A recent study has shown that almost one in four people in Germany go to work unmotivated - the highest rate of employee dissatisfaction in the world. 

Employee satisfaction survey

A study by the Danish company, Peakon, has revealed that workers in Germany are particularly unsatisfied with their jobs. The study recorded employee responses to digital surveys that determine Employee Net Promoter Score, essentially asking: “How likely are you to recommend your employer?”

The study received 80 million responses from employees hailing from more than 160 countries worldwide, nine industries and multiple age groups. The researchers also evaluated around 14 million comments from employees.

Germans least satisfied worldwide

The study revealed that 23 percent of employees in Germany are unmotivated in the office. No other country has such a high rate of employee dissatisfaction; in fact, only the British have a similar rate of listlessness (22 percent).  

In America, on the other hand - famous worldwide as a country where workers receive very little holiday leave - just one in six is struggling with motivation problems at work. In Australia and New Zealand, the dominant emotion appears to be apathy: 42 percent of Aussies and 44 percent of Kiwis state that they are neither particularly motivated nor unmotivated at work. 

The problem with employee dissatisfaction

Peakon’s study found the workers who are less motivated are more likely - as you might expect - to quit their jobs. It also shows that they get sick more often: the number of sick days taken by dissatisfied employees is 75 percent higher than among their happier colleagues.

This can incur some serious costs to the company; Peakon estimates that sick days can cost a company with 10.000 employees over 48 million euros a year.

German companies need to do more

According to Martin Daniel, who was a community manager on the study, companies in Germany lack awareness. “Employees want to realise themselves,” he said. “There are some approaches that other countries can learn from, such as more freedom of choice or more flexible working hours."

This is backed up by the data: Germany has a very low percentage of people that work from home, only 8,6 percent. This is lower than the EU average of 10,3 percent and much lower than places like the Netherlands (30,9 percent) and Sweden (31,1 percent).