Why Employees Work for a Better Life and Not Your Company’s Profit
Written by Maynard Hebert, Keynote Speaker & Consultant
Maynard Hebert is a Red Seal heavy-equipment expert, award-winning shovel technician, and the author of Onward Buttercups. He is a workplace culture specialist who teaches teams and leaders how to communicate better, work smarter, and build trust in high-pressure environments.
I have a saying I've used around workplaces for years, "I'm here for the income, not the outcome." It usually gets a laugh. Sometimes management looks at me sideways, but underneath the humour is something organizations need to understand if they are serious about employee retention. Most employees did not get out of bed this morning because they were excited about improving the company's quarterly earnings. They got out of bed because they have a life to pay for.
There's a mortgage or rent. Kids need braces. Somebody wants a new truck. There's a vacation being planned, retirement getting closer, or maybe someone simply wants enough left over that opening the Visa bill doesn't require a stiff drink. That doesn't make them disloyal. It makes them human. The company exists to generate an outcome. The employee works to generate an income. Smart employers figure out how to connect the two.
Your business is not their life
Owners and executives naturally think differently about the business. They should. Their investment, reputation, and often their personal wealth are tied directly to the organization's success. They think about margins, growth, customers, productivity, and long-term sustainability.
Then we hire an employee and somehow expect them to develop the same emotional attachment. Your employee may care deeply about doing good work. They may take enormous pride in their trade or profession. They may care about coworkers, customers, and reputation, but employment is still an exchange, the organization needs something from the employee, and the employee needs something from the organization.
Pretending otherwise doesn't create engagement. Understanding the exchange does.
I've spent decades in automotive shops, industrial maintenance, and large mining operations, supervising people, owning businesses, and carrying the toolbox. One thing has remained consistent, people work extremely hard when they understand what the work is doing for their life.
Income is bigger than an hourly wage
When employers hear "income," they often immediately think wages. That's only part of it. Income represents possibility. It might mean owning a house, putting children through school, buying an recreational vehicle (RV), building retirement savings, or simply having enough security to sleep at night.
This is where retention gets interesting. If you understand what employment means to the individual, you begin to understand what might keep that person. A 25-year-old technician may value development, overtime, and a chance to build a down payment. A 45-year-old with children may care more about benefits and predictable scheduling. A 60-year-old veteran may be thinking about transition, mentoring, and retirement.
Same company. Same workforce. Very different reasons for being there.
Yet organizations routinely fire the same retention solution at everyone and wonder why it doesn't work. That's what I call firing the parts cannon.
When a mechanic doesn't diagnose a problem properly, they can start replacing parts until the machine runs. Organizations do the same with people, add a bonus, change the benefits, run another survey, order the pizza, and hope something sticks. Or diagnose the problem first.
Ask a better question
Organizations love asking, "How do we get employees more engaged in the business?" I think there's a better question, "How does working here help our employees build a better life?"
That changes the conversation. Suddenly, compensation matters, but so do schedules, benefits, career development, leadership, retirement programs, recognition, and predictability.
Retention isn't always about giving people more. Sometimes it is about understanding what matters more. That requires something increasingly rare in large organizations, knowing your people.
You don't need supervisors conducting therapy sessions beside the toolbox, but if you lead twelve people and know absolutely nothing about what matters to any of them, you're missing information that could help you lead them.
Know who wants advancement. Who enjoys teaching others. Who wants overtime. Who desperately doesn't. Who is nearing retirement. Who wants training. Who has ambitions beyond the current role.
Then learn to listen to understand, not to respond. Too many workplace conversations happen with the supervisor preparing an answer while the employee is still talking. That isn't listening. That's waiting for your turn.
The paycheque gets them there, the environment determines whether they stay
Money matters. We shouldn't pretend otherwise. Try telling someone their workplace has a wonderful culture when they can't afford groceries, but compensation has limits as a retention strategy. A company can pay well and still create an environment people want to escape.
I've seen people leave substantial incomes because eventually the money was no longer worth what they had to tolerate to earn it. Once somebody reaches that point, another dollar an hour probably isn't fixing it. The employee has already decided that whatever your organization is paying is no longer sufficient compensation for the experience of working there.
