10 minutes · 55 questions · 11 motivators

Intrinsic Motivation Assessment for Teams

A 10-minute, 55-question assessment that tells each manager which of 11 intrinsic motivators the people on their team need most, and what that means for the next 1:1.

Your engagement survey told you the score moved. It did not tell your managers what to do about it on Monday. Attuned scores each person against a global norm, labels every motivator Need-to-have, Nice-to-have or Neutral, and gives the manager a profile to read before the conversation.

Book a demo Download the State of Motivation report
AI-assisted profiles Team and individual insights Team plans from $99 per user per year
Attuned manager dashboard showing motivator profiles for each team member
The Problem

Engagement Scores Do Not Tell Managers What to Do Next

What does this person need from me to do their best work? The survey does not answer it.

Two employees post the same engagement score for opposite reasons: one is starved of autonomy, the other of structure. The survey cannot tell them apart. The manager has to, in a 1:1, with no data.

Attuned scores all 11 motivators for each person and flags the two or three that are Need-to-have, before that 1:1 happens.

What other tools tell you Attuned motivation assessment
Shows how employees feel Shows what motivates each employee
Produces team-level scores Produces individual and team motivator profiles
A personality test describes how someone tends to behave Shows what each person needs in order to do their best work
A performance review records what someone delivered Shows the conditions that make the next quarter's delivery likelier
The Solution

Make Motivation Visible

Each person answers 55 forced-choice questions in about 10 minutes. Attuned scores their relative need for 11 intrinsic motivators from 0 to 100 against a global norm, then labels each one Need-to-have, Nice-to-have or Neutral. The manager gets the profile, and so does the employee, on their own My Motivators page.

Managers learn what each person needs in order to do good work, so the next 1:1 has a subject and the next piece of feedback is phrased for the person receiving it.

The same profile carries into onboarding, into how feedback gets delivered, and into how managers design meaningful work for the people they lead.

An Attuned motivator report showing each motivator scored from 0 to 100 and classified as Need-to-have, Nice-to-have, or Neutral
How It Works

How the Intrinsic Motivation Assessment Works

From a 10-minute survey to ongoing manager insight that tracks how motivation changes over time.

1

Employees Complete the Assessment

Each person completes Attuned's 55-question forced-choice questionnaire. It measures what a person values at work, which holds steady until something real changes: a promotion, a new manager, a move.

2

Attuned Creates a Motivation Profile

The results turn into a personal profile that scores each motivator from 0 to 100 and labels it Neutral, Nice-to-have, or Need-to-have.

3

Managers Get Practical Insight

The profile tells a manager which motivators to aim at, which to leave alone, and where their own motivators differ from this person's.

4

Teams Track Change Over Time

Motivators shift after a promotion, a new manager, a move. A retake sets the new profile beside the old one and shows the manager which motivator moved.

A sample question from the Attuned intrinsic motivation assessment, showing a forced-choice slider between two statements
The Cadence

What Happens After the Assessment

The assessment is the ten minutes at the start. What managers use week to week is what runs after it.

1
Once, 10 minutes

The Assessment

55 forced-choice questions establish what a person values, scored 0 to 100 against a global norm and labelled Need-to-have, Nice-to-have or Neutral. Retaken after a promotion, a new manager, or a move.

2
Recurring

The Motivation Satisfaction Pulse

The pulse then tracks whether each of those motivators is being met, reading by reading, so a dip names the motivator it belongs to. Reported with a three-person minimum per team, so no single answer is identifiable.

3
Before each 1:1

AI TalkCoach

AI TalkCoach reads the profile and the latest movement, then answers at the scale of one conversation. Ask about one person for a summary of what they value and what to do next, or about two people to see the overlap and the motivator gaps that explain most friction. A daily tip lands in Google Calendar or Outlook before the meeting.

The Field

How Intrinsic Motivation Is Measured

Every established measure of intrinsic motivation is a self-report questionnaire. What separates them is the target: a single task, three universal needs, or the specific job a specific person does.

1

One Task, in a Lab

The Intrinsic Motivation Inventory and the Work Preference Inventory ask how a person experienced a single activity, or which way they lean in general.

3

Three Universal Needs

The basic psychological needs scales and the Multidimensional Work Motivation Scale read autonomy, competence and relatedness, usually at the level of a group.

