10 Employee Motivation Issues You Need to Know

Employee motivation is a hot topic…with good reason. When motivation issues arise, productivity drops, and performance suffers. Dealing with motivation issues requires understanding their root causes and implementing targeted solutions.

Motivated employees are more productive, perform better in their respective roles, and help their companies generate more revenue. In other words, they’re essential to business success.

The question is, how do you create a motivating work environment for your team? You start by evaluating your business and looking for common employee motivation issues.

In this article, we explain what employee motivation is and why it’s so important in the workplace. Then we tackle 10 employee motivation issues that might be plaguing your organization right now and teach you how to solve them. Sound like a plan? Let’s get to it.

Key Takeaways

• Employee motivation drives productivity, performance, and profitability. Motivated teams are 17% more productive and 21% more profitable.
• Common motivation issues include poor leadership, misaligned values, lack of communication, low confidence, and no work-life balance.
• Fix motivation issues by improving leadership, aligning company values, communicating regularly, providing feedback, and offering growth opportunities.
• Workplace conflict and lack of interesting projects kill motivation. Tackle toxic environments with purposeful challenges.
• Employee engagement and recognition are critical; invest in platforms like Kudoboard to celebrate achievements and boost team morale.

What is Employee Motivation?

Employee motivation refers to the level of commitment an employee has to their work. When motivation issues emerge, you’ll notice employees arriving late, producing subpar results, and disengaging from team activities.

Motivated employees typically show up on time, work harder and faster than their unmotivated peers, and produce better results. They tend to have better attitudes, too. These things are important because they often lead to happier customers, higher profits, and more success.

Good news: you can cultivate employee motivation within your organization. We’ll give you tips in a later section of this article. But first, let’s talk about the two kinds of motivation:

• Intrinsic Motivation: The kind of motivation that’s driven by internal emotions. Intrinsically motivated people complete tasks because it makes them feel good inside.
• Extrinsic Motivation: The kind of motivation that’s driven by external influences. Extrinsically motivated people complete tasks to earn rewards or avoid punishments.

To be clear, most people experience both kinds of motivations at different times.

For example, a job seeker might be intrinsically motivated to attend a networking conference because they enjoy connecting with like-minded individuals. But they might be extrinsically motivated to fill out job applications. The process isn’t fun, but they really want a new gig.

Also, worth mentioning, one kind of motivation isn’t better than the other. You just need to identify how your team is motivated in different scenarios and use that fact to your advantage.

Why is Employee Motivation Important?

Now that we know what employee motivation is, let’s talk about why it’s important. Spot employee motivation issues early, and you can fix problems before they tank your bottom line.

Left unchecked, motivation issues at work can cost your company thousands in lost productivity. Here are three benefits your company will experience once it learns to motivate its staff:

Productivity

According to recent studies, motivated teams are 17% more productive than their unmotivated counterparts. It makes sense. When you’re motivated to complete your work, you’ll find ways to get it done more efficiently. You can then use the time you save to complete other tasks.

Performance

Motivated employees don’t just get more done; they produce better work. Think about it: when you care about your job, you’ll put in more effort. This effort will almost always lead to improved results. And if it doesn’t, you’ll recalibrate your approach and try to level up. After all, you care.

Revenue Potential

Studies show that motivated and engaged employees can increase a company’s profitability by 21%. To put that number in context, pretend your organization generates $10M in revenue per year. By properly motivating your team, if your organization makes $10M annually, a 21% increase would be about $12.1M, which is an extra $2.1M.

Common Employee Motivation Issues (And How to Fix Them!)

So, why aren’t your employees motivated to complete their work? In all likelihood, your company is suffering from one or more of these common employee motivation issues:

1. Poor Leadership

Is there anything worse than having a bad boss?

Poor leadership comes in many forms. There’s the micromanager, who has his hands in every project. Then there’s the leader who’s so hands-off that his employees don’t know what to work on. And we can’t forget about the boss who steals credit and deflects blame.

Each of these leaders can cause their employees to lose motivation. (They’ll also lead to less organizational success, but that’s a different topic for a different day.)

How to Solve This Issue

We won’t lie to you, this isn’t an easy issue to solve. You need to start by hiring and/or elevating good leaders. Then you need to train these people to do their jobs effectively.

We suggest outlining a clear chain of command, too. That way, everyone knows who’s in charge.

Lastly, encourage the leaders you put in place to set clear objectives, outline job descriptions, and commit to regular communication. These will help increase each employee’s motivation.

