It could be improved into "make sure your employees enjoy their work". Working at the same companies, the quality of my code varied wildly based on how enjoyab

It could be improved into "make sure your employees enjoy their work". Working at the same companies, the quality of my code varied wildly based on how enjoyable that particular project was. Not just the task itself, but also whether the deadlines were reasonable, the stakeholders were nice to talk to (or the PM kept them away from me if they weren't), etc. Of course, sometimes you will have some flat-out unpleasant work that needs to be done anyway. In that case, boosting the employee's ego is the only away they are going to get any satisfaction out of putting effort into the task. But it should be a last resort, not the default.