Question 2 - Describe how employees can be motivated using

Maslows hierarchy of needs theory.

Motivation is the willingness to exert high levels of effort to reach
organizational goals, conditioned by the efforts ability to satisfy some
individual needs. Needs is an internal state that makes certain outcomes
appear attractive. In his theory, Maslow wants to understand what is the
main thing which is can motivate employee as he believes that they need a
set of standard motivation system which is unrelated to rewards or
unconscious desires. Maslow (1943) stressed out that employees are
motivated to achieve their certain needs as when needs are fulfilled, the said
individual seeks to next one right after that and so on. Maslows theory is the
earliest theories of motivation which widespread version is hierarchy of
needs. There is a hierarchy of five human needs which are the most basic
need is physiological, safety, social, esteem and growth need is self
actualization. Same goes to the employees, the basics needs are said to
motivate them when they are unmet. Employees must satisfy lower level
basic needs before progressing on to meet the next higher level growth
needs. When these needs have been reasonably satisfied, they may be able
to reach the highest level called as self actualization. Employees are capable
to reach to each level if they have desire to move up the hierarchy towards a
level of self actualization.
The first stage in Maslows hierarchy needs is physiological needs.
Physiological needs are those required for human survival such as air, food,
water, shelter, clothing and sleep. Manager can account for physiological
needs of your employees by providing comfortable working conditions,
reasonable working hours and the necessary breaks to us the washroom and
eat or drinks. Employee needs all these physiological factors to ensure the
next hierarchy level can be achieved.

The next stage of needs is safety needs. Safety needs is include those
needs that provide a person with a sense of security and well being. Personal
security, financial security, good health and protection from accidents, harm
and their adverse affects are included in safety needs. Manager can account
for the safety needs of employees by providing a safe working conditions,
secure compensation such as salary which may lead to them to buy own
assets such as house, car and so on, job security, which is especially
important in a bad economy nowadays. As for example, EPF and Socso
contribution is one of the safety needs of employee for long term saving.
The third stage of hierarchy needs is social needs. It also called as love
and belonging is referring to the need to feel a sense of belonging and
acceptance. Social needs are important to humans so that they do not feel
alone, isolated and depressed. Friendship, family and intimacy all work to
fulfill social needs. Manager can account for the social needs of employee by
making sure each of them know one another, encouraging cooperative team
work, being and accessible and kind supervisor and promoting a good worklife balance. Providing some training to employees also to ensure the their
participation can create the bold bonding between employees-manager,
employees-employees in terms of team work cooperation.
Next hierarchy needs after social need is esteem needs. It refers to the
need for self-esteem and respect, with self respect being slightly more
important than gaining respect and admiration from others. Manager can
account for the esteem needs of employee by offering praise and recognition
when employee does the job well and offering promotion and additional
responsibility to reflect the belief given that they are valued employee. In
terms of social needs to be accomplished, management can provides
counseling course or team force in order to gain their self esteem.
The top level in hierarchy needs is self actualization. Self actualization
needs describe a persons needs to reach his or her potential. The need to

become what is the one capable of something is highly personal. Employees

might have the needs to hold an executive-level position in organization
because this need is individualized. Manager can account for this needs by
providing challenging work, inviting employees to participate in decisionmaking and giving them flexibility and autonomy in their jobs. Management
can account their ability by providing merit system to evaluate their
potential and capabilities.
As the name of theory indicates, Maslow believes that these needs
exist in hierarchical order. This progression principle suggests that lower-level
needs must be met before higher-level needs. The deficit principle claims
that once a need is satisfied, it is no longer a motivator because an individual
will take action only to satisfy unmet needs. Motivating employees can lead
to increase productivity and allow an organization to achieve higher levels of
output. Motivation is generally what energizes, maintains and controls
behavior. The role of motivation in workplace is straightforward theoretically
but difficult to actually measure. Salary might often enough to keep
employees working for an organization, but its not always enough to push
them to fulfill their full potential. Motivated employees will retain high level
of innovation while producing higher-quality work at a higher level of
efficiency. The opportunitycost in motivating employees is essentially zero.