2. Misaligned Values

Employees who don’t like their company culture are 24% more likely to quit their jobs.

This matters because company values play a key role in shaping company culture. If your employees don’t believe in the things your organization stands for, they won’t be motivated to work hard.

Put yourself in your employees’ shoes. Would you work your fingers to the bone to complete projects you deem irrelevant? Probably not. You’d be even less likely to complete projects you deem destructive. In fact, you’d probably start looking for a new job as soon as possible.

Misaligned values are a common employee motivation issue. Good news: there are simple things you can do to mitigate this problem for your organization…

How to Solve This Issue

First, re-evaluate your hiring process.

Use the recruitment stage to broadcast your company’s values. That way, you only attract applicants who hold similar beliefs. Then infuse your onboarding procedures with these ideals.

Next, consult your current employees. What do they care about? Do these things align with organizational objectives? If so, consider adding them to your list of company values. This will increase your employees’ motivation, job satisfaction, and overall performance.

3. Little Communication

Imagine this…

Your boss asks you to complete an important project for the company. You want to do a good job, so you really throw yourself into it, early mornings, late nights, weekends. You finally finish and send your boss an email. He responds with, “Thanks, but this isn’t a priority anymore.“

You’re furious. You feel like you just wasted the last two weeks of your life. Worse, you feel like your company doesn’t respect you. And you’re definitely not motivated to continue working hard.

Here’s the thing: this whole scenario could have been avoided if your boss had just communicated with you. But he didn’t.

How to Solve This Issue

Take time to communicate with your team.

Host team meetings and one-on-one sit-downs. Send department-wide emails. Invest in an intranet solution for your company. Do what you have to do to keep employees informed.

Communication has numerous benefits. First, it will ensure your team is productive, because they’ll always know what projects to focus on. Two, it will help your employees feel like valued members of your team.

4. Low Self-Confidence

If your team isn’t enjoying what they do, staying motivated can be tough. And when motivation dips, performance can too, which isn’t great for anyone. The good news? Fixing this is easier than you might think.

How to Solve This

Start by really getting to know your employees: what are their strengths, what do they genuinely enjoy doing, and how can you give them projects that match their skills and spark their interest?

Don’t be afraid to challenge your team, too. Assign tasks that push them a little, things that need focus and effort. It might sound counterintuitive, but easy work can get boring fast. Most people actually love a challenge, especially when it aligns with what they’re passionate about.

By mixing skill-based projects with just the right level of challenge, you can keep motivation high and your team happy and productive.

5. No Work-Life Balance

You’re not overworking your employees, are you?

Poor work-life balance often leads to low motivation. In extreme cases, it can lead to burnout. Both scenarios are bad for employee morale and team performance. 

Proper work-life balance, on the other hand, will lead to greater job satisfaction and encourage your staff to work harder. When this happens, your company will be able to achieve more.

How to Solve This Issue

Fortunately, there are things you can do to ensure your team achieves proper work-life balance.

For example, you can pay special attention to each employee’s workload to make sure they never have too much on their plate. You can also provide them with flexible working arrangements. 

If you do allow your employees to work remotely, offer them flexible working hours too. This will help them balance their professional and personal lives, which will increase motivation.

6. Lack of Interesting Projects

If your employees don’t enjoy their work, they’ll struggle to stay motivated. And if they struggle to stay motivated, their performance will dip, and your company will suffer. This is obviously bad, which is why you need to solve this issue as quickly as you can. Fortunately, it’s not that hard…

How to Solve This Issue

Get to know your employees.

What are they good at? What do they enjoy doing? What can you do to assign them projects that complement their skills and pique their interests on a regular basis?

Also, stretch your team. Assign them challenging tasks that require effort and focus. While this may sound counterintuitive, here’s the truth: easy tasks are boring. When workers get bored, they lose motivation. Most employees appreciate tough projects that align with their interests.

7. Consistent Workplace Conflict

Nothing kills motivation like workplace conflict.

There’s a reason for this: workplace conflict leads to low team morale. When morale is low, employees don’t feel like working. More often than not, they daydream about not working.

This is why it’s so important to monitor interpersonal relationships on your team. Doing so will help you build a better workplace culture and avoid conflicts that sap your workforce engagement.

How to Solve This Issue

First, look for signs of a toxic work environment. These include constant bickering between employees, complaints to Human Resources, and openly sabotaging projects.

When you see the signs, deal with them immediately, either by talking to employees or by removing them from your team. This won’t always be easy to do, but it needs to be done.

