Top 9 Factors That Impact Employee Motivation

"Motivation will almost always beat mere talent." - Norman Ralph Augustine

When you think about talent management, you usually think about hiring, succession, and skills. But here’s the thing: employee motivation is what actually turns talent into performance.

If staff motivation is low, even the best hiring strategy won’t fix falling productivity, disengaged employees, and rising attrition. When motivation in the workplace is high, people stay longer, do better work, and become brand ambassadors for your organisation.

Understanding the motivational factors that drive employees and their motivation is now a core part of any effective talent strategy. When you know what drives people, you can design roles, processes, a reward system, and a leadership style that keep your teams engaged and high performing.

Below are 9 practical factors in motivation that directly influence employee motivation, staff motivation, and workplace engagement and how to act on them.

1. Competitive and Fair Salary and Benefits for Employees

Employees who felt well-recognised at work were 45% less likely to leave their organisation within two years.

Pay isn’t the only driver of motivation, but it is the baseline. If compensation for employees is not competitive or fair, staff motivation drops quickly.

Salary and benefits influence:

• How valued employees feel compared with their colleagues and the external market
• Whether they stay long enough for you to see a return on hiring and training costs
• Their willingness to go the extra mile when work gets demanding

How to use this factor in talent management

• Regularly benchmark pay and benefits against your market and industry
• Make your reward system transparent to know how performance links to pay, bonuses, or promotions
• Look at total rewards: base pay, benefits for employees, flexible working hours, and recognition

Fair pay won’t magically transform performance, but it removes a big barrier to motivation in the workplace and supports long-term employee engagement.

2. Non-monetary incentives and Recognition

If salary is the foundation, employee recognition is the spark.

Many organisations underestimate how powerful simple, genuine appreciation can be. A lot of employees say they rarely hear “thank you” from their manager or superior, even when they deliver strong work results, as 39% of employees report that they don’t feel appreciated at work.

Non-monetary incentives and recognition can include:

• A specific, timely “thank you” message that calls out what went well
• Public appreciation in team meetings or on company channels
• “Employee of the month” or “star of the month” recognition
• Extra development opportunities or project ownership as a reward
• Small perks: vouchers, an extra day off, a team lunch

Done well, these practices:

• Reinforce the behaviours you want to see
• Make motivating employees a daily habit, not a yearly HR process
• Strengthen the emotional connection between employees and the organisation

How to use this factor in talent management

• Train managers in effective employee recognition as part of leadership skills development
• Build recognition into your performance and reward system, not just ad hoc gestures
• Encourage peer recognition so colleagues can celebrate each other’s contributions

If you want to keep motivating workers and reduce turnover, consistent recognition is one of the simplest, highest-impact tools you have.

3. Positive Relationship with colleagues

Recent Gallup data show that having a "best friend" at work has become more important since the start of the pandemic, even considering the dramatic increase in remote and hybrid work.

People spend a large share of their waking hours with their colleagues. That reality makes relationships at work a key driver of employee engagement.

When employees:

• Trust their colleagues
• Feel included in conversations
• Experience a genuine sense of belonging

…they’re more likely to collaborate, share ideas, and stay with the organisation. A toxic or isolated environment, on the other hand, kills staff motivation.

How to support colleague relationships and the workplace environment

• Invest in building team rituals: team lunches, informal meetups, virtual coffees
• Run regular team-building activities that include everyone’s abilities and preferences
• Use brainstorming or problem‑solving sessions where everyone can contribute
• Encourage cross-functional projects to strengthen the organisational climate

4. Trust and Support from Leadership

Employees don’t leave companies as often as they leave managers. The relationship between an employee and their line manager or superior is central to motivation and employees’ performance.

A constructive leadership style builds:

• Trust and psychological safety
• Clarity about expectations and work results
• Confidence that issues will be listened to and addressed

When employees feel psychologically safe, they’re more willing to speak up, share ideas, and admit mistakes early. That’s critical for high-performing teams.

How to strengthen this in your talent strategy

• Develop leadership skills around coaching, feedback, and active listening
• Train managers to have ongoing conversations, not just annual reviews
• Make it clear that part of a manager’s role is to understand what motivates each team member
• Encourage managers to remove blockers, not just set targets

Trust in leadership is one of the strongest drivers of employee engagement. If motivation in the workplace is low, start by looking at how managers show up.

5. A Strong and Inclusive Company Culture

According to the Morgan McKinley Global Workplace Trends Report, 19% of job seekers look for an empowering company culture at their new workplace.

Organisational culture is the invisible system of beliefs, behaviours, and norms that guides “how things are done here.” It shapes how employees feel, act, and think about their work.

A strong, inclusive workplace culture:

• Aligns individual goals with organisational goals
• Provides a clear mission and values that people can believe in
• Encourages healthy work behaviours and collaboration

When there’s a disconnect between what the organisation says and what employees experience, organisational climate suffers. This leads to low job satisfaction, declining staff motivation, and higher staff attrition.

