Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs helps managers understand employees’ needs in order to further employees’ motivation.

• Maslow is best known for his theory, the Hierarchy of Needs. Depicted in a pyramid, the theory explains the different levels and importance of human psychological and physical needs. It can be used by business managers to better understand employee motivation.
• The general needs in Maslow’s hierarchy include physiological needs (food and clothing), safety needs (job security), social needs (friendship), self- esteem, and self-actualization.
• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs relates to organizational theory and behavior due to it’s exploration of worker motivation, enabling better managerial practices and higher job satisfaction.
• Managers must be perceptive and empathetic to their employees—they must listen to what their employees’ needs are and work to fulfill them.

Abraham Maslow was a social psychologist who focused on the entirety of human psychological needs rather than on individual psychological problems. Maslow is best known for his theory, the Hierarchy of Needs. Depicted in a pyramid, the theory explains the different levels of importance of human psychological and physical needs.

The general needs in Maslow’s hierarchy include physiological needs (food and clothing), safety needs (job security), social needs (friendship), self-esteem, and self-actualization. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs can be used by managers to better understand employees’ needs and motivations, allowing them to best provide for employees’ needs and generate high productivity and job satisfaction.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Each level of Maslow’s hierarchy outlines a specific category of need, each of which must be accomplished in a bottom-up order. Managers should correlate their managerial style with the needs of their employees.

At the bottom of the pyramid are the physiological (or basic) needs of a human being: food, water, sleep, and sex. The next level is safety needs: security, order, and stability. These two levels are important to the physical survival of the person. Once individuals have basic nutrition, shelter, and safety, they attempt to accomplish more.

The third level of need is love and belonging, which are psychological needs; when individuals have taken care of themselves physically, they are ready to share themselves with others, such as with family and friends. The fourth level is achieved when individuals feel comfortable with what they have accomplished. This is the esteem level, which includes the need to feel competent and recognized, such as through status and level of success. Then there is the cognitive level, where individuals intellectually stimulate themselves and explore. After that is the aesthetic level, which includes the need for harmony, order, and beauty.

At the top of the pyramid, self-actualization occurs when individuals reach a state of harmony and understanding because they have achieved their full potential. Once people have reached the self-actualization stage they focus on themselves and try to build their own image. They may look at this in terms of feelings such as self-confidence, or by accomplishing a set goal.

Hierarchy of Needs and Organizational Theory

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs relates to organizational theory and behavior because it explores a worker’s motivation. For example, some people are prepared to work just for money, but others like going to work because of the friends they have made there or the fact that they are respected by others and recognized for their good work. One conclusion that can be made from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in the workforce is, “If a lower need is not met, then the higher ones are ignored.” For example, if employees are worried that they will be fired, and have no job security, they will be far more concerned about capital accumulation and ensuring their lower rungs can continue to be met (paying rent, paying bills, etc.) than about friendship and respect at work. However, if employees are wealthy enough to fulfill their basic needs, praise for good work and meaningful group relationships may be a more important motivation.

If a need is not met, staff may become very frustrated. For example, if someone works hard for a promotion and does not achieve the recognition they want, they may become demotivated and put in less effort. When a need is met it will no longer motivate the person, but the next need in the hierarchy will become important to that person. Keep in mind that it is not quite as simple in reality as in a model, and that individuals may have needs that are more complex or difficult to quantify than the hierarchy suggests. Managers must be perceptive and empathetic to their employees, they must listen to what their needs are and work to fulfill them.

Frederick Herzberg theorized that employee satisfaction has two dimensions: “hygiene” and motivation. Hygiene issues, such as salary and supervision, decrease employees' dissatisfaction with the work environment. Motivators, such as recognition and achievement, make workers more productive, creative and committed.

Motivating factors include:

• Achievement: A job must give an employee a sense of achievement. This will provide a proud feeling of having done something difficult but worthwhile.
• Recognition: A job must provide an employee with praise and recognition of their successes. This recognition should come from both their superiors and their peers.
• The work itself: The job itself must be interesting, varied, and provide enough of a challenge to keep employees motivated.
• Responsibility: Employees should “own” their work. They should hold themselves responsible for this completion and not feel as though they are being micromanaged.
• Advancement: Promotion opportunities should exist for the employee.
• Growth: The job should give employees the opportunity to learn new skills. This can happen either on the job or through more formal training.

Hygiene factors include:

• Company policies: These should be fair and clear to every employee. They must also be equivalent to those of competitors.
• Supervision: Supervision must be fair and appropriate. The employee should be given as much autonomy as is reasonable.
• Relationships: There should be no tolerance for bullying or cliques. A healthy, amiable, and appropriate relationship should exist between peers, superiors, and subordinates.
• Work conditions: Equipment and the working environment should be safe, fit for purpose, and hygienic.
• Salary: The pay structure should be fair and reasonable. It should also be competitive with other organizations in the same industry.
• Status: The organization should maintain the status of all employees within the organization. Performing meaningful work can provide a sense of status.
• Security: It is important that employees feel that their job is secure and they are not under the constant threat of being laid-off.

The Four Stats

In a general sense, there are four states an organization or team can find themselves in when it comes to Two Factor Theory.

1. High Hygiene and High Motivation

This is the ideal situation and the one which every manager should strive for. Here, all employees are motivated and have very few grievances.

2. High Hygiene and Low Motivation

In this situation, employees have few grievances but they are not highly motivated. An example of this situation is where pay and working conditions are competitive but the work isn’t very interesting. Employees are simply there to collect their salary.

3. Low Hygiene and High Motivation

In this situation, employees are highly motivated but they have a lot of grievances. A typical example of this situation is where the work is exciting and really interesting but the pay and conditions are behind competitors in the same industry.

4. Low Hygiene and Low Motivation

This is obviously a bad situation for an organization or team to find itself in. Here, employees aren’t motivated and the hygiene factors are not up to scratch.

How to Use The Model

There is a two-step process to use the Two Factor Theory model to increase the motivation of your team.

1. Eliminate job hygiene stressors.
2. Boost job satisfaction.

1. Eliminate Job Hygiene Stressors

The first step to enhancing the motivation of your team is to ensure that the hygiene factors are not causing dissatisfaction.

Each person will examine hygiene factors through their own unique frame of reference. Because of this, it’s important to work with each member of your team to understand their specific perspective.

Some common steps to remove hygiene stressors are:

• Rectify petty and bureaucratic company policies.
• Ensure each team member feels supported without feeling micromanaged. You can do this by using servant leadership or a democratic leadership style.
• Ensure the day to day working culture is supportive. No bullying. No cliques. Everyone treated with equal respect.
• Ensure that salaries are competitive within the industry. Ensure there are no major salary disparities between employees doing similar jobs.
• To increase job satisfaction and status, aim to construct jobs in such a way that each team member finds their job meaningful.

2. Boost Job Satisfaction

Once you have removed hygiene stressors, the next step is to boost the job satisfaction of each team member. We can do this by improving the actual content of the job itself. Again, a unique approach for each employee will be required.

Three techniques which can be used to achieve this are:

a. Job Enrichment

Job enrichment means enriching a team member’s job by giving them more challenging or complex tasks to perform. These more complex tasks should make the job more interesting.

b. Job Enlargement

Job enlargement means giving a team member a greater variety of tasks to perform. This variety can also make a job more interesting.

Note that with job enlargement the variety of tasks is increased, but not the difficulty of those tasks. If difficulty increased then that would be job enrichment.

c. Employee Empowerment

Employee empowerment means deligating increasing responsibility to each team member. This can be done by slowly increasing the amount of responsibility you delegate to an employee.