Employers favour quick fix approach to staff motivation, reveals new survey

Citation

(1999), "Employers favour quick fix approach to staff motivation, reveals new survey", Leadership & Organization Development Journal, Vol. 20 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/lodj.1999.02220fab.002

Employers favour quick fix approach to staff motivation, reveals new survey

Keywords Employee benefits, Employee relations, Training, Motivation

A recent survey of a random sample of 200 UK companies with over 100 employees shows that 70 per cent of companies consider perks to be a more effective means of motivating staff than training and professional development. In addition, 74 per cent of respondents believe their employees value benefits, such as pension schemes, company cars and gym membership, more highly than training opportunities. However, the survey also found that companies with higher growth rates are almost three times as likely to favour training over benefits than their low-growth counterparts.

In general, the survey shows that the most successful companies have a good understanding of the link between training and improved staff motivation. Of companies with annual turnover growth of over 20 per cent, 71 per cent would rather give training than perks as a means of boosting morale, compared with only 31 per cent of companies experiencing less than 5 per cent growth in turnover. In addition, almost a third of high-growth companies disputed the claim that their employees appreciate benefits more than career development and training opportunities

Other findings of the survey include:

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  Employee benefits are more widely provided than professional development and training by UK companies. Eighty-eight per cent of companies surveyed provided some or all employees with a pension, and 93 per cent with a car. In comparison, 76 per cent of companies provide external management skills training and 71 per cent provide job-specific training externally.

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  High-growth companies spend more on training and professional development than their low-growth counterparts. Companies with an annual turnover growth of over 20 per cent spend, on average, over 10 per cent of their salary bill on training, whereas companies growing at less than 5 per cent a year spend, on average, under 5 per cent of their salary bill on training.

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