Second, do your best to align personalities in an effective way. For example, if Jack and Sally always butt heads, prevent them from working together unless it’s absolutely necessary. Then set strict rules for them to follow. This simple tactic will decrease conflict and improve results.

8. Zero One-on-One Feedback

According to research, 75% of employees believe that feedback is valuable, 65% of employees claim to want more feedback than they currently get, and 69% of employees say they would work harder if they felt like their efforts were better recognized. So, employee feedback is vital. 

Regular feedback helps employees get better at their jobs, which will make them feel more confident and achieve higher job satisfaction. It will also help your company meet goals in less time. How so? Simple: your employees will do better work, which will generate better results.

Just remember, team feedback is great, but individual feedback is better. You want to give your employees one-on-one attention to help them improve and make them feel valued.

How to Solve This Issue

All you have to do is commit to giving employee feedback on a regular basis. Then figure out a cadence and delivery approach that works for you and your team.

For example, you might decide that weekly feedback is best. To make it happen, you commit to scheduling one-on-one meetings with each of your team members on Thursdays and Fridays.

Can’t commit to weekly feedback? Try bi-weekly, or even monthly. Some feedback is better than none. Do what you can now, then try to increase your frequency in the future.

9. No Career Growth Opportunities

Employees lose motivation when they aren’t given professional development opportunities. They’ll think, “Why should I work hard? I can’t level up my career in this position anyway…“

Now, “professional development opportunities” can vary. You could offer your team resources to improve their skill sets. Or the chance to lead certain projects and flex their leadership muscles. Or develop a path to promotion within your company for ambitious individuals.

We can’t tell you which development opportunities to offer your team. All we can say is, your staff will be more motivated to perform if you offer them something in the way of advancement.

How to Solve This Issue

Find ways to help your employees improve their skill sets and career trajectory.

As mentioned above, you can do this by providing them with developmental resources, more responsibility, or bona fide promotion paths that they can follow.

The key is matching the right opportunities to each team member. Some of them might only want a raise. Others might want to climb the corporate ladder. Talk with individual staffers to determine their goals. Then brainstorm ways to help turn those goals into reality.

10. Disregard for Employee Engagement

Last but not least, you’ll never be able to fully motivate your employees if you neglect employee engagement strategies. Your team simply won’t care enough to work hard.

This is actually good news because it will force you to get creative and interact with your team. Doing so will help you improve employee productivity and performance, limit office-wide stress and turnover, and supercharge your recruitment pipeline. Honestly, there are no downsides to employee engagement, which is why you should commit to this strategy immediately!

How to Solve This Issue

Many of the things we’ve already talked about will help you engage your team.

Focus on aligning company and employee values, communicating with your staff on a regular basis, prioritizing work-life balance, offering career advancement opportunities, etc.

But you can also take things a step further and invest in a tried and true employee engagement platform. There are a bunch of tools in this category, but few offer the ease-of-use and powerful features that Kudoboard does. Use our solution to recognize your team for their hard work, celebrate their accomplishments and career milestones, and facilitate peer-to-peer feedback!

Keep Your Employees Motivated With Kudoboard

Worried that your employees aren’t properly motivated? 

This is a big challenge, especially if you want your business to grow and succeed. Fortunately, you don’t need an Einstein-level intellect to solve this problem. You just need to invest in Kudoboard. Doing so will help you motivate your staff.

What is Kudoboard, you ask? It’s an intuitive platform that allows you to recognize your team for their efforts. Simply sign up for the service, invite your employees to join, and send them digital notes, images, and videos to celebrate their successes. You can even encourage your staff to do the same. After all, peer-to-peer recognition is key to creating an inclusive work environment.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do employees feel motivated in their roles?

It varies by workplace. Studies show that motivated employees are 17% more productive, but many struggle with motivation issues at work due to poor leadership, lack of recognition, or misaligned values.

How do you fix a bad employee motivation survey?

Ask specific, actionable questions about recognition, workload, communication, and career growth. Avoid vague queries. Use results to identify employee motivation issues and implement targeted solutions that address real concerns.

How can you help employees feel more motivated at work?

Learn how to fix motivation issues by providing regular feedback and recognition, creating career growth opportunities, promoting work-life balance, and fostering open communication that makes employees feel valued.

Why do I struggle to maintain motivation?

Common causes include poor leadership, lack of recognition, misaligned values, workplace conflict, or no growth opportunities. Identify which employee motivation issues affect you, then work with leadership to find solutions.