Motivating: it's not all about the money

Browsing Fast Company's articles, looking for inspiration, but mostly for motivation, I found this excellent article from Harish R. Rao. The article, entitled "Want To Keep (And Motivate) Your Best Employees? It's Not About The Money" underscores some very good points about motivating employees, and it shows that it can be simpler than most HR professionals, chiefs and bosses all around.
The first thing it got my attention was the work plan for someone. Better a work-incentive plan! For where I come that's something abstract, very good in theory, but in practice gives too much trouble to write or think. 
Taking that point, in my opinion, if many companies or organizations would pick up their HR departments and started to look, really look to their employees, thinking on work plan for everyone, it make take some time, but surely it would be worth it. For example, in Portugal, there are still a lot of companies that look at employees simply as workforce, thinking in how are we going to pay them lesser and squeeze them for more work. In the overall, is that a good strategy?
Developing a work plan not only gives the employer a way to look to the employee in terms of objectives, in a strategic way, but gives goals to the employee, but also gives a good impression for him or her that the organization is looking to them, not as numbers, but persons with capabilities that can achieve certain objectives. Isn't that good?
The article also points towards incentives showing that money is just part of the equation. Incentives can go from "keep up the good work" - it tells the employee that someone in the company really looks at his work - to different and more develop incentives that don't involve money. 
There are many ways to motivate and keep a workforce motivated, but it also needs work. And a lot of leadership. A team reflects the leader. If you have a weak team, you'll have in most cases a weak leader. 
Think about it. Isn't not also CSR?

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