Rewards

Rewards are important to keep motivation high as stagnation can feel overbearing and weighty. When you are in a job which doesn't reward you with something new; such as learning a new skill, working with new people, or a feeling of importance/urgency in the tasks it can be easy for your mind to wander. Isolation (even self imposed) can make this worse as you are disconnected from the reality of your work. Developers often feel this as others present their work to the client and recieve praise for its completion. I think this feeling of someone relying on you is a huge source of motivation and hence when its abstracted away through middle management issues with regards to why the work is done and the pressing nature of it is lost. Obviously everyone has their own imperative and timeline in their head, however sharing this vision as well as the praise will mean that all parties are on the same page.

If this is not possible, then rewards need to be managed by HR in order to keep satisfaction high. Maybe this is needy, however its your life as an employee that you give to the company and so, I believe its part of their job to ensure (as much as they can) your expecatations match what is given. If there is a mismatch in obviously leaving or battling for change is an option. Truly self aware and caring businesses are hard to find. I respect the fact they need to worry about profitability in order for the employee to NOT have this stress. However, I think instead of "more profitability" and growth there are other things which are more key to success.