If you’re obsessing over work-life balance, your problem isn’t the hours—it’s the job, says Bupa’s CEO. And some of the world’s most powerful people agree.
Years ago, I was in middle management for a Fortune 100 company, and some HR guy from HQ was doing some sort of presentation, and mentioned that money was not the prime motivator for workers, and I had to interrupt him to dispute that. I said, “Tell everybody on Friday that starting next week, they’ll be working for free, and see how many people show up to work on Monday.”
He tried to argue about it, but nobody in the room agreed with him. We understood what he was trying to say, that there are other motivations that employees will respond to, but money is obviously the KING motivator. You can’t just dismiss it with an obviously wrong premise like workers don’t care about money. That’s just a C-Suite fantasy that they’re trying to convince us to adopt.
After making enough money to get by, money is not the prime motivator, I guess? Like if I’m making $X, where X is enough money, offering me a little more money alone won’t get me to change jobs. It’s a simple lesson that C-Suite types warp into “People don’t work for money, they work for meaning.” Perhaps because they figure “meaning” is cheaper than raises.
Years ago, I was in middle management for a Fortune 100 company, and some HR guy from HQ was doing some sort of presentation, and mentioned that money was not the prime motivator for workers, and I had to interrupt him to dispute that. I said, “Tell everybody on Friday that starting next week, they’ll be working for free, and see how many people show up to work on Monday.”
He tried to argue about it, but nobody in the room agreed with him. We understood what he was trying to say, that there are other motivations that employees will respond to, but money is obviously the KING motivator. You can’t just dismiss it with an obviously wrong premise like workers don’t care about money. That’s just a C-Suite fantasy that they’re trying to convince us to adopt.
After making enough money to get by, money is not the prime motivator, I guess? Like if I’m making $X, where X is enough money, offering me a little more money alone won’t get me to change jobs. It’s a simple lesson that C-Suite types warp into “People don’t work for money, they work for meaning.” Perhaps because they figure “meaning” is cheaper than raises.