This research is concerned with motivation of PETROBRAS's employees. It is based upon a ranking of its twenty seven operational units (about thirty thousand employees).Based upon this ranking those six units clearly above or below standard «u. results, in a statistical sense, were analysed in deep. This analysis was intended to show which factors caused that deviation from PETROBRAS standards. From a representative sample of six hundred employees (of those six units) four hundred answered a questionnaire. Also a qualitative analysis was conducted in order to clarify some of the conclusions taken from the quantitative work. The results are expected to the development of PETROBRAS policies towards human resources.