Friday, May 29, 2020


Importance of Employee Motivation related to Maslow’s Theory

Introduction

Motivation can be defined as a psychological force that determines the way of a person’s behavior and a person’s level of persistence in the face of obstacles. Motivational theories have been updated and expanded through years and have brought many pictures to the society on its effects on employees at workplace. Each of these theories shows different aspects of motivation (Lauby, 2005).

Figure 1.1: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a one famous theory in the context.




Abraham Maslow is a famous Psychologist, who invented a paper in 1943 called “A theory of Human Motivation”. He proposes that a human need to satisfy five basic needs;
·         Physiological
·         Safety
·         Belongingness
·         Esteem
·         Self-actualization
Those needs constitute a hierarchy of needs, with the most basic or compelling needs at the bottom (Daniels, 1982). Maslow argued that a person must have his or her lowest-level needs met before he or she would strive to satisfy needs higher in the hierarchy. Once a need is satisfied, it ceases to operate as a source of motivation. the lowest level of unmet needs in the hierarchy is the prime motivator or behavior. if or when that level is satisfied, the needs at the next highest levels in the hierarchy motivate behavior (Lauby, 2005).
Human needs arrange themselves in hierarchies of prepotency. That is to say, the appearance of one need usually rests on the prior satisfaction of another, more pre-potent need. Man is a perpetually wanting animal. Also, no need or drive is related to the state of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of other drives (Maslow, 2019).

The physiological needs


The needs that are usually taken as the starting point for motivation theory are the so-called physiological drives. Hunger, Thirst, sexual desires are count as physiological needs for a human. The other needs become worthless until the human fulfills his physiological needs. For example, if a human is dangerously hungry, he will only remember about food. His only desire becomes to eat well rather than any other needs at that time (Alderfer, 1969).

Safety needs


If the physiological needs are relatively well gratified, there then emerges a new set of needs, which we may categorize roughly as the safety needs. Safety needs include the security, law and order, shelter, employment, health, stability etc. Every human expects to be safe from his environment (Eisenberger, 1972).

Belongingness needs


Under Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, belongingness fixed as the third level of the hierarchy. After the satisfaction and fulfilment of the physiological needs and the safety needs, the human nature is to be accepted emotionally. At this level, the need to be loved by someone, caring belonging to a family, being treated in a well manner is expected (Maslow, 1964).   

Esteem needs


At this level, human become a matured expectation to protect his dignity level. The needs include respect, self-esteem, achievement, confidence, recognition and accomplishment. In a corporate environment, employees expect to be recognized, achievements, status and respect at this level (Maslow, 1964).

Self-actualization


Its identified as the highest level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs where a person understand his full potential achieving all the needs and at this level seeking for the personal growth with experience.
Maslow explains, that once a person achieves the self-actualization need, he has achieved the full potential of his life.

Employee motivation in the corporate environment


In the context of the corporate culture, it has become a key practice under Human Resource Management to motivate the employee with the benefits for the organization as well as for the employee. The level of motivation of the employee can be measured with his performance evaluation and the organization performance. Salary increments, bonus, perks, medical insurance and other incentives are the financial rewards that an employee could be motivated. There are non-financial rewards also such as recognition, respect and considering the new ideas for action are few of them. The motivation can be a retention strategy as well. Employee retention strategies go long way in motivating the employees and that they stick to the organization for the maximum time and contribute effectively (Vasantham & Swarnalatha, 2016).

If the organization refuse to provide employees with the tools, they believe they need, it’s natural for employees to interpret this as a sign that the organization do not care about employees, which leads them to careless about the company, which hurts the performance (Pepitone & Bruce, 1998).
Employees sometimes not performing well due to lack of motivation. The lack of motivation affects with the below reasons as well (Pepitone & Bruce, 1998);
·         Organizational fear or intimidation
·         Bureaucracy or red tape
·         Deadline pressures and anxiety
·         Conflicting goals and
·         Lack of training
·         Disputes between employees and managers
·         Lack of training
·         Unclear objectives (Pepitone & Bruce, 1998).
The work motivation has been developed since ages and plays a vital role in achieving organizational goals through employee motivation.

Reference
Alderfer, C. P. (1969). An empirical test of a new theory of human needs. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 4, 142-175.
Daniels, M. (1982). The development of the concept of self-actualization in the writings of Abraham Maslow. Current Psychological Reviews, 2, 61-76.
Eisenberger, R. (1972). Explanation of rewards that do not reduce tissue needs. Psychological Bulletin, 77, 319-339.
Maslow, A. (1964). Religions, values, and peak experiences. Columbus, OH: Ohio State University.
Lauby, S. J., 2005. Motivating Employees. 510 ed. s.l.:American Society for Training and Development.
Maslow, A., 2019. A Theory of Human Motivation. 1 ed. New Delhi: GENERAL PRESS.
Pepitone, J. S. & Bruce, A., 1998. Motivating Employees. Wisconcin: McGraw Hill Professional.
Vasantham, S. T. & Swarnalatha, C., 2016. NEED AND IMPORTANCE OF EMPLOYEE RETENTION IN ORGANIZATION RELATED TO HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT. India: Lulu.com.

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3 comments:

  1. Further, having fulfilled the deficiency needs, highly motivated employees looking for the self development opportunities which HR managers should facilitate the opportunities to do innovations and influence employee performance that reduce the cost and increase the profit of the company, by achieving company goals efficiently and effectively (Mansaray,2019).

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  2. Agree with your views. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory is applicable to organizational orientation and employee motivation. This theory is able to suggest how managers can lead their employees to become self-actualized. The idea implies the dual role of the theory first to organization and second to employees on the basis that both the organization and the employees should decide on the performance of their organization (Jerome, 2013).

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  3. Agree. It’s important to organization to implement different motivation factors to improve productivity, such as motivated employees highly productive and force other to work harder (Dugguh, 2014).

    ReplyDelete