Improving employee motivation through the application of Maslow’s theory of Hierarchical Needs

Introduction to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Based on various studies on human needs and their relationship with employee motivation, the famous researcher Abraham Maslow has come up with a theory that speaks of five levels of needs that decide the motivation and satisfaction of a human.  These needs are namely Basic seeds, Safety needs, Love and Belonging related needs, Self-esteem needs, and Self-actualization (Aruma, 2017). According to Maslow, these needs are stacked in a hierarchical order, where it is mandatory that the lowest levels of needs to be satisfied first before addressing the top-level needs (Jerome, 2013).  Below figure is a clear representation of these hierarchical needs.

Figure:1

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Source (Aruma and Hanachor, 2017)

Relating the theory to an organizational workplace

As per Greenberg & Baron (2003), the most important value addition of Maslow's theory is its simplicity, enabling it to be applied to any organization at any level. The theory can be used for resource management of an organization to increase employee performance by motivating employees and improving employee satisfaction and employee motivation (Jerome, 2013).

Video:1

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in the Workplace

Source: (Organizational Communication Channel, 2016)

 

The above video by Organizational Communication Channel (2016) is a good explanation of how the theory is been looked at by organizations to keep their employees satisfied and motivated. It also explains that if the organization focuses on making sure the needs of the hierarchy are fulfilled, it will create a working environment where employees can function willingly at their fullest potential. It relates the needs into modern-day factors as described in the below table.

Table 1

Hierarchy of Needs mapped to modern day requirements

Needs	Modern day mapping
Basic Phycological needs	Reasonable pay, Workstations, Snacks & refreshments etc.
Safety	Access control, Security personal, Surveillance Cameras
Love and Belonging	Socializing, Sports, Team Activities
Esteem	Rewards and Recognition Bonusses
Self-Actualization	Training and development, Innovation initiatives, Challenging meaning full job tasks

Source: (Organizational Communication Channel, 2016)

Applying the theory to the organization which I work for

Below is an evaluation of how Maslow’s theory is has been applied to the organization which I work for which is a leading Information technology service provider and the benefits gained by it.

Basic Phycological needs

While all the standard needs of an employee such as a place to sit, easy transportation access, access, availability of meals and refreshment still apply to IT employees, there also can be unique needs which is applicable for a digital workplace. These needs can be more technology-oriented. Havening a decent workable computer to work on which has enough processor and memory capacity, or a fast internet connection can also be seen as a basic fundamental need for an IT employee to start work on his day to day tasks.

As per my organization, the focus on basic psychological needs starts with the “Welcome Package” that has been given to a recruit. The package will provide all you need to kickstart your first day at work, which consists of an industry-standard latest laptop, a personalized company access card, a T-shirt, directions to all the facilities in the organization, and workstation with calling facilities. At the same time, since the needs of the IT world is changing ever so frequently, there is a dedicated team inside the facilities department who keeps a track of all the facilities and making sure that they are up to date.

I can recall several occurrences where employees, who have been dissatisfied and demotivated due to the unavailability of the above needs. As an example, mobile application developers run some heavy workloads on their computer when programming. So, the amount of RAM on their laptops matters when it comes to speed at work. Unfortunately, in early 2015 most of the developer machines were with 8 GB of RAM was not fit for use, causing an impact on their day to day programming tasks. This particular limitation has caused dissatisfaction among developers in the organization resulting in certain highly skilled turnover cases. As a result, the organization had to not only upgrade, but also to standardize all mobile developer laptops to have higher memory capacity (16 GB) to mitigate this situation.

Relating this to the hierarchy of needs theory, having a sufficient amount of RAM had been seen as a basic need for a mobile application developer. Even though the organization had implemented collaboration platforms, excellent reward and recondition programs, which are higher-level hierarchy needs, the inability to provide that the basic need of sufficient RAM had caused significant employee dissatisfaction and demotivation, resulting in a turnover.

Safety

This also can be seen as an area where employees treat as a mandatory need and not ready to compromise on. Identifying this the organization has implemented various policies and procedures to assure the physical and privacy-related safety of an employee. Below are some of those.

Physical Safety

·   All-access to the work environments are restricted via access cards, making sure no unauthorized malicious access is possible

·      Every employee have been provided an access card which governs the authorization of the employee

·      Security personal are place at every entrance 

·      Multiple emergency exits, evacuation plans, fire plans, and periodic evacuations drills are performed in order 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

Digital safety

Since my organization is a high tech organization in information technology, the employee's digital safety matters as much as their physical safety, in order to ensure this,

·      All communication channels in the organization are encrypted

·      All personal data storage are compliant according to GDPR standards

·      State of-the-art treat-guards functions in all the computers to make sure malicious attacks are prevented

·      At the same time-periodic vulnerability checks are performed to mitigate upcoming risks

The importance of safety as a basic need for employees and employee dissatisfaction when they feel unsafe can be described using the following example. Some of the unfortunate Easter Sunday terrorist attacks that took place in 04/2019 happened just meters next to my organization's office premises, after that significant number of employees stopped reporting to work for weeks due to that fact that they were not satisfied with the existing security measures in the premises to counter-terrorism. Employees expected that the organization had to implement additional measures on top of existing, to face this new threat. The organization had to implement special explosive tracking x-ray devices, as you see in airports and special trained security personal to check vehicles to assure the employees of their safety at work.

Love and Belonging

This is an area where my organization has sold a framework. Not only the organization provides various means for employees to socialize and collaborate on in terms of Sport and Art clubs, company functions, annual vacation outings, movie nights. but also has used digital technologies such as YAMMER, Microsoft LINK, Microsoft Teams as full-fledged digital socialize platforms for employees to share thoughts, share knowledge and socialize on.

Esteem Needs

The organization has a transparent reward and recondition mechanism called REPS. Every employee has a chance of earning points based on his day to day achievements. For example, everyday attendance will earn you points. If you complete a task on time, you earn points. If complete certification, you gain points.  These points are taken into consideration in quarterly performance reviews. And also certain points achievements are rewarded both financially and as an organizational-wide recondition. This methodology follows certain gamification fundamentals, where employees feel proud of themselves and motivated to achieve more.

Self-Actualization

There is a separate team to focus on individual training and development needs. Every employee has been given a structured path in terms of skills to acquire as per his assigned role and the next level role. There is a tool called “Career- Compass” which provides a graphical metric of each employee’s personalize career needs and where it is heading. At the same time, there are multiple initiatives to promote innovation and express creativity in terms of Hackathons, tech days and innovation clubs.

Conclusion

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory still can be applied to any organization to make sure that the organization has done its part to have a sustainable foundation to address various levels of needs of an employee. In an IT organization, these needs can take a unique digital format and has to be kept up to date with the changing digital world.

References

Aruma, E. and Hanachor, M. (2017). ABRAHAM MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS AND ASSESSMENT OF NEEDS IN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT. International Journal of Development and Economic Sustainability, [online] 5(7), p.16. Available at: http://www.eajournals.org/wp-content/uploads/Abraham-Maslow%E2%80%99s-Hierarchy-of-Needs-and-Assessment-of-Needs-in-Community-Development.pdf [Accessed 10 Sep. 2019].

Greenberg, J., and Baron, R. A. (2003), Behavior in Organization. 7 th Edition. Upper Saddle River. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc.

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, [online] 2(3), pp.39-45. Available at: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b0bc/c8ca45193eaf700350a8ac2ddfc09a093be8.pdf [Accessed 10 Sep. 2019].

Organizational Communication Channel (2019). Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs in the Workplace. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nASV5I_WG3k [Accessed 10 Sep. 2019].