11

Eleven Motivators, This Person's Job

Attuned scores relative need across 11 intrinsic motivators, 0 to 100 against a global norm, and writes the result for the manager who has the next conversation.

The best known instrument is the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI), developed within self-determination theory. The full version runs to 45 items across seven subscales: interest and enjoyment, perceived competence, effort, value and usefulness, felt pressure and tension, perceived choice, and relatedness. Researchers usually field a shorter adapted version, and its authors are precise about the claim: of the seven subscales, only interest and enjoyment measures intrinsic motivation itself. The rest describe the conditions around it.

It was built to assess one target activity in a laboratory experiment. It will establish that a participant found a task absorbing. It stops short of naming which of the 11 motivators is going unmet for this person, and what to say about it in Thursday's 1:1.

The field's original behavioral test for intrinsic motivation was to leave the room. The experimenter announced that the session was over, stepped out, and timed how long the subject kept playing with the puzzle anyway. Elegant, and impossible to schedule around a manager's week. A manager cannot leave the room, so the workplace version has to be a questionnaire everyone can sit in ten minutes.
Instrument What it measures Built for Typical output
Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) One person's experience of one target activity, across seven subscales, 45 items in full. Laboratory research in self-determination theory. Evidence that a task felt interesting. No ongoing, per-person picture of the job.
Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction and Frustration Scale (BPNSFS) Satisfaction of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Research and diagnostics on need satisfaction. Which of three universal needs is unmet, usually read at group level.
Multidimensional Work Motivation Scale (Gagné et al., 2015) Six regulation types, from amotivation through to intrinsic motivation. Cross-country research on work motivation. How self-directed someone's motivation is, without naming what they value.
Reiss Motivation Profile (Reiss, 2004) 16 basic desires that drive behavior. Broad life-motivation profiling, usually through a certified practitioner. An individual desire profile, delivered as a coaching engagement.
Work Preference Inventory (Amabile, 1994) Intrinsic and extrinsic orientation as a stable individual trait, 30 items. Research on creativity and orientation at work. Whether a person leans intrinsic or extrinsic in general, without naming which motivator.
Attuned's intrinsic motivation assessment Relative need across 11 workplace motivators, scored 0 to 100 against a global norm. Managers and HR teams. A per-person profile, continuous satisfaction tracking, and coaching for the next conversation.

What Backs the Attuned Row

400+ → 55
Items, after the response data showed the short form held its accuracy
Tens of thousands
Assessments behind the norm, which began with a few hundred, Western-skewed takers
0 to 100
Score per motivator, against a single global norm, so a 72 means the same thing in Tokyo and in Texas

Attuned has not published a peer-reviewed validation paper, and the table above does not claim one. For the norming history in Attuned's own words, see updating the norm.

IMI subscale, item count, and scope per the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory documentation at selfdeterminationtheory.org. The free-choice measure is Deci (1971); the Multidimensional Work Motivation Scale is Gagné et al. (2015); the 16 basic desires are Reiss (2004).

See the assessment on a demo

The 11 Motivators

The 11 Motivators Behind Meaningful Work

Attuned worked with psychologists to identify 11 intrinsic motivators that shape how people experience work. Each person is scored against all 11, so two people in the same role rarely produce the same profile.

Altruism

Motivated by helping others and contributing to others' well-being.

Autonomy

Motivated by independence, freedom, and personal responsibility.

Competition

Motivated by challenge, achievement, and winning.

Feedback

Motivated by recognition, evaluation, and knowing where they stand.

Financial Needs

Motivated by financial security, profit, and material outcomes.

Innovation

Motivated by novelty, creativity, and new ways of solving problems.

Progress

Motivated by learning, growth, and skill development.

Rationality

Motivated by logic, objectivity, and evidence-based decisions.

Security

Motivated by structure, predictability, and clear responsibilities.

Social Relationships

Motivated by belonging, connection, and a positive social atmosphere.

Status

Motivated by reputation, respect, advancement, and prestige.

Want a deeper read on the science? See our piece on intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation.

In Practice

What Teams Say After Using Attuned

Attuned helps establish a shared language and rapport between the new employee and their manager. Rather than spending months working through surface-level conversations, this allows a connection to develop more quickly.
Josh Moog Director of HR, Barnett Plumbing & Water Heaters · Read the case study
Our organization is focused on raising the level of engagement with our employees. And we recognize the connections between Psychological Safety, employee engagement, and innovation.
Bryant Davis Chief Diversity Officer, City of Greenville, on Attuned's Psychological Safety assessment · Read the case study
Where It Helps

Where Teams Use Attuned

Six places the profiles get used, and what a manager does differently in each.

