Motivation - Managing people and organisation - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages Abraham Maslow’s studies during the early 1940’s involving human personality and the motivations responsible for initiating action led him to organize a list of five levels which describes people’s most fundamental needs. These include, in order of importance, Physiological, Safety, Love, Esteem and Self-actualization. Physiology concerns bodily necessities including breath, thirst, hunger etc. Safety is the sense of security, such as the need for a worker to safeguard his family by keeping his job. Love describes the need to be accepted within a group and esteem refers to a sense of self-respect (Maslow, 1987). Self- actualization, according to Maslow, describes an individual’s personal growth and can occur only after the other four needs are fulfilled. As someone nears self-actualization, they are becoming increasingly astute and wise and are able to quickly realize the correct course regarding many types of everyday situations. “Maslow’s ultimate conclusion that the highest levels of self-actualization are transcendent in their nature may be one of his most important contributions to the study of human behavior and motivation” (Daniels, cited in Huitt, 2004). Maslow theorized that by attending to the low level needs first such as security and the need to belong, then providing self respect, employers could more effectively motivate workers.
Twenty years following Maslow’s breakthrough work, Frederick Herzberg endeavored to determine the main factors that motivated employees building from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs model. Herzberg’s research produced the motivator-hygiene theory concluding that employees could not be motivated to improve output by simply addressing the low-level needs; that this ideology serves only to motivate workers to begin seeking other employment rather than leading to a satisfactory and enjoyable ...Download file to see next pagesRead More