[2].Motivating Employees of IT industry through the application of Maslow’s theory of Hierarchical Needs
Introduction to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
This Maslow’s
Hierarchy of Needs can be used by managers to clear understand of employees’ motivation and able to suggest
to managers how they can make their employees or subordinates become
self-actualized address them in ways that lead to high productivity and
job satisfaction
Below module illustrates these hierarchical needs in more detail.
Figure 1
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Source: (Sadri & Bowen, 2011)
Relating the theory to an organizational workplace
The most essential value addition of Maslow's theory, according to (Greenberg and Baron, 2003), is its simplicity, which allows it to be applied to any business at any position. The theory can be applied to an organization's resource management to improve employee performance through motivating employees and increasing employee satisfaction and motivation (Jerome, 2013).
According to Maslow, these requirements are arranged in a hierarchical order, with the lowest levels of demands being met first before moving on to the higher ones (Jerome, 2013). The video below, Video 1.0, demonstrates how a company uses the idea to keep their staff happy, satisfied, and driven. The company concentrates on ensuring that the hierarchy's demands are met, and it will establish a working atmosphere in which employees give their utmost, resulting in a significant increase in the company's profit. It also has an impact on employee benefits like as pay increases, bonuses, and other perks (Sadri and Bowen, 2011).
Video 1.0 : Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Explained [by a Project Manager]
Source:
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs can apply to modern-day factors as presented in the below table.
Table 1
Hierarchy of Needs mapped to modern day requirements
|
Needs |
Modern
Day Mapping |
|
Basic
Phycological needs |
Pay that is reasonable, workstations, snacks and refreshments, and so on. |
|
Safety |
Access control, security personnel, surveillance cameras, nighttime transportation, and insurance services are all available. |
|
Love
and Belonging |
Team
Activities ,Team outing, Socializing, Sports, |
|
Esteem |
Rewards
and Recognition Bonusses |
|
Self-Actualization |
Training
and development, Innovation initiatives, Challenging job tasks, Ability to
next level stretch Role |
Applying Maslow’s
theory to the organization which I work for
I have elaborated that how Maslow’s
theory has been applied to the
organization which I work for which is a leading Information Technology Service
Provider. And I further discuss the benefits acquired by using it and the
scenario where the employees, who have been dissatisfied and demotivated due to
the lack of the above needs.
Basic Phycological needs
Phycological needs are basic
primary needs that require to retain of a human being such as food,
water, air. Primary Phycological needs of an IT employee will be differ from non-IT
employee, since there can be more unique needs which is applicable for digital workplace.
Instead of having a place to sit, refreshment, transportation, there can be added
as fundamental needs of an IT employee such as relax and comfortable environment to work, workable
computer which has enough memory capacity and fast internet connection to do on
their day to day task. Because most of the IT employee work long hours
continuously under stress environment. Everyone's job can be stressful at
times, but IT jobs are more stressful than others
Based on the organization in which I work, all the basic physical needs are provided for the employees from the very first day at work, which includes the latest lap top, company sponsored t-shirts, personalized access cards, a comfortable chair, tea, refreshments, and work satiation to start work and all the instructions for all the facilities in the organization.
I can remember a few situations where employees were dissatisfied and demotivated due to lack of the above needs. As an example, employees must work extra hours to achieve the deadline if the timeline is strict on the project. In that case, employees are given night transport facility by a leading transport company in Sri Lanka. But some of unfortunate
accidents were reported continuously by transporting employees in the late night. Due to that reason most of the
employee reluctant to travel by office night transport which leads number of
significant employees stopped doing extra work though it is required. Employees
were not satisfied with quality of transport facility given by the company. They
expected that organization had to arrange more secure and reliable transport
facility by giving the instructions to the transport company and all the drivers
those who worked in night transport to assure the safety of the employees.
Apart from that employees are facing many difficulties when interacting with IT support team if occur technical /hardware issues in their laptops in this WFH period in Covid -19 pandemic situation. In that case, employees hard to troubleshoot their problems sooner which lead delay in their day today work. Employees will expect extended 24 hours IT support team to adhere problems quickly to mitigate this kind of issue.
Safety
As Maslow’s theory described, once all the Phycological needs are fulfilled by employees, people would eventually go to satisfy the next level of needs which is the needs of safety. organization in which I work has implemented many policies and procedures to ensure the safety of an employee in the premises.
Below are some of those.
