According to USA Today, firms are spending billions of dollars to fire up workers—with little results. The article states:
There has been exhaustive academic research trying to find out what motivates workers, and it has turned up almost no evidence that motivational spending makes any difference.
Poll-taker Gallup analyzed its massive database and determined that 55 percent of employees have no enthusiasm for their work—Gallup uses the term "not engaged"—based on several criteria, including loyalty and the desire to improve job performance. One in five (19 percent) are so uninterested or negative about their jobs that they poison the workplace to the point that companies might be better off if they called in sick.
Further into the article, Spencer Johnson, author of Who Moved My Cheese? states he "believes research may one day show that the only long-lasting motivation will come from employees who bring it to work in the form of God, spirituality, or something else that causes them to 'rise to a higher purpose.'"