Spurring motivation can be a tricky endeavor, especially in the workplace. While paying someone is usually reason enough to get the results you ask for, incentivizing work by other means can be difficult.

When it comes to nonfinancial motivation, everyone has their own style. Some take a relaxed, hands-off approach, while others use competition to incentivize workers.

While a “carrot and/or stick” approach may work fine, Thomas Buus Madsen, COO and founder of bookboon.com, says in a Huffington Post contribution that the best way to get employees to go above and beyond is to make them feel like they truly have a personal stake in the organization.

There can be a number of factors that can cause employee engagement to suffer, and some of them are outside of the control of your group.

“This [low engagement] may be due to a number of factors: increased pace and nature of change, critical and a cynical view of management, lack of trust in senior management in particular, as well as a lack of belief in organizational communication,” according to Madsen. “Restoring this imbalance in organizational and work engagement, requires a focus on employee wellbeing.”

And Madsen adds that the solution to improving employee well-being should not be misconstrued as simply injecting “fun” into an office.

“Although ‘fun activities’ may provide a break from monotonous work routines, they do not necessarily contribute to individuals overall sense of happiness,” he explains.

Instead, Madsen suggests embarking on “job sculpting” by molding employees’ work to align with their talents and skills, which will make them more excited about a task and offer more satisfaction for a job well done.

Debut of the Day:

Apple’s newest addition to the iPad family, the iPad Pro, has been released in stores, and the reviews have been mixed. While The Verge‘s Walt Mossberg is skeptical, John Gruber, via Daring Fireball, believes this could be the tablet to help bring down the house on traditional laptops.

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The dangers of embracing new media forums were on full display this week, as REI CEO Jerry Stritzke learned after embarking on an “Ask Me Anything” Q&A on Reddit. Quartz reporter Adam Epstein has all the details here.

Worried about who may be reading your emails? Google’s looking into it. Over at TechCrunch, Frederic Lardinois explains a planned update to Gmail will soon let users know when they receive an email from an unencrypted server.

This millennial started her own nonprofit when she was in her 20s, and she has a lot to share about the experience. Chronicle of Philanthropy reporter Drew Lindsay explores Jena Lee Nardella’s journey and what she learned along the way.

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