The Satisfaction of the Physiological Needs and the Safety Needs - Essay Example

Of all the assets in a company, the human resource is the primary resource which can decide the survival and growth. When the human resource in an organization is motivated, the achievement of the goals becomes easy, but on the other hand, when the people in the organization are not motivated, then they are not assets but liabilities. There are various theories which explain the factors that influence the motivation level of employees. First, we have to understand the Maslow’s need hierarchy theory. According to Maslow, there seems to be a hierarchy, into which human needs can be arranged. The first type of need is the physiological need. These needs are the most important of all the needs s they have the highest strength until they are reasonable satisfied. Examples of this need are food, water, shelter and clothing. The next level of need is the security need, that is the need for being free from physical danger and it can be said to the need for sense of security that the basic needs will be satisfied in the future also. This level of need is important dependent upon the relationship between the employer and the employees. As pointed out by McGregor, the safety needs may act as motivators, in such circumstances as arbitrary management actions, behavior which arouses uncertainty with respect to continued unemployment and unpredictable administration of policy. An organization can influence these security needs positively through introducing pension plans, insurance plans or negatively by arousing fears of being fired, lay off or demoted. Social needs is the next level of need in the hierarchy. After the satisfaction of the physiological needs and the safety needs the next need is the need for meaningful relationships and to be accepted in the society. An organization’s internal work environment decides the importance of this need. When an organization has a participatory leadership style, the workers start to feel part of the organization and this helps to increase their motivation by satisfying their social needs. An organization can used this need to increase the motivation of its workers. The management can form teams/ clubs within the organization to recognize good performers. Achievements on the job can be rewarded to increase the commitment of the employees towards their jobs. Esteem needs which follow the social needs are concerned with self respect, feeling of personal worth, feeling of being unique and recognition. This need can be used positively by recognition and appreciation of the workers. The ultimate need in the hierarchy is the self actualization needs which helps to achieve one’s full potential. This is related with the development of intrinsic capabilities which lead people to seek situations that can utilize their potential. These set of needs can be satisfied by creating opportunities for the workers who can steer ahead themselves. The levels of hierarchy in an organization should be minimized and the personnel can be empowered to plan and execute their tasks which can motivate them to achieve their full potential. The management can also use the approach to maintain the hygiene and motivational factors as suggested by Herzberg’s motivation-hygiene theory to increase the motivational level of its employees. In this theory, Herzberg explains that there are hygiene factors, which are not intrinsic part of the job but the conditions under which a job is performed. These factors do not help in the improvement of efficiency of the organization, but they prevent losses in the performance of the workers. These factors help in maintaining a reasonable level of output from the workers. Usually in an organization, the hygiene factors are usually established. Hence, to have a motivated workforce, the management has to improve the motivational factors such as increasing the responsibility, achievement and recognition. By dividing the workers into teams and empowering them to solve problems and make decisions, the management can increase the presence of motivational factors in the organization. The jobs of the workers should include a variety of tasks and the formal structures have to give way to more people oriented teams. This creates job enrichment. The idea of maintaining the motivational factors will help in job rotation, job enrichment and job enlargement, which will benefit the company to a major extent. By increasing the scope of responsibility and recognition by the management will create more value to the job. The Herzberg’s approach can often motivate the members to achieve new heights which the human resource policies fail to achieve. There is a huge lot of literature available about the use of the Hawthorne experiments in the development of an organization. The experiments have a historical importance in analyzing the management problems in the light of behavioral approach. The whole experiments divided into four phases such as the illumination experiments, relay assembly test room experiments and the mass interviewing program and the bank wiring observation room experiments. The implications of these experiments are that the production norms are set by social norms. Many noneconomic rewards and sanctions affect the behavior of the workers and modify the impact of economic rewards which have to be taken into account when motivating workers. Also the experiments show that, there is a huge influence of informal groups. The informal relations of the workers create groups which may create conflicts with the official groups. There is also a huge influence of the informal leaders. In some experiments it is shown that the influence of the informal leader is more important because of his identity with the group objective. An organization can use these findings to create a motivated environment by understanding the internal environment of the organization. The management should understand the profile of its workers. Also it should try to know the expectations of the employees. The factors that play a major role in the behavior of the workers should be identified. The job specifications, job enrichment, empowerment, appraisal system and rewards have to be designed based on the informal work relationships. When the organization has realized the role of informal relationships, it has to utilize it in a constructive way to motivate the employees. References 1. Maslow, H. Abraham, Motivation and personality, New York: Harper & Row, 1954 2. McGregor, Douglas, The Human side of enterprise, New York: McGraw Hill, 1967 Read More