How to build culture and work alignment

• Communicate your mission, values, and talent management priorities clearly and often
• Embed values into hiring, promotions, and performance decisions
• Create policies and rituals that support an inclusive, psychologically safe environment
• Regularly listen to employees through surveys and focus groups and act on feedback

A consistent, values-driven organisational work culture is not just an HR topic. It’s one of the most important motivational factors for long-term employee engagement and retention.

6. Training, professional development, and career growth

42% of employees look for Career growth and learning opportunities at their work.

For many people, one of the biggest reasons to stay with an employer is the chance to grow.

A lack of professional development is a common reason employees start looking elsewhere, especially high-potential employees. When people feel stuck, the motivation of the staff drops quickly.

Investing in learning and development:

• Builds skills your organisation needs for the future
• Helps employees see a clear career path
• Signals that you’re committed to their growth, not just their output

Examples of development-related motivators:

• Formal training programmes and workshops
• Stretch assignments and internal mobility opportunities
• Mentoring and coaching programmes
• Clear career pathways and transparent promotion criteria

How to use this in talent management

• Make professional development part of performance discussions, not a side topic
• Tie development plans to succession planning and talent pipelines
• Celebrate employees who take ownership of their growth

For many people, meaningful learning opportunities are one of the strongest drivers of employee engagement and a core element of motivation in the workplace.

7. Efficient Processes and Role Clarity

While processes on their own aren’t a motivational tool, they are closely linked to the areas that impact the desire, enthusiasm, and willingness of the employees. The workload, division of responsibilities, access to resources, and accountability all depend on the structure and efficiency of the processes on which the business runs.

According to the Morgan McKinley Global Workplace Trends Report 2024, nearly 1 in 2 professionals (44%) globally say that meaningful work and clearly defined responsibilities are the most important factors when considering a new role.

When processes are inefficient, or responsibilities are vague, motivation and employees’ performance suffer because:

• People don’t know what success looks like
• Work is duplicated or missed
• Decisions are slow and confusing

On the other hand, clear processes and roles make it easier to achieve strong work results and feel motivated.

How to improve this

• Make sure every role has clearly defined responsibilities and success measures
• Map out key processes and remove unnecessary steps
• Give employees access to the tools and information they need
• Clarify decision rights, so people know who decides what

When employees understand how their work fits into the bigger picture and feel accountable for outcomes, you get more high-performing teams and stronger workplace engagement.

8. Personal life

Headspace’s annual survey of mental health trends in the workplace found that nearly half (47%) of employees and two-thirds (66%) of CEOs say the majority of their stress or all of their stress comes from work, rather than their personal lives.

Personal challenges can cause issues with concentration, poor attention, lack of engagement, and even absenteeism.

As employees spend ⅓ of their days at work, there’s a lot that an employer and/or a manager can do to support members of their team who are going through a tough time. Being patient and showing understanding towards them is the first step.

Most organisations have clear policies, procedures, or guidelines that specify how employees can be supported during difficult times. These often fall under the 'work-life balance' umbrella and are especially helpful in situations when bereavement or grief strikes, including flexible working, paid time off or Employee Assistance Programmes.

By offering support and understanding, as well as guiding employees through the hard times, it is possible to build trust and loyalty among people who frequently will return stronger and more committed. Making their professional career another challenge to deal with and manage might create the opposite result, and as an employer, you may never regain their trust and commitment.

9. Performing meaningful work

Employees want to know that their work matters. When their role contributes to a bigger picture, employee motivation surges. Finding meaning is an existential question, and according to research, including Deloitte’s Talent 2020 series, performing meaningful work is one of the top 3 motivational drivers.

Finding the meaning behind work turns out to be linked to being able to make a difference to humanity through the job. By creating a culture of ethics, morals and establishing a CSR strategy, companies can encourage and guide their employees in the search for meaning.

Another element to consider is educating employees on the values and the mission of the organisations they work for, the foundation of seeing the meaning is understanding why the company does what it does and how it makes a difference.

Another aspect is showing the employees how the role they play within the company links to the company’s vision, mission, and values. Helping employees understand how they make an impact on the business and, through that, how they contribute to society is a clear and simple way of giving them a purpose.

Turn motivation into a talent advantage

Motivation is not static. What motivates a new joiner today may not be what keeps them engaged in three years.

That’s why talent management and talent solutions should treat motivation as a continuous focus, not a one‑off initiative. HR, line managers, and senior leaders need to work together to:

• Understand the key motivational factors for different groups of employees
• Build a work and culture environment that supports engagement, not just output
• Regularly review leadership style, reward systems, and development opportunities
• Keep listening and adjusting as your workforce and strategy evolve

When you intentionally design around employee motivation, staff motivation, and employee engagement, you don’t just get happier employees. You get better performance, lower hiring and training costs, and a stronger employer brand.

In short: if you want a truly high-performing organisation, start where it matters most with the everyday experience and motivation of your people.