New requirements for the psychosocial work environment: Why dialogue matters more than ever
Eirin Eriksen Horvei
October 14, 2026
At a time when many people are back from working from home with new or different expectations of their work situation, there is a lot to clarify. The employee appraisal is a good place to start, but it can benefit from being renewed with the Motivation Analysis™ and a digital tool that supports and simplifies HR processes.
Many people find the employee appraisal of little use, and at times downright uncomfortable, says Cecilie Lycke, CEO of Motivati. She points to the typical pitfalls: the manager googles “employee appraisal form” and is served a form with general questions that are supposed to bring out a good dialogue. When the conversation takes place, it is not adapted to the individual employee. The conversation gets derailed. No concrete measures are agreed.
And what happens afterwards? The minutes often end up in a drawer, and you may be relieved to be able to tick the box for having held the conversation. The employee leaves the meeting demotivated, and relieved that it will be a while until the next one.
For Motivati, it has been important to create a simple tool that makes a difference for manager and employee – especially in the dialogue itself.
– There is so much value to be gained from talking to each individual, says Motivati organisational adviser Malin Elisabet Lilletvedt. – It makes it easier to prevent unwanted turnover, sickness absence, a poor working environment and so on. With the Motivati Motivation Analysis™ , we make sure the employee has the opportunity to take responsibility for their own work situation. The analysis provides unique insight that makes it clear to both which motivational factors the employee considers important or less important, and how they are looked after. This makes clarifying expectations much easier.
– Employee appraisals that feel irrelevant to the employee are not just a waste of time, but can actually damage the employee's engagement and motivation, says Associate Professor Mads Nordmo Arnestad at BI Norwegian Business School, Campus Bergen. In 2018, he carried out an impact study to evaluate the Motivati method.
The results showed that there is an empirical basis for saying that the Motivati method works better in several areas than the usual paper-based method we have been used to.
– Among other things, we found that participants in the Motivati group felt they received significantly more recognition for the positive things they do in their job, which we know is very important for motivation, work engagement and learning, says the BI researcher, adding:
– In general, we learn much more when we are made aware of what we are doing right and well than when we are criticised for the opposite.
Motivati has a wide range of customers, and both small and large organisations get great value from the method and the tool. Camilla Heidenreich Bommen, CEO of SuperOffice Norway, has used Motivati for several years and confirms that the quality of the conversations has improved considerably with the Motivation Analysis™ as a starting point. – Both manager and employee know what to focus on in the conversation, and where any challenges lie. Not only have we become better at employee appraisals, it has actually become easier to lead as well.
