Your employee's personal goals are not aligned with your organization's goals. "I pay you to do X" is a recipe for apathy. In other words, your employees need an exit plan (all of them) that furthers your company. Sometimes that's promotion, sometimes it's bonus and vacation, sometimes it's help moving on to another company. Communicate with your employee to discover their personal goals, and work on developing a plan that achieves both their personal goal and your organization's goal.
What does that look like? Some examples:
- Company wants to be acquired, so employee is promised X% of equity and a timetable of acquisition that aligns with the product's development. In other words, when they finish the product they know they get a chunk of money and can move on.
- Company wants to grow existing product, employee wants to grow their career, so company agrees to promote employee (to management, to another position, whatever they want) after they build the next release or reach some product milestone.
- Company wants to develop their MVP, employee likes new challenges but has no plans to be promoted. So employee is guaranteed a generous severance bonus for completing the MVP and help transitioning to a new company.
- Employee really wants to work at a gaming company, but you're a finance company. So when a product milestone is reached you help employee get a job at the gaming company and he helps company hire a replacement.
If you help every employee develop a plan to exit or advance, you'll see them happier and more productive as they feel a sense of purpose and clarity around their role at the organization. But it takes empathetic communication, an open mind, and an attitude of helping your employees.
And be proactive and patient, because you'll find most employees have not thought about their personal goals and need help developing them.