Better Manager 1:1s

The manager opens the profile before the meeting and knows which two motivators to aim at, and which subject reads as a threat this week rather than an opportunity.

More Effective Onboarding

A new hire's profile exists before their first 1:1. Josh Moog at Barnett Plumbing put it this way in the case study: the connection develops more quickly, and training and meetings get more tailor-made.

Engagement Action Planning

An engagement theme becomes a per-person action, because the pulse shows which motivator is going unmet for whom rather than which department scored low.

Hybrid and Distributed Teams

With fewer corridor signals to read, the motivator profile and the satisfaction trend are what a remote manager has instead of a hunch.

Retention and Role Fit

Attuned surfaces the gap between what a person needs and what the role currently gives them, per person, while there is still time to change the role.

Psychological Safety

Psychological Safety measurement runs alongside the motivator data on Premium, so you can see where trust is thin before it costs you someone. More on why that shows up on the bottom line.

See how Attuned gives managers individual motivator data they can act on.

Book a demo Read customer stories
Research Grounding

What the Research Supports

Deci, Olafsen and Ryan's 2017 review of self-determination theory in work organizations links autonomous motivation and the satisfaction of basic psychological needs to engagement, performance and well-being at work.

Attuned shares the premise rather than the instrument: motivation that comes from the work itself predicts engagement and performance, and it has to be read per person before a manager can act on it. The 11 motivators are Attuned's own workplace taxonomy, developed with psychologists.

