Here is an excerpt from an article written by Tony Schwartz for the Harvard Business Review blog. To read the complete article, check out the wealth of free resources, and sign up for a subscription to HBR email alerts, please click here.

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More than 100 studies have now found that the most engaged employees — those who report they’re fully invested in their jobs and committed to their employers — are significantly more productive, drive higher customer satisfaction and outperform those who are less engaged.

But only 20 per cent of employees around the world report that they’re fully engaged at work.

It’s a disconnect that serves no one well. So what’s the solution? Where is the win-win for employers and employees?

The answer is that great employers must shift the focus from trying to get more out of people, to investing more in them by addressing their four core needs — physical, emotional, mental and spiritual — so they’re freed, fueled and inspired to bring the best of themselves to work every day.

It’s common sense. Fuel people on a diet that lacks essential nutrients and it’s no surprise that they’ll end up undernourished, disengaged and unable to perform at their best.

Our first need is enough money to live decently, but even at that, we cannot live by bread alone.

Think for a moment about what would make you feel most excited to get to work in the morning, and most loyal to your employer. The sort of company I have in mind would:

[Note: Here are the first five of 12 attributes. To read the complete article, please click here.]

1. Commit to paying every employee a living wage. To see examples of how much that is, depending on where you live, go to this site. Many companies do not meet that standard for many of their jobs. It’s nothing short of obscene to pay a CEO millions of dollars a year while paying any employee a sum for full time work that falls below the poverty line.

2. Give all employees a stake in the company’s success, in the form of profit sharing, or stock options, or bonuses tied to performance. If the company does well, all employees should share in the success, in meaningful ways.

3. Design working environments that are safe, comfortable and appealing to work in. In offices, include a range of physical spaces that allow for privacy, collaboration, and simply hanging out.

4. Provide healthy, high quality food, at the lowest possible prices, including in vending machines.

5. Create places for employees to rest and renew during the course of the working day and encourage them to take intermittent breaks. Ideally, leaders would permit afternoon naps, which fuel higher productivity in the several hours that follow.

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In more than a decade of working with Fortune 500 companies, I’ve yet to come across a company that meets the full range of their people’s needs in all the ways I’ve described above. The one that comes closest is Google. I’m convinced it’s a key to their success.

How does your company measure up? What’s the impact on your performance? Which needs would your company have to meet for you to be more fully engaged?

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To read the complete article, please click here.

Tony Schwartz is the president and CEO of The Energy Project and the author of Be Excellent at Anything. Become a fan of The Energy Project on Facebook and connect with Tony at Twitter.com/TonySchwartz and Twitter.com/Energy_Project.