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Stuart Gentle Publisher at Onrec

The top three demotivators of the workplace: being invisible and undervalued, a lack of recognition and bad managers

A new study from global employee engagement company, Reward Gateway, has found that over seven in ten UK employees want their employers to do more to motivate them.

  • Over seven in ten (73%) employees say their employers could do more to motivate them
  • There are large discrepancies between what motivated and unmotivated employees value
  • Lack of motivation impacts both performance and mental health

A new study from global employee engagement company, Reward Gateway, has found that over seven in ten UK employees want their employers to do more to motivate them.

The research, which surveyed over 2,000 UK employees, found that the less motivated an employee is, the more likely they are to value their salary as a motivator. In the UK, those that are not very motivated in their current job are most likely to say that they’re motivated by their salary (41%), good working relationships (37%), having a purpose (21%)

Whereas, those who class themselves as extremely motivated in their current job are most likely to say that they’re motivated by job satisfaction (52%), feeling respected (37%), having a purpose (37%) and good working relationships (37%). 

The research has also uncovered the alarming effects that being unmotivated has on employees. The top five effects being:

  • Mood worsens (60%)
  • Reduction in productivity levels (48%)
  • Declining mental health (46%)
  • Reduction in quality of work (40%)
  • Diet suffers (28%)

Meanwhile, over a quarter (26%) say their relationships with family and friends suffer and 2 in 10 admit to drinking more alcohol when unmotivated.  

Despite these effects, those employees that aren’t motivated indicated that they would stay in a job for 11 months, meaning that productivity and general wellbeing will suffer. 

Commenting on the research, Reward Gateway's Group Director of Product &

Client Success, Rob Boland said, “It's clear that employers can be doing more to motivate and engage their people in the right way.

“From our research and our experience with thousands of businesses with whom we’ve worked, the companies driving the greatest commercial results are the best at addressing employee motivation. These businesses center their engagement strategies on strategically recognising their employees to boost visibility for great work, communicating openly and honestly with their employees, and surveying their people regularly to understand how to constantly improve and adapt their strategy. 

"To continue to help our clients motivate and engage their workforces, we’ve worked hard to make sure our products support what today’s employees crave at work: respect, purpose, and relationships."

For more information about the motivation study, please visit the blog here.


About Reward Gateway

Reward Gateway helps more than 1,700 of the world’s leading companies, in 23 countries, to attract, engage, and retain their best people with an employee engagement platform that brings employee benefits, discounts, and perks, reward and recognition, employee wellbeing,employee communications and employee surveys into one unified hub. Clients include American Express, Unilever, Samsung, IBM, and McDonald’s. For more information, please visit: www.rewardgateway.com