Humans are motivated by four drives: acquire, bond, comprehend, and defend. Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams discuss how managers can use all four to keep employees engaged. [...]

Ashley Whillans and colleagues offer managers solutions to ease the stress many employees are experiencing in the new workplace. [...]

Previous research shows that workplace depression and anxiety can be reduced by coaching employees to increase their resilience, the ability to maintain good mental health despite psychological or physical setbacks. In fact, one study found that over a two-month period, a business-initiated resilience program resulted in a significant reduction in presenteeism (employees working while sick), which led to a company gain of $1,846 per person in terms of greater productivity, the journal article says. [...]

With unemployment at near historic lows in the United States, employers report that their single greatest challenge is recruiting and retaining talent. The answer for many companies is to throw money at the problem: Bonuses, incentive pay, and out-of-cycle salary increases are often seen as motivators that will entice greater effort and loyalty out of workers. [...]

There is general support for the widespread practice of disclosing pay data in "bands" associated with jobs. Fewer people would go beyond this to disclose what individual employees make in their jobs. Others would avoid a "one size fits all" approach to the practice of making compensation known. These are the views put forth by participants in this month's discussion of transparency in compensation. [...]