For the first time on record, Romanian employees’ main motivation shifted from salary and benefits to the meaning and results of their work in 2025, as shown by the Romanian Employee Wellbeing Index. RoCoach and Novel Research conducted the study on a national urban sample of 1,000 employees.

The data showed that 27.5% of employees were motivated mainly by meaning and outcomes, overtaking salary and material benefits (19.3%). Stability (14.8%) and autonomy (11.7%) followed as additional engagement factors.

At the same time, the main factors undermining employee wellbeing are no longer linked primarily to workload or technology, but to organisational relationships. Lack of recognition affected 9.1% of employees, lack of clarity 7.9%, and internal conflicts 7.8%, pointing to shortcomings in feedback, dialogue, and mutual respect within organisations.

Meanwhile, exhaustion in 2025 was most commonly driven by excessive workload, cited by 23.3% of respondents, constant pressure from tight deadlines at 19.6%, and poor work-life balance at 16.4%.

According to the report, employees are more willing to accept heavy workloads and pressure when their work is meaningful, recognised, and allows for a degree of self-control. When these elements are missing, the same level of effort is experienced as emotionally draining. 

As a result, burnout is not seen as a direct consequence of intense work, but rather of work carried out in environments perceived as unfair, unpredictable, or insufficiently explained.

“We see that people are not drained by long working hours, but by operating in environments where their efforts are poorly communicated, undervalued, and disconnected from a larger purpose. When work lacks meaning, any workload feels burdensome,” said Mihai Stănescu, Founder of RoCoach, Romania’s first coaching company and developer of the Organizational Transition Quotient (ORQ).

He noted that employees increasingly view work not just as a source of income, but as a place where contributions should be valued, coherent, and meaningful.

The same report showed that motivation and pressure evolve as employees advance within organisations. Execution-level roles tend to be dominated by intense workloads and are mainly motivated by stability and tangible results. Middle managers reported feeling organisational tensions more acutely, while executives are primarily motivated by autonomy, meaning, and impact, often at the cost of work-life balance.

For long-tenured employees, regardless of hierarchy, energy drains shift over time from uncertainty and lack of clarity to sustained high workloads and constant pressure, while motivation moves away from salary towards stability, meaning, autonomy, and visible outcomes.

Meanwhile, despite widespread public debate around artificial intelligence, the report suggested that technology is not a primary source of stress for most employees. Only 5% identified AI and technology as a major cause of exhaustion, while 47.1% said these tools helped them at work. Another 13.9% reported a negative impact. 

The study concluded that AI is perceived less as a threat and more as an amplifier of existing organisational realities, supporting work in well-structured environments and intensifying pressure where processes and leadership are unclear.

The Employee Wellbeing Index 2025 is a composite indicator designed to measure the quality of Romanian employees’ work experience across five core dimensions: clarity, autonomy, recognition, fairness, and human relationships. Each dimension is scored on a 0–100 scale, with the overall index reflecting workplace wellbeing. The tool shows strong psychometric validation, with a Cronbach’s Alpha of 0.891. 

Data were collected between November and December 2025 using the CAWI method on an urban sample of 1,000 employees.

irina.marica@romania-insider.com

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