A business achieves its objectives through its people, and the gap between what employees must do and what they could do is enormous. Motivated employees work harder and to a higher quality, stay with the business (cutting labour turnover and recruitment costs), take less absence, accept change more readily, and contribute ideas. Unmotivated employees do the minimum, make mistakes, and spread their attitude to colleagues and customers. Motivation is therefore not a kindness but a core management tool: every payment system, job design and leadership choice is, in effect, a theory about what motivates people.