Understanding motivation: start at the bottom and work your way up

Motivated employees work harder, are more focused on their goals, produce higher quality and greater quantities of work, and are more likely to continue to persevere even in the face of obstacles or adverse circumstances.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is one of the fundamental theories of motivation. The theory can help organisations design programs to motivate their people, promote loyalty, reduce turnover, recruit quality people and ultimately increase productivity and return on investment. Maslow theorised that people have five basic needs that could be ranked in hierarchical order: physiological needs, safety needs, belongingness needs, esteem needs and self-actualization needs.

According to Maslow, each need has to be satisfied before an individual can progress to the next level. Therefore, leaders and managers should motivate their employees by providing rewards or programs that help satisfy the need that is prevalent at that time. Once a need has been met, it ceases to be a motivator and employees move to the next level in the need hierarchy.

The most important aspect for just about every employee who starts a new job is pay. Once that need is satisfied, the employee then seeks a feeling of safety. The third level of needs focuses on developing a sense of belonging and connection to the workplace. Next, employees need to feel recognized and valued to satisfy their esteem needs. Once all these needs are met, managers need to add programs that lead to satisfaction of the highest level of need on Maslow’s hierarchy; the need for self-actualization.

Below is a list of various rewards, programs and practices that organisations can use to satisfy employee needs:

Start with Physiological (basic) needs:

• Provide comfortable working conditions and a pleasant working environment
• Provide a “comfortable” base salary
• Provide time for rest and meal breaks

Then, Security needs:

• Adhere to safety rules and regulations
• Provide well-defined job descriptions and expectations
• Minimize negative feedback and threatening behaviour
• Provide information about the firm’s financial status and future plans

Then, Social needs:

• Encourage teamwork in executing projects
• Employ and utilise employee satisfaction and culture surveys
• Encourage participation in professional sporting and community groups
• Reward on the basis of total team performance

Then, Self-esteem needs:

• Include employees in goal-setting and decision-making processes
• Provide opportunities for coaching, mentoring and development
• Recognise employee learning and growth

And finally, Self-actualisation needs:

• Provide opportunities and career development plans
• Provide job rotation and job enlargement to broaden experience and exposure
• Offer opportunities for innovation and risk taking
• Encourage direct communication with external stakeholders
• Provide supportive leadership that encourages a high degree of autonomy and self-control

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs can assist companies to offer benefits and programs that help satisfy needs at all five levels of the hierarchy. In terms of identifying where an employee sits, this can be done through one-on-one discussions, performance reviews or by using employee surveys for groups of employees.

By providing considered incentives that are applied in Maslow’s building-block type manner, companies can use their resources in the most effective way possible while attracting and retaining the highest quality employees. Ultimately, the result is a workforce of individuals who have reached the final tier of Maslow’s hierarchy and who are now looking to not only better themselves, but those around them, and the company as a whole.

References

SADRI, G, & BOWEN, R 2011, ‘Meeting EMPLOYEE requirements: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is still a reliable guide to motivating staff’, Industrial Engineer: IE, 43, 10, pp. 44-48, Computers & Applied Sciences Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 15 February 2013.