Deci, Olafsen, & Ryan (2017). "Self-Determination Theory in Work Organizations: The State of a Science", Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 4, 19-43
FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an intrinsic motivation assessment?
An intrinsic motivation assessment is a tool for understanding what internally drives a person at work, such as autonomy, progress, feedback, innovation, social connection, or security. Attuned's assessment identifies each employee's relative need for 11 intrinsic motivators and turns the results into an AI-assisted motivation profile.
How do you measure intrinsic motivation?
Intrinsic motivation is measured with self-report questionnaires, and which one you want depends on the question you are asking. Five research instruments come up most often: the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory, the Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction and Frustration Scale, the Multidimensional Work Motivation Scale, the Work Preference Inventory, and the Reiss Motivation Profile. They measure how a person experienced one activity, or how self-directed their motivation is in general. Attuned's is a workplace instrument: it measures which motivators a person needs from the job itself, ranked and scored against a norm, so a manager can act one person at a time.
What is the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI)?
The IMI is the best known research measure of intrinsic motivation, developed within self-determination theory. In full it runs to 45 items across seven subscales: interest and enjoyment, perceived competence, effort, value and usefulness, felt pressure and tension, perceived choice, and relatedness. Its authors note that only the interest and enjoyment subscale measures intrinsic motivation itself, and it was designed to assess one target activity in a laboratory experiment. Attuned's assessment answers a different question, which is which of 11 intrinsic motivators each person needs at work, scored from 0 to 100 against a global norm.
What is the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation?
Intrinsic motivation comes from the work itself: the interest, the mastery, the sense that the task is worth doing. Extrinsic motivation comes from what sits outside the work, such as pay, a title, or avoiding a consequence. Both operate in every job, and self-determination theory's finding is that the more self-directed the motivation, the better the outcomes tend to be for performance and well-being. Two of Attuned's 11 motivators, Financial Needs and Status, look extrinsic on the surface. Attuned measures the value a person places on them rather than the reward itself: how much security or standing someone needs in order to do their best work is an internal, stable trait, and that is the number a manager can act on. Our longer overview covers intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation in full.
How many questions are in the intrinsic motivation assessment?
There are 55, and they take about 10 minutes to answer. Attuned's Motivation Assessment is forced-choice, and the answers produce a score from 0 to 100 for each of the 11 motivators, benchmarked against Attuned's global norm and labeled Neutral, Nice-to-have, or Need-to-have. People take it once and retake it when a role or a life changes.
How reliable is Attuned's assessment?
Each motivator is scored from 0 to 100 against a global norm. The first norm rested on a few hundred takers and skewed Western; the data behind it has since grown to tens of thousands of assessments. The 55 items are what survived an original battery of more than 400, cut to roughly a seventh of the length once the response data showed the short form held its accuracy. Attuned has not published a peer-reviewed validation paper. If your review needs specifics on the norm or the scoring, ask on the demo and we will put it in writing.
Is there a free intrinsic motivation assessment?
There are free options, and they answer a different question. The Intrinsic Motivation Inventory is published free for research use by selfdeterminationtheory.org, and consumer motivation quizzes are free to take. What neither gives you is a manager-facing profile for a whole team, benchmarked against a norm and maintained as people and roles change. Attuned is paid software and the assessment is included for everyone on the team.
What motivators does Attuned measure?
Attuned measures 11 motivators: Altruism, Autonomy, Competition, Feedback, Financial Needs, Innovation, Progress, Rationality, Security, Social Relationships, and Status. See the full breakdown on the motivators page.
Who can see an employee's assessment results?
The person sees their own full profile on their My Motivators page. Their manager sees the profile of each direct report, because that is what the 1:1 preparation runs on, and people own their motivator data and choose what is shared with their organization. Motivator profiles are individual by design; the anonymous part is the motivation satisfaction pulse, which reports at team level with a minimum of three respondents. Retention and deletion are set out in the privacy policy.
What happens if someone declines the assessment?
Nothing happens to them, and the team still works. That person simply has no profile, so AI TalkCoach has nothing to read for them and says so rather than offering generic advice. A manager can run a team where some people are covered and some are not. The floor is three people per team, because below that the pulse cannot report without exposing who said what.
How long does rollout take?
There is no IT project. You add people by email invitation or HRIS sync, they answer 55 questions in about 10 minutes, and individual and team profiles appear as the responses land. Most teams are running within a week of signing up. Platform-essentials onboarding is included on every plan, and Premium adds dedicated onboarding sessions for managers and teams plus a named Customer Success Manager.
Is the engagement pulse survey a follow-up to the motivation assessment?
Yes, that is the sequence. The assessment runs once and establishes what each person values. The motivation satisfaction pulse runs after it and keeps running: short, recurring check-ins that track how well those motivators are currently being met, so a dip names the motivator it belongs to instead of moving one overall score. Results report with a three-person minimum per team so individual answers stay unidentifiable, and AI TalkCoach reads the latest movement when it prepares a manager for a conversation.
What is AI TalkCoach?
AI TalkCoach is Attuned's AI coach for managers. It reads a person's motivator profile and their latest motivation satisfaction data before it answers, then gives guidance at the level of one conversation: what to open with, the framing most likely to land with this person, and the topic to leave alone this week. It is included from the Basic plan and opens in the browser alongside the rest of Attuned, and it can put a daily tip in Google Calendar or Outlook so the prompt arrives before the 1:1.
Can AI TalkCoach summarize one person, or compare two people?
It does both. Ask about one person and you get a summary of what they value across the 11 motivators, how their satisfaction has moved, and what to do next. Ask about two people and TalkCoach maps the profiles against each other, showing the overlap and the motivator gaps that usually explain friction between a manager and a report, or between two colleagues. A team view shows the same comparison across everyone who reports to you, including where your own motivators differ from theirs. Where the motivator data does not support an answer, it says so rather than guessing.
What if our managers never open it?
Every manager tool dies in the blank box: a busy manager will not stop to compose a question, so Attuned does not wait to be opened. A daily tip lands in Google Calendar or Outlook next to the meeting it applies to, and TalkCoach opens on a brief that is already written, with the reason each item is there and the next action, so a manager can act on one of them in the few minutes before a 1:1 without composing a question first.
Can motivation change over time?
Yes. People retake the assessment after a promotion, a new manager or a move, and the new profile sits beside the old one so the manager can see which motivator moved. We've written more about how motivators change over time and how to spot it.
How do we get started with Attuned?
Book a demo and we will walk your team through the assessment, the manager view, and pricing. Or email team@attuned.ai. Team plans start at $99 per user per year on Basic with a three-person minimum, a one-off personal Motivator Report is $50 through MotiTune, and every tier is listed on the plans page.

Ready to Understand What Motivates Your Team?

Book a demo and we will walk you through a real motivator profile, the manager view, and what the pulse looks like after a few readings. Bring a team you are worried about.

Book a demo Download the State of Motivation report
Book a demo