Work motivation is the steering of human activity towards a desired objective by means of motives generated internally in a person or in his or her environment, on the basis of his or her needs. The aim of this research was to verify whether the different types of work motivation employees reported in their work were influenced by sector, job, gender and education, and to assess how the different types of motivation are linked to life satisfaction. The research involved the participation of 288 employees – 153 in the private sector and 116 in the public sector (19 did not specify). The results show that among all employees the most distinctly expressed factor is intrinsic motivation. No differences in any type of motivation were observed between sectors; between managers in the public and private sectors there were no statistically significant differences in either extrinsic motivation or intrinsic motivation or in life satisfaction.

Delovna motivacija je usmerjanje človekove aktivnosti k želenim ciljem, s pomočjo njegovih motivov, nastalih v človekovi notranjosti ali v njegovem okolju, na podlagi njegovih potreb. Namen raziskave je bil preveriti, ali se zaposleni razlikujejo v vrsti delovne motivacije glede na sektor, delovno mesto, spol in izobrazbo ter kako se različni tipi motivacije povezujejo z zadovoljstvom z življenjem. V raziskavi je sodelovalo 288 zaposlenih - 153 v zasebnem in 116 v javnem sektorju (19 jih tega ni označilo). Rezultati so pokazali, da je pri vseh zaposlenih najbolj izražena notranja motivacija, da med sektorjema ni prišlo do razlik pri nobenem tipu motivacije ter da med vodji v javnem in zasebnem sektorju ni prišlo do statistično pomembnih razlik ne v zunanji motivaciji, ne v notranji motivaciji in ne v zadovoljstvu z življenjem.