How can I increase employee motivation?

Boss Better Now with Joe Mull · Feb 4, 2026 · 10m

Trying to motivate your employees may be the wrong goal entirely.

In this episode, Hall of Fame keynote speaker Joe Mull, CSP, CPAE, challenges one of the most common leadership assumptions and explains why motivation is not something leaders can give to people, but something employees experience when the conditions at work are right.

Joe reframes how leaders should think about employee motivation, employee engagement, and employee relations, especially when teams feel checked out or burned out. He explores why perks, incentives, and pep talks rarely lead to sustained effort, and how daily…