Motivating Employees And Its Impact On The Workforce

Motivation is derived from an internal force that provides an individual the opportunity to achieve their needs or goals. People are motivated by a variety of things and often have different motivating factors. Employers should be mindful of individual motivating factors when attempting to motivate staff to increase performance. While some people may be motivated by money, many are motivated by things like: recognition, promotion, and increased responsibility. Once an employer has identified motivating factors they are able to analyze a variety of motivational theories to design and implement a program that will motivate employees to go above and beyond what is expected of them.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a structural progression of psychological and physical needs. Maslow hypothesized that there were two distinct types of needs: deficiency needs and growth needs2. The deficiency needs,

Psychologist Abraham H. Maslow is the developer of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The theory covers human behavior in terms of basic requirements for survival and growth (Cengage, 2002). The theory was developed in the early 1960’s. During this time psychology was taken over by two different views. One side was the human behavior and the other one was the behaviorist. Maslow explained that psychoanalysts had not accomplished the task to consider the behavior of healthy humans. He also mentioned that many subjective experiences that related with human behaviors were being ignored by behaviorist. In the beginning Maslow examined motivations and experience of many healthy individuals. He recognized that there are many requirements in this theory that are important for human survival and to help motivate individuals. He conceptualized different human needs as a pyramid with five levels in

With these few thoughts in mind Abraham Maslow made up a hierarchy of needs. (Boeree, Page 2) The hierarchy of needs has five levels: the bottom one is Physiological Needs, the next one up is Safety needs, the next one is Belonging needs, the next one is Esteem Needs and finally the last one is Self-actualization needs. As Maslow thought he “saw human beings needs arranged like a ladder”, the most basic needs at the bottom and at the top the need to fulfill yourself. (pbs.org, Page 1) Below is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Abraham Maslow’s theory, Theory of Hierarchy Needs, is a motivational theory in psychology that has a tier model of the five things a human needs. Maslow stated that people are motivated to achieve certain needs and that some needs take precedence over others. The five stages, from bottom to top, include Physiological needs( food, water, warmth, and rest), the second stage: Safety Needs ( security and safety), third stage: Belongingness and love needs ( intimate relationships and friends), the fourth stage: Esteem Needs (prestige and feeling of accomplishment), and finally the last stage: Self-actualization ( achieving one’s full potential, including creative potential). The five stage model can be divided into

Abraham Maslow is a psychologist who had developed the Hierarchy of needs model in 1940-50s, and the Hierarchy needs theory is still being used to day and for understanding the human motivation. In his hierarchy he believes that people are motivated to achieve certain needs. And when a human had fulfilled a person would seek to fulfil the next one. Maslow’s hierarchy needs is concerning the responsibility of service providers to provide a

As it was mentioned before, the key idea of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theory relates to the existence of several sets of motivation and needs that govern human behavior. Hence, the major concepts of this theory include certain needs that are grouped into sets based on their place within the hierarchy of all the needs. The first version of the theory has five needs, which are divided into

The hierarchy of needs of Abraham Maslow is the theory from where the humanistic psychology is built. It is constituted of diverse stages from where a person can move from one stage to another. However, to move to the next stage, the person must complete the previous one. Maslow’s theory suggests each individual have the drive and desire to meet their basic needs in order to meet the fundamental

In 1943, Abraham Maslow developed a theory in psychology known as the Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is mostly often used as a pyramid, as shown on the title page. One of the many interesting things that Maslow noticed, is the layers of physiological needs, safety and security needs, the needs for loving and belonging, esteem needs, and self-actualization, in that order(working from the bottom layer of the pyramid up).

The principals of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs outline our behavior and actions as being driven by a ‘hierarchy’ of needs; lower level needs, like survival, must be satisfied before motivation moves on to meet higher level needs, such as ‘connection feeling’ and self-actualization (iwise2.com, 2012).

Motivation in the workplace is one of the major concerns that managers face when trying to encourage their employees to work harder and do what is expected of them on a day-to-day basis. According to Organizational Behavior by John R. Schermerhorn, James G. Hunt and Richard N. Osborn the definition of motivation is "the individual forces that account for the direction, level, and persistence of a person's effort expended at work." They go on to say that "motivation is a key concern in firms across the globe." Through the years there have been several theories as to what motivates employees to do their best at work. In order to better understand these theories we will apply them to a fictitious organization that has the following

An organization’s purpose and/or goal is to accomplish its undertakings or objectives in an effectual approach. To achieve this it ought to have or retain employees prepared and eager to work to attain this. It requires people (motivated employees) who are prepared and wanting to meet those objectives by way of exceeding efforts and rising above the usual principles and values.

He placed the most basic needs at the bottom of the pyramid and the most advanced needs at the top of the pyramid. According to Maslow , when people satisfy one level of need, they then move up to the next level. In his theory, the most basic need is the survive – to have enough money to buy food, shelter and necessary clothes. When they have satisfied the need for survival, they then need to feel safe and secure – perhaps from unemployment. So that second level of need is the security. After that, people need to belong to a group and to have friends – these are their social needs. They then move on the needing status. At this stage they need to be respected in the community, to be esteemed, and to be given recognition for what they do. When all these needs have been satisfied, people finally have self-actualization needs. This is ambition to achieve as much as they possibly can – perhaps to be promoted to high-level position with more responsibility. (Jane, 1999) 4

Industrial/Organizational (I/O) Psychology is devoted to the study of employee behavior in the workplace and understanding the issues facing organizations and employees in today’s complex and ever changing environment. Motivation refers to the set of forces that influence people to choose various behaviors among several alternatives available to them. An organization depends on the ability of management to provide a positive, fostering and motivating environment for its employees in order to increase profits, productivity and lower turnover rates of its employees. The purpose of this paper is to discuss and compare six academic journal articles and explore the behavior, job, and need based theories of motivation that can aid management in motivating and understanding their employees. Finding that delicate balance to can sometimes be elusive so effectively learning how to motivate by understanding, controlling and influencing factors to manipulate behavior and choices that are available to employees can produce the desired outcome.

One of the first authors that dealt with the sources of motivation was Frederick Taylor who focussed on the overall productivity of an organisation. He linked this productivity to the effort an employee puts into their work which in turn is dependent on monetary rewards (Taylor, 1911). This theory was established in the context of the industrial age and thus is outdated for today’s analysis but it still provides a basic assumption which is often referred to by other authors. The total neglecting of a worker’s intrinsic motivators is a starting point for discussion for authors that conducted research in that area after Taylor.