How to Have the Best Employees (Collection)

1. What Workers Want—The Big Picture

“Human capital will go where it is wanted, and it will stay where it is well treated. It cannot be driven; it can only be attracted.”

—Walter Wriston, Former Chairman, Citicorp/Citibank

An accurate understanding of motivation in the workplace is more than an academic pursuit. The effectiveness of critical business policies depends on the extent to which our assumptions about human motivation are accurate. If they are not accurate, they either have no impact at all, or worse, they boomerang and damage the organization. Accuracy depends not only on wisdom and experience, but on systematic research. Research protects us from personal bias, seeing what we want to see instead of what is there. Research also protects ...