Four in every ten workers in the UK believe their efforts and achievements are ignored by their bosses, a new study suggests.
One4All Rewards Spotlight Awards found that 41% believe this to be some most or some of the time.
The survey suggests that employees need to work beyond their normal working hours in order to get noticed, with 21% saying it is the only way their hard work is recognised.
Working extra hours was second only to exceeding targets (27.53%) as the reason for receiving praise. Delivering high quality work (21.11%), good teamwork (19.86%) and maintaining a positive attitude fell into third, fourth and fifth place.
Employees taking on extra training or learning new skills are being overwhelmingly under-valued by UK employers, with workers believing their employers recognise this the least (just 5.62% of employers). Almost a third (30%) said their boss doesn't recognise or reward any of these.
Declan Byrne, managing director at the One4all Rewards, said: “When you consider how few workers are being positively recognised or rewarded for demonstrating exemplary skills and efforts at work, it’s really surprising that the British workforce is as productive as it is.
“Bosses need to do more to reward qualities like these, to encourage more widespread uptake of them in the workplace - this needn’t be expensive or complicated, a simple meeting with the worker in question to express how their hard work has been noticed and has impressed, or an employee of the month scheme where one prize is awarded per month, will be enough to reinforce these positive efforts."
