Britain’s workforce is suffering from a motivation crisis that is seriously harming productivity, research from management consultancy Hay Group reveals today.

According to Hay Group’s What’s My Motivation? report, just 15% of UK workers consider themselves ‘highly motivated’, with as many as a quarter (24%) admitting to ‘coasting’ and a further tenth (8%) being ‘completely demotivated’.

It found under half (39%) of employees love their job, and even less (17%), are doing their ‘dream job’.

But the most worrying finding for UK PLC is that poor staff motivation is cutting productivity by close to half, with a fifth (21%) of British workers consider themselves ‘very effective’ in their current job role.

It found employees believe that they would be as much as 45% more productive if they were doing a job they loved, and 28% more productive with better training. A 45% increase in employee productivity could be worth up to £340bn added output per year to the UK service sector alone, with a 28% increase worth some £212 billion.

Poor management is also part of the problem, the study shows, with employees feeling they could be 28% more productive with a better boss.