Workers have diverse motivations that must be understood and tailored
Most companies have no problem understanding their customers. They track behavior, use data-driven segmentation, and offer personalized experiences. But when it comes to the people who actually work for them, that level of understanding often disappears. Human resources systems still operate under the assumption that everyone takes a job for the same reason and measures success the same way. That’s entirely off the mark.
James Root, in his book The Archetype Effect, outlines six types of workers. Givers want to help others. Operators seek stability and teamwork. Explorers crave new experiences. Artisans take pride in their craft. Strivers aim for recognition and upward mobility. And Pioneers are focused on big ideas and disrupting the status quo. Each profile reflects a different motivation, none of which fits a one-size-fits-all model.
Yet, most management systems still treat promotion, engagement, and performance like ladder climbing. That simplification strips the individuality from the people doing the work, and results in lower productivity, less innovation, and under-performance. If you treat everyone the same, you can’t unlock their full potential. The conversation needs to shift from “career path” to “career design.” Employees aren’t looking for the same end goal, and they definitely don’t follow the same route to get there.
C-suite leaders need to think differently. If your HR models aren’t built to identify and respond to these archetypes, you’re missing out on compounding returns from your people, the same way you’d miss financial returns by allocating capital blindly.
The numbers support the imbalance. According to the research in The Archetype Effect, of the 3.5 billion people working globally, around 1.2 billion are not engaged. Over 500 million are actively disengaged. That’s not a small system flaw, it’s a massive misalignment between management strategy and human potential.
To change this, the solution is smarter insight. Build systems that recognize what motivates each person. Shape roles around actual strengths and preferences. It’s not soft, it’s practical. Get this right, and everything downstream improves: innovation, retention, speed of execution, and resilience.
Engaged and inspired employees deliver higher productivity
Most companies aim for employee satisfaction. It sounds good, but it doesn’t go far enough. If someone is merely satisfied, they’re doing what’s expected, no more, no less. That’s not where the best output comes from. The real lift comes from people who are engaged with their work. Even more so from those who are inspired by it.
Michael Mankins and Eric Garton wrote about this in Time, Talent, Energy. Their research showed that engaged employees are 44% more productive than those who are just satisfied. But when employees feel inspired, their productivity almost triples, up to 125% higher.
This is measurable. Companies spending time to understand their people’s motivations, and aligning roles, goals, and recognition to these deeper drivers, aren’t doing it because it looks good on culture brochures. They’re doing it because performance improves, retention goes up, and the team moves faster and more effectively.
Inspiration doesn’t require a huge budget. It requires clarity. Show people how their work connects to the mission. Recognize effort that aligns with values. Create opportunities that actually fit the personal goals of each archetype outlined earlier. For example, Strivers want advancement, Artisans want mastery, Explorers want range. Give each what actually matters to them, not what you think should matter.
C-suite leaders need to treat engagement and inspiration as core business metrics, not HR side projects. This is about throughput, not sentiment. If a satisfied employee delivers a baseline, and an inspired one delivers exponentially more, it’s a straightforward case for leadership focus.
This matters now more than ever. In environments defined by speed, resource constraints, and shifting markets, talent becomes a multiplier. Alignment between individual motivation and organizational ambition isn’t nice to have. It’s essential.
Artificial intelligence can enable more personalized and effective talent strategies
AI is already transforming how businesses operate. It should do the same for how we manage people. Most HR functions are still overly manual, reactive, and based on outdated assumptions about what workers want or need. That’s where AI can create actual value, by enabling smarter, more personalized people decisions at scale.
Today, there’s no reason HR teams should be guessing who fits best in which role, or who’s likely to be disengaged next quarter. AI tools can read the data, skills, performance history, learning preferences, feedback scores, past roles, even motivation signals, and surface insights we’ve never had before. It’s not just matching people to jobs, it’s mapping personalized career paths based on data, not opinions.
This doesn’t make HR less human. It actually makes it more human, because we can spend less time on low-impact administrative tasks, and more time focusing on what drives results: coaching, career design, leadership development. The technology clears space for actual connection. But companies need to build the infrastructure to act on what the AI finds.
According to the analysis from John Hazan and Susan Gunn, businesses can save around 20% of HR labor time using AI for automation and augmentation. What you do with that 20% matters. You can redirect it into building better workforce strategies, developing internal mobility paths, or launching dynamic reskilling programs.
For C-suite leaders, here’s the point: don’t think of AI in HR as a cost reduction tool. Think of it as a signal amplifier. It identifies what’s working, what’s broken, and what’s possible. The smartest companies will use AI to transform HR from an administrative function into a strategic driver of performance and scale.
This isn’t future theory. It’s already happening inside companies that are serious about aligning talent, performance, and mission. Let the machines handle volume. Let people handle potential.
Companies are already experimenting with personalized workforce management
The pattern is clear, workforces are becoming more diverse in motivations, skills, and expectations. And forward-thinking companies are beginning to respond. They’re testing new models that give employees more control over how they work, what benefits they prioritize, and how they build their careers. These aren’t isolated perks, they’re deliberate shifts in how value is created and retained across the organization.
Flexible work arrangements are no longer just location-based. They’re about control, control over time, workload, and focus. Many companies are offering project-based opportunities, career mobility programs, and permission to step outside formal roles to build adjacent skills. Some have also started to extend these options beyond office teams, bringing frontline or blue-collar employees into the fold of more customized career development.
Beyond flexibility, we’re also seeing companies personalize benefits to reflect different life stages and priorities. That includes expanded wellness options, access to financial planning support, mental health services, and additional personal leave. These choices aren’t about employee satisfaction alone, they help unlock retention, engagement, and long-term alignment with organizational goals.
Training programs are becoming more targeted. Learning isn’t just scheduled, it’s self-directed, role-specific, and informed by what employees actually want to pursue. That’s a shift from generic compliance-focused training to career design. Companies are building smart systems to track interests, deployment history, and feedback data, all of which help shape evolving talent maps.
The leadership takeaway is this: personalization at scale doesn’t need to be perfect. It just needs to be intentional. Start with the assumption that not everyone values the same path, and you build a more resilient, engaged, and productive workforce.
What’s encouraging is that it’s already happening. Leadership teams are leveraging internal data, interviews, and focus groups to understand what drives people, and they’re acting on it. Identifying archetypes and aligning programs to those insights is no longer theoretical. It’s operational. And it’s improving outcomes without compromising business targets.
The organizations that lead on this front won’t be the ones with the biggest HR budgets, they’ll be the ones that choose to understand their people before trying to manage them.
Key takeaways for leaders
- Understand employee motivation patterns: Leaders should stop treating employees as a single group and start managing based on individual drivers. Segmenting based on archetypes, such as Givers, Strivers, and Explorers, enables more effective talent alignment and engagement.
- Prioritize engagement over satisfaction: To drive next-level productivity, focus on building an inspired workforce, not just a content one. Inspired employees are up to 125% more productive, making personalized motivation strategies a high-return investment.
- Use AI to scale personalized talent strategies: Executives should leverage AI to surface actionable insights on employee behavior, skills, and career preferences. This enables targeted role placements, more intentional career growth, and measurable productivity gains.
- Customize work experiences at scale: Companies already adopting flexible schedules, personalized benefits, and nonlinear career paths are seeing stronger engagement. Leaders should formalize and scale these approaches to drive retention and workforce adaptability.