- Making sure no unauthorized malicious access is possible and all access to the work environments are restricted via access cards
- Security personal are place at every entrance
- Multiple emergencies exits, evacuation plans, fire plans, and periodic evacuations drills are performed to make sure that all employees are educated, and proper mechanisms are in place to safeguard employees in an event of a disaster
- Entire organization premises is under 24*7 surveillance
- At the same time-periodic vulnerability checks are performed to mitigate upcoming risks
- All communication channels in the organization are encrypted
People will gradually turn to the next level of requirements, which is the need for love and belonging, once their physical needs have been met. In terms of business functions, annual vacation outings, movie nights, cultural festivals as a nation, and sports clubs, the organization where I work gives different opportunities for employees to collaborate with one another. They've also employed YAMMER, Microsoft LINK, and Microsoft Teams as full-fledged digital socializing platforms for employees to share ideas, expertise, and work cooperatively.
Esteem Needs
The next level of need is the need for
esteem within the organization.
According to the organization in which I work, employee is given a performance score card by evaluating the tasks that employee has performed during the project time by the Reporting Manager. And some of achievement are both financially and as an organizational-wide recondition. Having feedback session with the manager is more helpful to identify the weak areas that employee needs to be improved.
Self-Actualization
The Training and Development Team attach to Human Resource Management provide individual training and development for employees in the organization. Every employee has been given structed path in terms of skills to acquire as per his assigned role and the next level role. For the employees identified as low performers through the performance evaluation cycle must run through the training and development plan according to the training needs identified in the evaluation cycle. It should be a program which adding a value to their role in the organization.
Apart from that, there are multiple initiatives to promote innovation and express creativity in terms of Hackathons, tech days and innovation clubs.
References
Aruma, E. and Hanchor, M. (2017). ABRAHAM MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS AND ASSESSMENT OF NEEDS IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT. International Journal of Development and Economic Sustainability, 5(7), 16. Retrieved 07 29, 2021, from https://www.eajournals.org/wp-content/uploads/Abraham-Maslow%E2%80%99s-Hierarchy-of-Needs-and-Assessment-of-Needs-in-Community-Development.pdf#:~:text=The%20hierarchy%20of%20needs%20which%20was%20developed%20by,human%20needs%20in%20human%20environment%.
Greenberg, J., and Baron, R. A. (2003). Behavior in Organization. (7. t. Edition, Ed.) Upper Saddle River.
Jerome, N. (2013). Application of the Maslow ’ s hierarchy of need theory:Impacts and implications on organizational culture , human resource and employee ’ s performance Dr . Application of the Maslow ’ s hierarchy of need theory.
Kaur,
A. (2013). Maslow’s Need Hierarchy Theory:. Research India
Publications.
Nizhebetskiy,
D. (2020). Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Explained [by a Project Manager]. A. S.
Program. Retrieved 07 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1Jj9_XFE_8.
Sadri, G. and Bowen, C.,. (2011). Meeting employee requirements: Maslow's hierarchy of needs is still a reliable guide to motivating staff. Industrial engineer,. 43(10), pp.44-9.
White, S. (2016). The 8 most stressful jobs in tech. (IDG) Retrieved 7 26, 2021, from CIO: https://www.cio.com/article/3030171/the-8-most-stressful-jobs-in-tech.html.
I have added a point which has not include my blog.We review the idea of a hierarchical approach to human motivation, proposing several changes to Maslow's original model (Kenrick, 2010).This new model not only connects contemporary psychological developments (e.g., evolutionary and positive psychology), but it also presents a number of broader empirical problems for future investigation.”While the original hierarchy contained five levels, this revised version included seven and revised hierarchy of human motives, building on theoretical and empirical developments at the interface of evolutionary biology, anthropology, and psychology (Kenrick, 2010).
ReplyDeleteAgreed with the argument relevant to Maslow’s hierarchy. But not only considering IT industry but for any industry in the new normal, it is debated by many people that Maslow hierarchy is not pointing major point of people motivations and it just covers basic need and wants. The healthy environment is the decent thing but individuals can experience higher level of motivation anytime, anywhere other than these lower-level needs(Flower, 2014). Maslow considered narrow segment of people needs and there is no proper way to measure employee satisfactory level since how satisfied of one level is effected to next level of the hierarchy (Kunchala, 2017).
ReplyDeleteThank you Thushari. I agree with the points you have highlighted. Maslow had made few unrealistic assumptions. However, regardless of the criticism, this theory has made significant contributions to the field of management and organization behaviour (Kaur, 2013).
