Money Talks to Workers Now, But What Motivates Them Even More?

BY Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza | April 06, 2023

Employers trying to motivate their workforces should understand that motivation is a personal experience, said panelists during a recent webinar hosted by From Day One.

“It can be easy for us to say, ‘okay, this generation wants to be managed in this way, or this is what they need,’ but it really comes down to each individual,” said Casey Wahl, CEO at Attuned, a company that measures intrinsic motivation. The danger in generalization, he said, is that we end up treating people based on assumptions about their age or place in their careers, and ultimately mismanage them, sometimes right out the door.

But in large firms, HR leaders and executives need to motivate workers individually at scale, which is a challenge.

In addition to Wahl, three senior leaders in human resources participated in the panel, titled “Money Talks to Workers Now, But What Motivates Them Even More?” in which they discussed motivating individuals at the enterprise level, and how they take on this challenge in their organizations. 

Rally Workers Behind the Company Mission

Ellen Gifford, the SVP of human resources at healthcare network Ascension, said employees in her organization are motivated by the healthcare field itself and its contributions to society, but also the company’s mission to provide care to vulnerable people. “Our mission is why I joined Ascension, and it’s why I stay every day,” she said. 

HR is there to point workers to that mission. “Our organization offers things like medical missions, so it’s really important that we open those things up to all of our associates so that they can see the mission and tie it back to that work of [caring for] the poor and vulnerable,” Gifford said.

Isabel Montes, the VP of human resources at global gold mining company Newmont, shared her personal motivations for joining the company in 2022. “What Newmont is trying to achieve in the mining company resonated enormously with my purpose-driven life that I want to experience every day,” she said. 

The goal of being a progressive influence in the mining industry and improving the communities where Newmont has a presence appealed to Montes. They tasked her with implementing new ways of caring for Newmont’s staff and making the company more inclusive. “For a business that has not been known yet as very progressive, that was extremely exciting,” she said. 

The webinar's panelists, from top right, Casey Wahl of Attuned, moderator Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza, Ellen Gifford of Ascension, Isabel Montes of Newmont, and Jo Mallia-Barsati of Penguin Random House (Photo by From Day One)

Show Individuals How They Contribute to the Business  

In large organizations, understanding how individual contributions affect the business as a whole is motivating for many, said Gifford, and managers have an obligation to show workers where their work shows up.

At book publisher Penguin Random House, the VP of global talent management and development Joanne Mallia-Barsati noted that when creative teams and editorial teams work in concert, it becomes clear how individuals contribute to bigger projects. She said employees get “an understanding of that context,” and that they come to understand their part in achieving goals. 

Though motivation happens on an individual level, trends can be used to enrich the working experience for all. Mallia-Barsati has learned from common Gen-Z motivators, like long-term career development through personalized attention, to improve leadership training, encouraging leaders to ask their employees about personal development and motivation.

Among companies that want to know what motivates workers across the business, pulse surveys are common, but they must be a means to and end. If you’re going to survey your employees, especially if you survey regularly, show them that their answers affect decision-making and improve their individual working experience, panelists said.

“One of the difficulties of the engagement survey is that loop not being closed,” said Wahl. “The data is collected, it’s probably discussed, there’s probably decisions being made, but the people who delivered it and took the time to answer the survey, they get burned out because they don’t feel anything changing in their life.”

Encourage Managers How to Motivate Their Teams

Improving the circumstances of one employee can have ripple effects for those that come after them. In a company whose workforce is predominantly male, in an industry whose workforce is predominantly male, there are many “firsts” – the first woman on a team, the first woman of color in a department, for instance. As Newmont has diversified its workforce, the company has had to look for ways to make sure those “firsts” are supported.

For example, if you’re the first woman on a machine shop floor, do you have a bathroom to use? What about menstrual products? Is there a lactation room? Montes looks for opportunities to improve workplaces and motivates managers to look for them too.

Most effective for Newmont has been emotionally connecting the leaders with the changes they want them to make. “So when you ask the leader, what are your thoughts if this first female in the maintenance shop was your daughter?” Montes said. Her goal is to “connect people to what is personal for them, and how they can be those advocates and drivers for the change, and help leaders “to get to that sense of understanding the experience of the whole person, so there is more compassion, there is more empathy.”

Foster Motivation in Every Direction

Healthcare is a demanding field, and when workers are feeling drained, it can be hard to keep the mission in focus; that’s when having a supportive company culture can take over. Though HR can remind workers of the mission, but “it’s really about that part of your culture and what those leaders do,” said Gifford. “The people that you work with every day, the people that you report to, they are able to help you ground yourself, even on the worst day, to the bigger picture.”

Just as managers have an obligation to motivate their direct reports, panelists noted that employees can motivate their leaders as well, and that a culture in which people can be frank about what drives them, open the ways they like to work, and understand their contributions is a motivating one.

“It’s not only the manager’s responsibility to stay connected, but also the individual needs to be open and be looking for those opportunities,” says Montes. “It’s people trying to get the best out of each other, regardless of their position in the hierarchy.”

Editor's note: From Day One thanks our partner, Attuned, who sponsored this webinar. 

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance reporter and From Day One contributing editor who writes about the future of work, HR, recruiting, DEI, and women's experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Fast Company, Quartz at Work, Digiday’s Worklife, and Food Technology, among others.

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