades. We know what it takes to build and sustain engaged, high-performing workplaces. This page features our latest research, insights, and solutions to help ANZ’s public sector and healthcare leaders stay up to date across important workplace trends and developments.

Why Employee Engagement Matters in Healthcare and the Public Sector

Employee engagement is a performance strategy for building and sustaining high-performing workplace cultures. Gallup's decades of engagement research worldwide shows that engaged employees help their teams and organisations achieve better business outcomes across every industry, regardless of company size, culture or economic conditions.

Engagement is also predictive of organisational performance. When comparing the most engaged teams to the least engaged, Gallup research consistently finds tangible differences across key performance outcomes.

Business impact of highly engaged business units

Gallup's research of more than 180,000 teams — over 3.3 million

Difference between top- and bottom-quartile teams/business units within a typical organisation

*The above figures are median percent differences across companies in Gallup's database. High-turnover organisations are those with more than 40% annualised turnover. Low-turnover organisations are those with 40% or lower annualised turnover.

Globally, only 21% of employees in ANZ are engaged in their work, a decline of two percentage points and below the global average of 23%.

For public sector and healthcare organisations in ANZ, workplace engagement is especially important. These organisations exist to serve the public. When their people are disengaged, experience poor wellbeing, stress, or burnout, the effects reach communities, patients, and citizens directly.

Psychosocial Safety: How ANZ Employers Can Go Beyond Compliance

Psychosocial injury claims cost the Australian economy an estimated A$39.9 billion annually, according to the Australian Government Productivity Commission Inquiry Report on Mental Health (June 2020). Toxic workplace environments with high levels of psychosocial hazards damage colleague relationships and lead to behaviours that undermine employee mental health and wellbeing.

Following amendments to Australia's Work Health and Safety (General) Regulations in 2022, employers now have an explicit duty to identify and manage psychosocial risks proactively. Victoria introduced its own Occupational Health and Safety (Psychological Health) Regulations in December 2025, extending those obligations further.

Gallup's research into the relationship between engagement and psychosocial risk reveals a direct and measurable link. Australian employers Gallup studied that doubled the number of employees who felt genuinely cared for at work experienced:

Mitigating psychosocial hazards and improving workplace engagement are not separate workstreams. Organisations should manage them together to improve employee wellbeing and organisational performance. ANZ employers that go beyond legal compliance and treat psychosocial safety and employee engagement as core strategic priorities will better protect their people and sustain performance.

Building Future-Ready Local Government Councils: Talent Retention and Engagement

Skills shortages are hindering local councils’ ability to deliver public services effectively. An Australian Local Government Association (ALGA) report published in September 2022 revealed that 65% of local councils reported delays or effects on project delivery due to vacancies, skill shortages, skill gaps or training needs.

Retaining existing staff and attracting new talent is proving equally difficult. Involuntary turnover in Australian councils nearly doubled from 2018 to 2022, rising from 8.3% to 15.6% annually, with some rural councils recording turnover as high as 20%.

Some local councils are bucking this trend by successfully building cultures that strengthen employee performance, wellbeing and talent retention.

Article

Creating a Future-Ready Council