A report has claimed that when it comes to motivation in the work place, only 16 percent of Irish employees are actively engaged in their work.

According to the State of the Global Workplace research carried out by Gallup, a management company, a whopping 64 percent of the Irish workforce is not engaging when working, while the final 20 percent of employees are claimed to be actively disengaged from their job altogether.

On this evening’s The Right Hook, as the majority of the country’s employees make their way home after their first day back following the bank holiday weekend, George asked what would it take to renew our sense of motivation and perk up our attitude.

While most employees would probably be happier with some more time off or a raise in their pay packet, employers tend to try to boost morale with organised activities and dreaded team-building exercises. In place of a much-needed pension, what better way to pique the interest of everybody than by forcing them to catch the CEO in a gesture of trust?

In celebration of groupthink outside-the-box thinking that everyone hates, here are five times that motivational exercises really went horribly wrong:

• Raising the stakes: While many employers might still quietly dictate that their employees cover up any tattoos for fear of offending any mild-mannered members of the public, one Brooklyn-based real estate company offered a wage increase to any employee who would get the company’s logo forever etched into his or her arm. Rapid Realty offered a 15 percent bump to its 800-strong workforce in 2013, and close to 100 employees have taken the CEO up on the offer. The other way Rapid Realty’s employees could gain a 15 percent payrise? By doing charity work.

The Rapid Realty employees at a tattoo parlour [Facebook]

• The bunny-suit lawsuit: In 2009, a UK trading company sent a bunch of employees off to a conference in Monaco, and decided to mark the occasion by handing out bunny and, as the court heard, “loose morals” costumes to its female employees to play a harem of women fawning over a male employee pretending to be Borat. The company then seemingly showed the video to the entire gathered workforce, leading to one high-profile legal case for sexual harassment.
• From water cooler to water boarding: Prosper Inc., a US motivational technique specialist, found the that one of the ways to inspire their employees would be to encourage them to work as hard as someone being temporarily drowned by means of torture. Joshua Christopherson, the manager who organised the waterboarding, used the method on employee Chad Hudgens, to the horror of his colleagues. Hudgens was suitably motivated to sue for damages.
• Guess who’s going to be fired next?!: In 2011, the owner of a chain of stores in Iowa issued a memo to his employees inviting them to win a $10 prize by guessing which one of their co-workers would be the next to get fired. The drive backfired when a large number of workers decided to quite instead.

The memo issued to employees of QC Mart [ABC]

• When in doubt, fake a kidnapping: The Swedish mobile phone developer Ericsson took a large number of its sales team on a trip to Athens, and figured that in lieu of a jaunty romp around the acropolis, it would be a lot more engaging to fake a kidnapping. About half of the team was aware of what was going on when two men armed with shot guns made their way onto the company’s coach, and proceeding to pretend kidnap one of the workers. Unfortunately for Ericsson, the Athens public was not in on the caper – and dutifully rang the local constabulary to report the kidnapping. Which then resulted in an embarrassed press release from the mobile giant describing the whole turn of events as “regrettable.”