What truly motivates people to do their best work? Research shows that it may not just be money any longer. 

Feeling included in the workplace, and from a company's perspective, understanding its people and what drives them, creates more meaningful work and drives better business results.

Whilst money is important and a key driver for the majority of people, having meaning and purpose is critical to people feeling motivated and therefore being productive in the long term. A pay rise or a bonus does bring benefit, but does it have long lasting impact in getting the most out of someone?

What does meaning actually mean? Meaning comes from our deep seated desire to have an impact and create genuine change. When we feel included and have meaning, we do our best work. 

With up to five generations in our workforce now, a one size fits all approach just doesn't work. What motivates one person, may demotivate another. What doesn't matter to one person, may be another person's key value. Performance in a business is delivered by a person, so if you acknowledge this and acknowledge that person, then you will get better results. Treating everybody as a number will only demotivate them.

When someone doesn't feel like their manager understands their drivers, this will dis-engage them. Hiring and onboarding a new joiner is a huge investment, and to lose a good person is a cost to the business. So it makes more sense to invest in the managers and ensure that they know how to motivate their people and bring meaning and purpose to their role. 

Becoming a people manager as part of one's role is frequently a necessary part of progression. Yet 1 in 10 people are natural people managers. Someone can excel at their role in a business, and not know how to people manage. Yet the majority of businesses over look the need to provide training.

One of the key things to help a manager do when managing their colleagues, is to teach them that whilst it is necessary to think about the desired output, it is also critical to consider the input to reach this achievement. I heard a good sport analogy for this. When a coach is training an olympic athlete to cross the finish line first, he or she isn't just thinking about that achievement. The coach is considering everything that goes into getting to that achievement. So this is likely nutrition, fitness, sleep, environment. Of course the input will vary between different situations, but the point is, the input affects the output.

So, with all of this in mind, what can you do to start ensuring all of your people have meaning in their work? Begin by talking to your people, understand what motivates them, and what their values and drivers are. This is also called coaching.