One in five bosses could boost productivity in their businesses simply by saying thank you more often.

That’s the main finding from a new report by employee incentives business One4all Rewards, which concludes that being impolite and not thanking staff could undermine a business’ performance.

But it also found that three-quarters of employees think they don’t get enough gratitude from the boss, and that this results in a drop in morale and motivation to do a good job.

UK managing director of One4all Rewards Declan Byrne said: “In a busy working environment it’s easy for bosses to forget to say ‘thank you’ as often as their employees would like them to, but failure to correct this will severely impact on performance and profitability.

“There is evidence that a simple ‘thank you’, delivered in the right way, can boost performance by as much as 44 per cent, save considerable money through better staff retention and avoid the need to pay inflated salaries in order to attract people with the best skills.”