Episode 17: Featuring Daniela Tancau, Founder, Improve Work S.R.L.
Most companies treat motivation like a character trait. When engagement drops, the finger points at the employee. But what if the problem isn’t who you hired? What if it’s what you never bothered to ask them? That’s the broken assumption Daniela Tancau has spent 18 years diagnosing. Across thousands of interviews, she’s watched organizations reduce HR to hiring and administration while ignoring the tools that actually shape whether people stay, produce, and care.
Daniela founded Improve Work to close that gap. Based in Romania and serving entrepreneurs and team leaders across the U.S. and Western Europe, she built a structured interview methodology around seven factors that affect employee motivation. In this episode of Courage to Advance, she and host Kim Bohr break down why the distinction between personal and employee motivation matters, why CEO-led one-on-one conversations surface what surveys miss, and why hiring someone who interviews well but won’t be satisfied in the role is a short-term gain with compounding costs.
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What You’ll Discover
- “Motivation comes from within” is a misdiagnosis
- Personal and employee motivation aren’t the same, and confusing them costs you
- Anonymous surveys can’t surface individual drivers. Structured interviews can.
- CEO-led motivation interviews signal care before asking for commitment
- One unchecked employee can erode an entire team
- Hiring someone whose expectations you can’t meet is just a delayed turnover
- Meeting even a few expectations measurably improves engagement
- Smaller companies assume everyone shares the founder’s motivation. They don’t.
Episode Highlights
[0:00] The assumption that costs companies their best people. Kim introduces the premise: what if employee motivation isn’t the employee’s job?
[0:57] What 18 years of HR work revealed about a neglected function. Daniela describes how most organizations limit HR to hiring and administration while ignoring capabilities that research has already proven effective.
[2:52] “Nobody asked me what I want professionally.” Daniela shares the career experience that became the foundation for her work: companies that trained employees for the company’s needs but never asked what the employee wanted.
[4:01] Personal motivation vs. employee motivation Daniela draws a clear line between individual goals and what the company offers, and explains why mixing them up leads to disengagement.
[7:01] The seven factors that shape whether someone stays or leaves. Daniela outlines her framework, from task alignment to salary expectations, and why every person ranks these differently.
[10:15] Structured interviews vs. anonymous surveys Daniela makes the case that one-on-one interviews, ideally CEO-led, surface individual drivers that questionnaires miss entirely.
[14:19] What happens when companies can’t meet every expectation? Employees don’t expect perfection; they expect effort, and seeing a company try to meet even a few expectations changes how people engage.
[16:49] The one thing every leader gets wrong about motivation. Daniela’s direct message to business leaders: motivation is your responsibility, not the employee’s, and it starts at the hiring stage.
Key Takeaways for HR Leaders
1. Employee motivation is the company’s responsibility, not a personal trait. The popular idea that motivation “comes from within” lets organizations off the hook. Daniela’s 18 years of fieldwork point to a different conclusion: companies control the conditions that produce or destroy motivation.
2. Anonymous surveys can’t do what structured interviews can. Engagement questionnaires are designed for anonymity, which means they can’t identify what a specific employee needs. Structured one-on-one interviews surface individual drivers and give leaders something they can actually act on.
3. The act of asking is itself a motivational event. Daniela recommends that CEOs personally conduct motivation interviews because giving that time and attention signals care. You have to show care before you ask employees to care about your goals.
4. Hiring for qualifications while ignoring expectation fit creates predictable turnover. Leaders often hire candidates who interview well but whose professional expectations can’t be met in the role. The cost comes later: rehiring, retraining, team disruption, and the quiet cultural damage of repeated departures.
5. Meeting some expectations is enough if employees see the effort. Employees don’t expect every want to be fulfilled. What shifts engagement is seeing that the company is genuinely working to meet even a few of their needs.
About Our Guest
Daniela Tancau is the founder of Improve Work, a company that provides HR consultancy, online programs, and courses designed to help entrepreneurs and team leaders strengthen their leadership skills, increase employee motivation, and improve team performance. With more than 18 years of experience in the HR field, she brings practical knowledge gained through her own business and her previous roles as an employee, spanning hiring, employee integration, performance management, training program design, and workplace relationships.
Her educational background in Human Resources, Sociology, Training, and Coaching allows her to approach leadership and motivation with a strong understanding of both organizational practices and human behavior. Through her work, Daniela helps organizations strengthen leadership capabilities, improve team collaboration, and create environments that support employee motivation and performance.
Connect with Daniel Tancau
- Website: https://improvework.ro
Notable Quotes
Daniela Tancau: “Nobody asked me what I want professionally. There were opportunities, sometimes. But they didn’t have career plans. They didn’t ask employees what they wanted.”
Daniela Tancau: “You have to show care before you ask for the employees to care about your company and about your goals. So it’s a two-way street.”
Kim Bohr: “Oftentimes, the founders are assuming everybody is motivated by it for the same reasons they are. And so much of that smaller company work is around a common mission or a common goal. But ultimately that doesn’t mean everybody’s truly motivated for the same reasons.”
Kim Bohr: “It’s a short-term solution when somebody then becomes dissatisfied and just moves on, and then there’s a lot of investment missed.”
Related Resources
- SparkEffect Trust Study – Research showing that 71% of organizations faced disruption in the last 24 months, but only 36% emerged stronger (https://info.sparkeffect.com/trust-study-2025-download)
- Improve Work: (https://improvework.ro)
About Courage to Advance
Courage to Advance explores how visionary leaders are building the organizations they wish existed, companies that prove business doesn’t have to be dehumanizing. Hosted by Kim Bohr, President and COO of SparkEffect, each episode features executives who refuse to accept that traditional corporate practices are inevitable, sharing the experiments, resistance, and breakthrough results of choosing human flourishing alongside business success.
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