A new report puts the cost of employee disengagement at $10 trillion annually. The solution isn’t more training or an EAP, it’s creating and rewarding behavioural change. And GoJoe has the numbers to prove it.
Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2026 report, published this week, confirms what many HR leaders already suspect: the engagement problem is getting worse. Just 20% of employees globally are engaged at work; a five-year low, declining for the second consecutive year. Four in ten workers report significant daily stress. The cost to the global economy: an estimated $10 trillion in lost productivity every year.
The corporate response is often predictable. EAP programmes. Mental health apps. Leadership development. All of it aimed at the problem from the wrong direction.
GoJoe’s position is straightforward: disengagement is a health problem, and health problems require health solutions. Specifically, preventative ones to stop people falling in the proverbial river rather than having to fish them out downstream.
The missing mechanism: behavioural change at scale
GoJoe’s workforce preventative health platform is built around a move-to-earn model, developed in partnership with Stanford University and grounded in behavioural science.
The principle is simple; employees earn real rewards by tracking their movement across 60+ activities and wider engagement. But the design is deliberate. Rather than offering discounts or handouts, GoJoe’s rewards programme is structured to reinforce the behaviours that drive sustained activity over time. Users earn points through movement, which convert to spending power across 9,000+ brands in 180 countries, at double the value of standard loyalty programmes. And the model gives $/£2 of value for every $/£1 of monthly spend by the employer.
The result is a programme that reaches the whole workforce, not the 10-15% who were already going to the gym, and targets their whole wellbeing; from mental and physical health to work-life balance and productivity.
Consistently doubling or tripling industry average engagement rates, GoJoe drives sustained behaviour change across organisations including NatWest Group, Amazon, Diageo, Centrica, DLA Piper and PwC.
What that actually does to a workforce
The case for a preventative solution and more physical activity as a health intervention is well established. What GoJoe’s data demonstrates is the downstream effect on exactly the metrics Gallup is measuring. In short, a huge amount of companies are getting this right and bucking the trend by diving into their data and doubling down on what’s actually working.
Following GoJoe Rewards programmes, users recorded a 10% average increase in their in-app health score. But the productivity and wellbeing effects are equally striking. Participants reported an 18% rise in feeling very or extremely productive at work. A 40% drop in those feeling regularly stressed or overwhelmed. Seventy-four percent felt better able to manage the balance between health and work responsibilities. Sixty-seven percent reported better health while maintaining their productivity, not at the expense of it.
The physical effects compound over time. Thirty-six percent of users saw an increase in their energy levels. Twenty-seven percent reported improved sleep consistency; one of the most significant and under-appreciated contributors to both mental health and cognitive performance at work. Activity session length increased by 25%, meaning participants aren’t just showing up more often, they’re doing more when they do.
Gallup’s own finding is telling here: employee wellbeing improved in 2025 for the first time in three years, and most strongly among employees who felt they had genuine choice and agency in their working lives. GoJoe’s rewards model is designed precisely to create that sense of agency, giving employees something tangible in return for investing in their own health.
“The engagement crisis Gallup is describing is real,” says Will Turner, CEO and Co-Founder of GoJoe. “But the framing keeps landing on management and culture. Those things matter of course but what’s being missed is the physical dimension, and it’s not a soft benefit. When you give people a genuine reason to move, backed by real rewards and the right behavioural architecture, you see it in productivity data, in stress levels, in sick days. We’ve stopped treating this as a wellbeing initiative and started treating it as a business performance lever. The numbers justify that snd GoJoe continue to lead the innovation in this space and wider benefits intelligence.”
Deloitte’s analysis of prevention investment in UK workplaces puts the return at £8 for every £1 spent, rising to £24 in high-engagement programmes. The gap between those two figures is participation. Programmes built around meaningful rewards and behavioural reinforcement get the engagement. The rest do not.
Gallup has done the industry a service by putting $10 trillion on the disengagement problem. The solution is already in market, and it has the data behind it.
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