Research finds a growing disconnect between effort and reward

In the UK and Europe, employee motivation has been declining for years. There is a growing gap between effort and reward.

Culture Amp, a platform for employee experience and people analytics, has released new data which, according to the company, shows that recognition in organizations is at its lowest level in five years and that employees feel less visible during performance reviews.

Employees still believe in the importance of their work but their motivation is being undermined. Researchers said this could be due to a lack in meaningful feedback by line managers, and unclear paths towards high performance.

These data were derived from Culture Amp’s latest industry benchmarks. They are based on millions of responses from around the world to better understand organisational performance and culture.

Only 69% of employees believed they were being rewarded appropriately, while 60% thought the wrong people had been rewarded. This is a five-year-low.

The analysis also revealed that the confidence in performance evaluations was eroding. Employees’ agreement that performance evaluations accurately reflect their employees’ efforts dropped from 77% in 2020 to only 70% by 2024.

Culture Amp reported that the top three global motivators for employees are: Knowing they can grow at their current employer; Leaders communicating a motivating message; and Having confidence in the leadership at the company.

Researchers found that despite limited opportunities for career advancement, employees still valued on-the-job training. The employees viewed challenges at work as opportunities for growth and showed strong self-determination to drive their own development.

The report stated that, “In today’s resource constrained macroeconomic environment intrinsic motivation remains high”, adding that, “What’s missing is greater extrinsic assistance from companies.”

The analysis concluded that leaders should reflect on the fact many employees do not lack ambition, but they lack clarity. Without a clear path to high performance they are left to try to figure out what makes top performers different. Leaders must ensure that feedback contains specific examples of ‘greatness’ – and not only what needs to be fixed.

Leaders set the tone of what is valued and rewarded. Managers often provide task level feedback. Leaders must make sure that the feedback they provide is based on strategic thinking, impact, and innovation rather than technical execution.

Engagement in the UK fell by 1%, to 65%.

Arne Sjostrom is regional director for people science at Culture Amp in EMEA. He said that despite the stability of commitment scores, leaders may be misled into thinking they have things under control. Motivation and productivity are closely related. If organisations do not adapt, they may experience a great resignation 2.0, where talent leaves as soon as there is a new opportunity.

To combat this trend leaders need to recognize employees’ contributions, make investments in their development including on-the job-learning and engage them by providing a compelling future vision and a clear way forward.

Culture Amp updates its benchmarks every six months and analyzes newly collected data. The benchmark research was based on 1.4 billion answers to questions, examining trends in 62 million surveys of 8,200 global companies. This approach, it said, allowed them to track changes in workplace dynamics, uncovering patterns of employee motivation, engagement and team collaboration over time.

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