The cardboard box sits on her desk, half-filled with personal items accumulated over three years: picture frames with her kid’s smiling face, a collection of conference badges and milestone awards pinned to a small cork board, the ever-present mug for her K-Cup addiction.
Another talented employee is packing up and leaving for reasons that don’t quite make sense. The badges tell a story of professional growth—training seminars, successful project launches, team awards—now being tucked away, along with the potential they represented.
As leaders, we’ve all watched this scene unfold. We stand there thinking about the good salary we paid, the flexible hours we offered, the comfortable work environment we created. We wonder what else we could have done. We ask ourselves why good people leave seemingly good situations.
The answer lives in the stories we miss.
Every morning employees walk through your office doors carrying not just their laptop bags or briefcases, but their own personal epics. Each is the main character in a tale that started long before they joined your company and will continue long after. Your business? It’s just one chapter in their bigger story.
And lately, these stories aren’t reading well. The research folks at Gallup call it “The Great Detachment.” Only 18 percent of workers say they’re truly satisfied with their jobs now, down from 26 percent before the pandemic turned the world sideways. And just 30 percent feel their company’s mission makes their work feel important.
Numbers tell us what. Stories tell us why.
The Chapters We Can’t See
Think about the marketing coordinator who came to you with five years of social media experience and big ideas about digital transformation. When she started, her energy was contagious. She created engaging posts, analyzed metrics, pitched innovative campaigns. But three years in, she’s still just scheduling the same recycled content, her suggestions for video marketing and customer engagement strategies gathering dust. In her story, she should be leading your company’s digital revolution. Instead, she’s becoming another cog in an outdated marketing machine.
For this coordinator, the solution is clear: Give her room to prove her vision. Start small and let her run a pilot program with one new social channel or campaign concept. Have her present analytics showing what’s working and what isn’t. Let her build a case for bigger changes. Of course, trying new things brings risk, but you risk more by letting talent stagnate. When you embrace her drive for innovation, you might just find your company’s next competitive advantage.
Or consider the maintenance supervisor who spent 15 years building high-end furniture before he ran into financial troubles. He joined your team hoping to at least keep his craftsman skills sharp. But the pressure for quick fixes over quality repairs wears him down. “Just make it work for now” becomes a daily mantra that cuts against everything he believes about doing things right. In his story, this job was supposed to be a bridge back to his passion, not a daily reminder of how far he’s drifted from it.
For him, the answer lies in acknowledging and utilizing his craftsman mindset. Put him in charge of developing quality standards for your maintenance team. Let him create training programs that emphasize doing things right the first time. Give him projects where quality matters more than speed. Consider letting him build custom solutions for special maintenance challenges. Maybe there’s even room for him to craft some custom furniture for your office spaces. Show him that his higher standards are an asset you value.
The point is, we can’t address our employees’ true motivations without understanding something fundamental about their story. And this requires some engagement on our part. But it’s worth it. A deeper understanding of people leads to a greater commitment from them, a more loyal team and ultimately, a more profitable business.
So, here’s what I’ve learned about earning that loyalty: Yes, money talks, but it’s not the only language in the workplace. Every employee speaks multiple currencies, and we need to be fluent in all of them.
The Identity Currency
For better or worse, what we do for a living shapes a big part of who we are. Your company name is part of your employees’ personal story. It’s how they answer the eternal cocktail party question: “So what do you do?” That’s why we need to give them reasons to say that company name with pride.
Share stories about how your business makes the world better. Point out specific examples of how an employee’s work helped someone. When the accounting team’s quick processing meant a vendor could make payroll, tell them. When the maintenance crew’s attention to detail kept someone safe, celebrate it. These feel-good moments are deposits in the employee identity bank. The continuous growth of that account matters.
The Growth Currency
Nobody wants their story to have the same chapter over and over, as if the movie “Groundhog Day” is autobiographical. Stagnation kills an employee’s motivational drive. That’s why each employee needs a positive “obstacle” to propel them forward. Personal growth is about mental stimulation, learning new skills and solving new problems.
Make sure your employees understand that their mental life matters to you. Share articles that get them thinking. Ask their thoughts on industry trends. Create what I call “mental tinkering” sessions where people can brainstorm solutions to workplace challenges. Make learning a daily thing, not just a workshop you send someone to once a year. Help each employee think about what collective issues within your organization they can help solve. That’s how employee growth happens.
The Time Currency
Our employees’ stories include chapters about family dinners, Little League games and weekend adventures. Respect these boundaries. When they’re off, let them be off. A proper “we’re a family here” means respecting employees’ actual families.
The Logical Incentives Currency
Nobody likes working somewhere where “no good deed goes unpunished.” Create clear paths to rewards. Set two levels of expectations: the baseline and the “extra mile.” Make the rewards match the person. Some want more vacation time. Others want learning opportunities; still others want flexible hours. Let them choose their reward from a menu of options.
The Community Currency
Be interested, not interesting. Learn what makes your people tick outside of work. What are their hobbies? Their passions? When you get someone talking about their interests, you see their genuine self begin to shine, and their real motivations become clearer. Also, when real laughter echoes through your workplace, you know connections are forming.
Making It Real: Practical Steps
Understanding these different currencies is one thing. Putting them into practice is another. Here are specific actions you can take tomorrow:
Start with regular check-ins that go beyond task lists. Schedule 30 minutes monthly with each team member to understand their story. Where do they see themselves in two years? What skills do they want to develop? What parts of their job energize them most?
Create clear skill development paths. Map out how different roles can lead to others. Show employees exactly what skills they need to advance. Make learning opportunities visible and accessible.
Build a recognition system that speaks multiple languages. Some employees light up with public praise. Others prefer private acknowledgment. Some value extra time off. Others want new responsibilities. Learn each person’s preferred currency and reward them accordingly.
Institute “growth projects”—special assignments that stretch capabilities. Let employees volunteer for challenges outside their usual duties. This satisfies the growth currency while creating valuable cross-training opportunities.
Establish mentor relationships, but with a twist. Instead of just top-down mentoring, create peer-to-peer learning partnerships. Have team members teach each other their specialized skills. This builds community while advancing growth.
Make this part of your regular schedule, not a one-time initiative. Set aside time in your week to consider how you’re investing in each currency. Are you having enough growth conversations? Are you acknowledging personal milestones? Are you respecting time boundaries?
Writing the Next Chapter Together
Gallup found that stronger employee connections boost productivity by 15 percent and cut turnover by nearly a third. But you already know this truth: When employees feel valued in ways that matter to them personally, the whole place has an energy to it. I think of workplaces having magnetism (drawing you in) or the opposite (pushing you away). Which do you see in your company?
Either way, sometimes departures are inevitable. But most employees don’t dream of leaving a place where their story matters, where their different currencies are acknowledged and where someone cares about their next chapter.
Your job isn’t to dictate employees’ stories for them. It’s to create the kind of workplace where employees are authors, too, crafting their journey within the context of your company’s goals—personal and collective interests in unison, not at odds. That’s when the red mug keeps getting refilled, new pictures join the old ones on the desk, and those conference badges and milestone awards keep accumulating on the cork board, each one marking another chapter in a story that’s still being written.
