jump to content of this page Bized logo linked to homepage
You are here: Home > Educators > Level 2 Business and Economics Education > People in Business 2 > Theories about Motivation: Maslow

Educators
Bookmark and Share

Advanced

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) was a psychologist. He developed a theory called the 'Hierarchy of Needs'. This hierarchy referred to the various needs that he believed characterised humans. He identified five main human needs. These are:

  • Physiological needs - the need for food, clothing and shelter and the other basic functions in life including sex, sleep and the need to do simple things like go to the toilet!
  • Safety needs - the need for humans to feel secure in their home and work environment, the need to feel that our jobs are not going to be taken away, that we have good basic health and that our property is secure.
  • Love needs - all humans, he believed, need friendship, to feel a sense of belonging, to have the support of a family, to identify with groups and to have some element of intimate relationships.
  • Esteem needs - humans have a need to feel respected and of having their skills and talents recognised by others. We want to feel that the things we do are recognised and appreciated by others, that we feel we have some competence at what we do and we are encouraged and do not feel inferior.
  • Self-actualisation - a need to feel fulfilled, to feel that we have achieved our potential. Maslow suggested that people who reach this need are aware of their own potential but also that of others around them.
Uzbeki artisan working on a copper plate Young woman sitting in a bright, modern office

Different jobs, different people, different motivations. Business organisations might need to be aware of the different needs people have and to be flexible in how they design their motivation practices. Copyright: Aainaa-Ridtz A.R. and Stella Reese, both from stock.xchng.

Maslow's hierarchy is generally shown in the form of a triangle or pyramid with physiological needs at the bottom and self-actualisation at the top. Part of the reason for this is that Maslow felt that the first two needs were needs that could be characteristic of both humans and some animals. The other three needs, however, were specific to humans.

The importance of Maslow's theory for motivation at work is what he said about what happens to individuals when certain needs are satisfied. Maslow suggested that if none of the 5 needs had been satisfied then the physiological needs would dominate. If it was a choice between food and wanting to be loved for example, then the human would be motivated primarily by food. Once that need has been satisfied, the other needs will start to become more important to the individual. It does not mean that other needs will go away but what is deemed important to the individual at a particular point in time.

What Maslow actually said was that 'gratified needs are not active motivators'. For a business, this is an important conclusion. The importance of Maslow is to recognise that in some cases, money might be an important motivator. If a person gets a job and was previously homeless, with few of the physiological needs satisfied, then the prospect of having a regular income to buy food, clothing and shelter might act as a powerful motivator.

Fairy cake in its paper base A piece of yellow crumpled paper with 'Love U' written on it

Once you have your fill of one need, offering more may not necessarily act as a motivator, at that point other needs become more important and a business has to recognise this if it wants to have successful motivation strategies. Copyright: Meliha Gojak and Nadia Szopinska, both from stock.xchng.

Once those needs had been satisfied, Maslow suggested that offering more money might not achieve the sort of motivational effect that had been the case previously. What the organisation needs to consider is that other needs might start to become more important to the individual; to motivate that individual, those needs may have to be considered.

What this means for a business is that every employee might have different needs. What might act as a motivator to one individual might not act as a motivator to another. The organisation therefore needs to have different motivation strategies in place to get the best out of their employees. This can be very complex and time consuming and also implies that the organisation knows its employees very well.

Task:

  • Design a questionnaire based around Maslow's hierarchy of needs. The aim of the questionnaire is to see what importance people place on satisfying their different needs. You might ask people how important they think each need is to them at work and then ask them to select the most appropriate choice from 1 - 5 with 1 being 'not important at all' to 5 being 'extremely important'.
  • Don't try to be too ambitious with your survey - ask a limited number of people (perhaps a maximum of ten). This way, you will actually get the survey completed and will have an easier time interpreting your results. It might help if you asked people who were involved in similar jobs (for example your teachers). If asking people in different types of job the results might look different - can you think why this might be?
  • You can analyse the results using a spreadsheet application and then use the graphing tool to present your results. The most important thing to consider is how you are going to interpret your results - what do they tell you?

| Index | Previous | Next |