Appreciation Motivates Employees to Work Harder

Written by
John Quinn
John Quinn

It’s the carrot, not the stick that keeps employees motivated in the workplace, new research shows.

A study by online career site Glassdoor revealed that more than 80 percent of employees say they’re motivated to work harder when their boss shows appreciation for their work, compared to less than 40 percent who are inspired to work harder when their boss is demanding or because they fear losing their job. In our recent study, 65% of respondents admitted that they would work harder if they felt their contributions would be noticed by management.

Showing gratitude also helps keep workers from developing a wandering eye. More than half of employees surveyed in a Bonusly study said they would stay longer at their company if they felt more appreciation from their boss.

Survey says: appreciation works

We’ve seen similar results from Bonusly users. We survey every user of our engagement platform regularly, and most recently we uncovered some very encouraging results

  • Employee motivation: 83% of respondents said that Bonusly improved employee motivation.
  • Employee engagement: 93% of respondents said that Bonusly improved employee engagement.
  • Employee satisfaction: 89% of respondents said that Bonusly improved employee satisfaction.
  • Employee retention: 48% of respondents said that Bonusly improved employee retention.
  • Collaboration between teams: 75% of respondents said that Bonusly improved collaboration between teams.


Take a tour of Bonusly to see for yourself.

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Originally published on February 21, 2014 → Last updated October 13, 2022

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John Quinn

John is one of the cofounders of Bonusly and formerly worked in the Engineering department at Bonusly, where he lent his broad experience in all aspects of developing and running large-scale, world-class, high-availability web infrastructures.

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Bonusly is a fun, personal employee recognition and rewards platform that helps people feel engaged and successful at work. ✨ Learn more about us.