I told you in my blog posted on June 7th that data emanating from the Lane4 ‘What’s Motivating You?’ survey were in the process of being analyzed. The report has now been published and I want to share the headline results with you.
The survey attracted nearly 650 responses, reinforcing that motivation among employees is a hot topic in organizations right now. The most interesting finding, for me anyway, emerged from the question “Over the past year, what one thing had the most negative impact on your motivation at work?” The top five sources of demotivation that emerged, in order of ranking, were:
- Leadership – including leaders’ indecision, lack of support, and insensitivity
- Relationships – being surrounded by negativity and low morale
Workload – the increased workload resulting from recruitment freezes and redundancies - Pay/reward – linked mainly to pay cuts or freezes and lack of bonus payments
- Redundancies – related to the threat of redundancy and witnessing redundancies among colleagues
These findings are intriguing because we normally think of the conditions accompanying recession – the pay freezes, lack of bonus payments – as eating away at employees’ motivation. The inherent danger in this assumption is that leaders can feel helpless, or at least feel they have little control, over their people’s engagement because their motivation ‘tools’ have been taken away. These findings suggest that there is much leaders can do – starting with the recognition that they themselves have such a big influence.
Leaders figure prominently throughout the report. And it’s not all bad! According to the data, they are doing well at challenging their people to perform, believing in them, and allowing them the freedom to get on with their jobs. But they appear to be falling down on providing direction, understanding what really drives their people, and providing a great role model to follow.
Click on this link to read the full report.
