UK employees are among the least committed to their jobs in the world, according to a new survey.

The research, ‘UK plc: leader or follower?’, published by International Survey Research, reports on the attitudes of over 360,000 employees from the world’s ten largest economies, and found that less than six out of ten British employees wanted to stay with their current employer or would recommend their current workplace as a good place to work.

According to the same study, Brazil has the highest level of employee commitment, with 79% of workers saying they were committed to their employer. Also registering highly were workers in Spain (76%), Germany (74%) and Canada (73%).

Only Japanese and Chinese workers registered as having less of a buy-in to their company aims and objectives, according to the study.

The research also found that good leadership from the top of the organisation was vital to securing the commitment of employees to an organisation, with quality of training and levels of empowerment available to individual employees also important factors. It also found a link to profitability, with companies with a high number of committed employees posting higher profit margins than those with few committed employees.

Commenting on the research, Roger Maitland, co-founder and Deputy Chairman of ISR, said: “Committed employees are more likely to stay with an organisation, go the extra mile for their company and put maximum effort into their work. The level of employee commitment has a major impact on an organisation’s profitability. Too often in the UK the people at the ‘bottom’ of organisations are alienated from those at the ‘top’. Employees see their leaders as lacking both the intellectual capital to craft aspirational goals, and the emotional intelligence necessary to achieve them.”