That's when another Maynard-ism comes into play. Employee departure is the invoice for poor leadership.
Sometimes that invoice is enormous. You lose experience. Productivity drops. Recruiting starts again. Someone trains the replacement. Existing employees carry the vacancy. Overtime increases. Morale takes another hit.
The employee walking out the door may have been the cheapest part of the entire problem.
Employees don't owe you their dreams
One of the stranger ideas in modern management is that employees should somehow make the organization's mission their personal mission. Some will. Most won't, and that's okay. You need people who understand what is expected, have the resources to do the job, are treated consistently and fairly, and can see a reason to continue exchanging their time and talent for what your organization provides.
That can create tremendous loyalty, not because you demanded it, but because you earned it.
You can automate a plant, but you cannot automate trust.
Trust develops through repeated experiences, supervisors keep their word, schedules are predictable, good work is acknowledged, problems get addressed, and standards apply equally. Culture is something we live every day in the workplace. It is not the poster on the wall. It is what happens when the pressure is on.
Stop guessing and measure the problem
This is also why I founded Workplace Harmonics. I spent enough years watching organizations solve people problems through opinions, complaints, exit interviews, and whatever issue was making the most noise that week that I knew there had to be a better approach. My approach is different.
If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.
At Workplace Harmonics, I use a Zero-Bias Audit to measure what is actually happening across the organization, from the frontline through supervisors and management. The audit looks for measurable gaps in leadership effectiveness, communication reliability, expectation clarity, leadership capability, and system visibility.
The employee sees the workplace from one direction. The supervisor sees it from another. Senior management sees it from somewhere else entirely. The problem often lives in the gap between those perspectives.
That's why I don't walk into an organization assuming I already know what's wrong. Accurate measurement determines accurate solutions. Otherwise, you're guessing.
I have another word for management by guesswork, "guessnosis".
Once the actual failure points are identified, you can stop firing the parts cannon and start fixing the problem that is actually costing you people.
Stop replacing people. Fix the system.
Connect their income to your outcome
This is where "I'm here for the income, not the outcome" comes full circle.
There is nothing wrong with an organization pursuing profit. Without profit, there are eventually no jobs. There is also nothing wrong with an employee pursuing income. Without income, there is eventually no reason to have the job.
The opportunity for leadership is connecting those interests.
When the organization succeeds, can employees see greater security, opportunity, or reward? When productivity improves, do the people creating it share somehow in the benefit? When someone gives you ten good years, does year eleven look meaningfully different from year two?
Those questions matter. If employees cannot see how staying improves their future, eventually another employer will offer them a different future.
The better-life test
Maybe organizations need a simpler retention test. Forget the 80-page engagement report for a minute and ask, "Are people's lives better because they work here?"
Not perfect. Better.
Are they building something? Progressing? Developing skills? Creating security? Can they imagine themselves being better off three years from now if they stay?
If the answer is consistently no, you don't have an employee loyalty problem. You have an employment-value problem.
So the next time you hear an employee joking, "I'm here for the income, not the outcome," don't dismiss it. Listen to what they're actually telling you.
Then give them a reason to care about both.
Because if you want employees invested in your outcome, show them how your outcome improves their income, and their life.
That might be one of the simplest retention strategies you'll ever implement. Unlike the pizza party, it might actually work.
Read more from Maynard Hebert
Maynard Hebert, Keynote Speaker & Consultant
Maynard Hebert is a Red Seal Heavy Equipment Technician, author, and host of the Gears of Trust podcast. Drawing on decades in the mining and oil sands industry, he helps organizations strengthen communication, reduce turnover, and build teams that actually work together. His book, Onward Buttercups, has become a practical guide for mechanics, supervisors, and leaders looking for real-world, human-centered solutions to workplace chaos. Maynard blends technical expertise with humour, storytelling, and straight-talk leadership. He was recognized as Mader Mining’s 2024 Outstanding Employee of the Year. Today, he speaks, teaches, and consults across Canada on reliability, culture, and team performance.
