The most unexpected source of motivation at work

Motivation is one of management’s favourite subjects. Entire industries have been built around measuring it, improving it and presenting it in colourful engagement dashboards.

Yet most organisations tend to look for motivation in the same places: promotions, pay increases, bigger responsibilities, prestigious titles. These things matter. Anyone claiming otherwise is being disingenuous.

But they are not always what keeps people going.

Ask someone what helped them push through a difficult year, recover from a setback or show up on a particularly exhausting Monday, and the answer is often something no workplace survey would think to ask about. A family member. A personal promise. The satisfaction of solving a problem. The knowledge that somebody is quietly drawing strength from watching them.

The reasons people stay committed to their work are often deeply personal, invisible to colleagues and impossible to capture in a performance-management system.

Three HR leaders reflect on the motivations that have stayed with them long after incentives, ratings and designations faded into the background.

The photograph that changed the question

During a visit to a worksite early in his career, Ranjeet Singh, CHRO, Enpro Industries, found himself intrigued by an employee whose commitment stood out.

The work was demanding. The conditions were far from comfortable. Yet the man showed up every day with remarkable consistency and focus.

Curious, Singh asked what motivated him.

The answer was not what he expected.

The employee quietly opened his wallet and pulled out a photograph of his daughter.

Every day, he explained, he came to work thinking about the future he wanted to create for her. Better education. Better opportunities. A life that offered more choices than he had known himself.

There was no mention of compensation, recognition or career progression. Just a father carrying a dream.

The moment stayed with Singh because it exposed a blind spot in how organisations often think about motivation. Leaders frequently assume that employees are driven by the things organisations provide. In reality, many are driven by something far more personal.

The strongest motivations often exist outside the workplace entirely.

Behind every employee ID card sits a private story, one that managers may never fully know but which influences behaviour every single day.

Why fixing a broken process can feel more rewarding than a promotion

Rahul Raman Nair, CHRO, Agappe Diagnostics, discovered a different source of motivation.

His came not from a personal story but from solving an organisational irritation.

Over the years, he found himself involved in redesigning HR systems and processes that employees had long accepted as unavoidable. The sort of procedures people complained about but rarely expected to improve.

When those systems were simplified and made genuinely useful, something interesting happened.

Employees noticed.

Not in a dramatic way. There were no standing ovations or celebratory emails. Things simply became easier. Less friction. Less frustration. Less time wasted navigating processes that seemed designed for paperwork rather than people.

For Nair, watching that shift unfold became deeply satisfying.

Rewards and recognition have their place, he says. But they rarely sustain people over long periods. What lasts is the knowledge that your work has made a tangible difference to somebody else’s experience.

Most professionals recognise the feeling.

It appears when a stubborn problem is finally solved. When a process that everyone dreaded suddenly works. When someone benefits from your effort without necessarily knowing who made it happen.

The satisfaction is quiet. It rarely attracts attention.

But it tends to endure.

The people who are watching without telling you

When Shilpa Narang Jerath, former CHRO, Oppo India, was building her career, she was not trying to become anyone’s role model.

She was simply navigating work and life as best she could.

Over time, however, younger women began telling her something she had not anticipated.

Watching her career had given them confidence.

Jerath had taken two maternity breaks during her professional journey. Together, those breaks amounted to more than five years away from work. Yet she returned each time and went on to lead HR functions in demanding organisations.

For many women wondering whether such a return was possible, her example quietly answered the question.

What moved her was not the compliment itself. It was the realisation that her choices had expanded someone else’s sense of possibility.

The effect was invisible while it was happening.

That, perhaps, is what makes it powerful.

Many professionals underestimate how closely others observe them. A manager navigating adversity. A colleague returning after a setback. A leader balancing competing responsibilities. These examples often travel further than any formal leadership message.

Jerath also speaks about another source of motivation that remains deeply personal: the memory of her mother.

Professional milestones became more than career achievements. They became a way of honouring the values, encouragement and belief that had shaped her long before she entered the workforce.

Most people carry something similar.

A parent who sacrificed opportunities. A teacher who spotted potential early. A mentor whose faith outlasted their presence.

These influences rarely appear in conversations about motivation. Yet they often matter more than anything organisations can provide.

What organisations often miss

The common thread across these stories is not ambition, recognition or reward.

It is meaning.

Not the corporate version that appears in mission statements, but the personal version people carry with them every day.

A daughter’s future folded inside a wallet.

The satisfaction of removing friction from someone else’s working life.

The quiet knowledge that another person has found courage in your example.

None of these motivations can be standardised. They cannot be rolled out through policy.

They certainly cannot be captured in a dashboard.

Which may explain why they are so powerful.

The most revealing question any leader can ask is also one of the simplest: what keeps you going?

The answer is rarely what the organisation assumes.

And almost always more interesting.