[slow_typist]

If a significant share of your employees optimise in the sense of doing the least of work possible, without getting fired, you have a huge problem anyways. Usually, given the right conditions, people have intrinsic interest in doing a good job. Even if their motivation is more of the extrinsic type, there is more to it than getting paid.

[Saline9515]

Not everyone has an interesting or well-paid job. Or competent manager.

[slow_typist]

I have worked a fair share of that kind of jobs in the past. The colleagues on my level who cared about more than being paid and not getting fired where the absolute majority. People want to belong. They want to work. The ones who are the exception of the rule can be seeded out pretty quickly. You do not work for an organisation for 10+ years, wake up one day and switch to pure opportunism.

As for incompetent management, that problem can not be solved by churning workers. It can only be solved by better career paths and selection processes for management roles. The most intelligent people in an organisation are often more interested in getting things done than getting more power.