DeleteWhen go thought your comment Traditional motivation theories focus on specific elements that motivate employees in pursuit of organizational performance. For example, motives and needs theory (Maslow, 1943) states that employees have five level of needs (physiological, safety, social, ego, and self-actualizing), while equity and justice theory states that employees strive for equity between themselves and other employees (Adams, 1963, Adams, 1965).
ReplyDeleteThank you Chandana. Maslow's theory mixes hygienic and motivational components, whereas equity theory attempts to enable management to understand employees' requirements in order to ensure that their perceived job outputs are aligned with the inputs (Knights & Willmott, 2007).
DeleteAgreed with the argument. A test intended, “to assess Maslow’s need hierarchy”, which paired statements from two needs at a time and asking respondents which was more important to them on a scale of 0 to 100, for example, “Being respected by friends and co-workers” (esteem need) vs “Being spontaneous and open to new experiences” (self-actualization need). If respondents assigned a score of, say, 80 to the esteem need statement, then the self-actualization was given a score of 20 (100–80) automatically. It was found that the scores for the five needs matched their order in the hierarchy, with the higher needs receiving higher scores (Strong and Fiebert, 1987).
ReplyDeleteThank you Khalid. Agreed with you. These wants are placed in a hierarchical order, according to Maslow, with the lowest levels of demands being met first before going on to the higher levels (Jerome, 2013).
DeleteAgreed with your arguments, However, while some research has shown support for Maslow’s theory, others has not been able to substantiate the idea of a need for a hierarchy that is considered to be influenced by Western culture, and thus cannot apply to all scenarios. (as cited by Jerome, 2013).
ReplyDeleteThank you Randika. Maslow's theory has practical implications for management, advising them on how to get their people to the top of the pyramid. Employees who reach the stage of self-actualization are valuable to an organization because they operate at their highest level of creativity (Kaur, 2010).
DeleteAgreed with you. Jerome (2013),attests that the theory explains that a person does not feel a higher need until the needs of the current level have been satisfied.
ReplyDeleteThank you Menaka. Once a given level of needs is satisfied, it no longer helps to motivate. Thus, next higher level of need has to be activated in order to motivate and thereby satisfy the individual (Luthans, 2005).
DeleteAgreed. When people fail to meet the needs required at various stages of the hierarchy, they suffer from psychological issues which compromises the overall well-being, also a low level of employee engagement (Maslow, 1943). Based on this theory Lawrence and Nohria (2002) developed a theoretical model on four core drives that influence human behavior.
ReplyDeleteThank you Chathuri.I'd also like to add that, according to Hagerty (1999), if you want to meet higher-level demands and keep people engaged, you must continually provide or fulfil lower-level needs. In his article, he put Maslow's hypothesis to the test in order to substantiate the aforementioned statement.
DeleteInteresting topic Menupa, adding to your points The expectancy theory, also named the VIE theory was initially elaborated by Vroom (1964) and then developed by Porter and Lawler (1968). This theory establishes a connection between the employees’ motivation and the certitude of their expectancies. The motivation is possible only when there is a clear relation between the work performance and its results and the results are means to satisfy a certain need. The goal setting theory, developed by Lotham and Locke (1979) states
ReplyDeleteThank you Gajendran.A process theory is the best way to define the Expectancy Theory of Motivation. Expectancy Theory, which was pioneered by Edward C. Tolman and continued by Victor H. Vroom, explains why people pick one behavioural option over another. This theory proposes that people are driven to act because they believe their activities will result in the desired outcome (Redmond, 2009)
DeleteTotally agreed Menupa,
ReplyDeleteEmployee engagement as a personal trait of an individual based on experience associated with his work in the particular organisational context, which must evolve naturally. (Li and Bunchapattanasakda, 2019)
Thank you Diyananda. Employees that are highly engaged work for an organization that uses the work-life balance principle (Galinsky & Johnson,1998).
DeleteAgreed. And retains its staff by the quality of staff retention strategies put in place. These strategies include adequate motivation and reward systems of extrinsic and intrinsic factors - good monetary incentives and the challenge of working on sophisticated software design projects. According to the survey of (Daniel Eseme GBEREVBIE,2008) - Microsoft company.
ReplyDeleteThank you Nilmini. The notion can be used to improve employee performance through encouraging employees and enhancing employee satisfaction and motivation in an organization's resource management (Jerome, 2013).
DeleteAgree Menupa. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is relevant to organizational theory because both are concerned with human motivation (Argyris, 2019). Understanding what people need—and how people’s needs differ is an important part of effective management, as an example some people work primarily for money, but they also like to go to work because they enjoy feeling respected by others and appreciated for their good work (Zara, 2016).
ReplyDelete