06.Maslow's Hierarchy for Employee Motivation

 

Introduction

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory by Abraham Maslow, which puts forward that people are motivated by five basic categories of needs: physiological, safety, social and love, esteem, and self-actualization (Maslow ,1954).

                                                             Source: Maslow (1954)

01.Physiological Needs

These refer to basic physical needs like drinking when thirsty or eating when hungry. According to Maslow, some of these needs involve our efforts to meet the body’s need for homeostasis; that is, maintaining consistent levels in different bodily systems (for example, maintaining a body temperature of 98.6°).Maslow considered physiological needs to be the most essential of our needs. If someone is lacking in more than one need, they’re likely to try to meet these physiological needs first. For example, if someone is extremely hungry, it’s hard to focus on anything else besides food. Another example of a physiological need would be the need for adequate sleep (Hopper,E.2020).

02.Safety Needs

Once people’s physiological requirements are met, the next need that arises is a safe environment. Our safety needs are apparent even early in childhood, as children have a need for safe and predictable environments and typically react with fear or anxiety when these are not met. Maslow pointed out that in adults living in developed nations, safety needs are more apparent in emergency situations (e.g. war and disasters), but this need can also explain why we tend to prefer the familiar or why we do things like purchase insurance and contribute to a savings account(Hopper,E.2020).

03.Love and Belonging Needs

According to Maslow, the next need in the hierarchy involves feeling loved and accepted. This need includes both romantic relationships as well as ties to friends and family members. It also includes our need to feel that we belong to a social group. Importantly, this need encompasses both feeling loved and feeling love towards others. Since Maslow’s time, researchers have continued to explore how love and belonging needs impact well-being. For example, having social connections is related to better physical health and, conversely, feeling isolated (i.e. having unmet belonging needs) has negative consequences for health and well-being(Hopper,E.2020).

04.Esteem Needs

Our esteem needs involve the desire to feel good about ourselves. According to Maslow, esteem needs include two components. The first involves feeling self-confidence and feeling good about oneself. The second component involves feeling valued by others; that is, feeling that our achievements and contributions have been recognized by other people. When people’s esteem needs are met, they feel confident and see their contributions and achievements as valuable and important. However, when their esteem needs are not met, they may experience what psychologist Alfred Adler called “feelings of inferiority”(Hopper,E.2020).

05.Self-Actualization Needs

Self-actualization refers to feeling fulfilled, or feeling that we are living up to our potential. One unique feature of self-actualization is that it looks different for everyone. For one person, self-actualization might involve helping others; for another person, it might involve achievements in an artistic or creative field. Essentially, self-actualization means feeling that we are doing what we believe we are meant to do. According to Maslow, achieving self-actualization is relatively rare, and his examples of famous self-actualized individuals include Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, and Mother Teresa (Hopper,E.2020).

Using Maslow’s Hierarchy for Employee Motivation

Effectively motivating employees has long been one of the most important and challenging duties of a business leader. Part of the challenge is that motivation is highly individualized from one person to the next. So, it’s important for managers and leaders to understand the some of the psychological processes involved in motivation.

At Digital-Tutors, we built an amazing culture, with a laser-focused purpose. We boosted our productivity and profits, while virtually eliminating turnover.

How?

We did it by using a customized version of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This concept was proposed by psychologist Abraham Maslow as a way of describing the psychological drivers believed to govern human motivation.

Maslow’s hierarchy is depicted as a pyramid split into five levels, with our most basic physical needs forming the foundation, and advancing through more complex psychological desires at the top of the pyramid. At its core, Maslow’s hierarchy is simple to understand, although applying it in your workplace does require some effort (Jerome, N. 2013).

References

i. Abbah, M.T. (2014). Employee Motivation: The Key to Effective Organizational Management in Nigeria. Journal of Business and Management. Volume 16, Issue 4.

ii. Huitt, W., 2007. Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Educational psychology interactive, 23.

iii. Jerome, N., 2013. Application of the Maslow’s hierarchy of need theory; impacts and implications on organizational culture, human resource and employee’s performance. International journal of business and management invention, 2(3), pp.39-45.

iv. Lester, D., Hvezda, J., Sullivan, S. and Plourde, R., 1983. Maslow's hierarchy of needs and psychological health. The Journal of General Psychology, 109(1), pp.83-85.

v. Maslow, A. H. (1987). Motivation and personality (3rd ed.). Delhi, India: Pearson Education.