Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Proposed by Abraham Maslow in 1943 in his paper "A Theory on Human Motivation", still remains to bestow a substantial understanding on human motivation, management training and personal development. The theory is a five-tier model of human needs in a pyramidical alignment, posited assuming the existence of a hierarchical level in needs (Haque et al., 2014).
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Proposed by Abraham Maslow in 1943 in his paper "A Theory on Human Motivation", still remains to bestow a substantial understanding on human motivation, management training and personal development. The theory is a five-tier model of human needs in a pyramidical alignment, posited assuming the existence of a hierarchical level in needs (Haque et al., 2014).
This is a strict hierarchy, theorizing that an individual is unable to recognize or pursue the next level of needs until the currently required needs of lower levels are completely or substantially fulfilled (Salanova & Kirmanen, 2010).
Physiological Need
Basic survival needs of an individual such as food, water, shelter and clothes are the core necessities to be fulfilled, in order to climb on to the next in the ladder (Haque et al., 2014).
Implication of Physiological Needs at work places
Most of the well-established Airlines around the world practices provision of apartments/housing, personal vehicles and food allowances to appointed Country Managers, apart from the gross earnings. This posits best practice in the context of human resource management, vividly escalating the motivation levels of the employee. Organization's contribution to elevate employee standards, fulfilling the basic physiological needs as such certainly pitch in the journey of achieving higher goals of employees, which in the long run is beneficial to the organization coherently, manifesting the positive impact of best practice culture on employee motivation. Conversely, some practice adverse best-fit methods to the extreme of charging employees for uniforms during the first year after recruitment (Working at Ryanair: 141 Reviews | Indeed.co.uk, 2020).
Safety Needs
If an employee feels unsafe in work environment due absence of aspects such as physical, environmental, emotional safety and protection, the tendency to settle them prior moving on to the next in the hierarchy pops up. Most predominant are job security, health security, personal security, law and order (Salanova & Kirmanen, 2010).
Safety needs at workplace
Conspicuous, are few airlines out of the lot, to stand out in motivating employees. Virgin Atlantic offers its employees life assurance, income protection, critical illness insurance, nudge financial education, travel to work loans for employee well-being (Benefits of Working for Virgin Atlantic | Virgin Atlantic Careers, n.d.). An organization incurring the expenses of an employee’s hospitalization in an emergency, be it for an accident or even at pregnancy, the feeling of dignity in belonging to the company is certainly a solid motivational drive.
Social Needs
Emotional relationships drives human behavior such as love, affection, friendship, belongingness in social groups (Salanova & Kirmanen, 2010). Based on the extent to which an employee receives the aforementioned and their different degrees encourages drastic decisions to be exerted in life.
Social Needs at workplace
Annual team building days of Cathay Pacific Airways-CMB, provides its employees an opportunity to rejuvenate possibly any lost relationships amongst colleagues and brings in all together irrespective of designations on to a ground where everyone share experience collectively and the feeling becomes mutual. Cathay Pacific Airways-CMB employees plan weekly meals with ground handling employees of other departments, which helps provide an insight into the teamwork in operations and belongingness.
Self-Esteem Needs
The need to develop fruitful feelings of self-worth, based on internal self-confidence, competence, achievement, freedom, further enriched by aspects like respect, appreciation from external sources (Haque et al, 2014).
Self-esteem needs at workplace
Cathay Pacific Airways Airline recognizes the potential of employee and based on consistent high performance, the employee gets upgraded from an officer to a managerial position, skipping a supervisory role. Extremely rare yet a factual situation where an organization becomes explicitly flexible in going the extra mile in enhancing employee motivation, a minimal investment for increasing organizational productivity.
Self-Actualization Need
Creativity, self-contentment, need for growth and deploying/developing the abilities of oneself to achieve full potential to do what one is best at, speaks well of the self-actualization need(Salanova & Kirmanen, 2010).
Self-actualization needs at workplace
Providing an opportunity to be innovative would be an ideal way of motivating an employee. An average employee of 3M company came up with idea of inventing sticky note pads and the recognition 3M had made for it, eventually proved to be beneficial globally (Lecture notes). Due to unavoidable circumstances person 'A' chosen a carrier, much different to the natural talent inherited as an Artist, yet paintings are made as exhibition items without expecting profits, to attain the utmost inner satisfaction.
Learning
Maslow's Need theory is certainly the foundation for organizations to apprehend the motivation levels/needs of individuals; in contrast, an employee's journey up on the pyramid from deficiency level to growth level, does makes it difficult for managers to understand where exactly is the employee. This impedes the deployment of correct human resource management practices in place for motivational purpose (Armstrong, 2013).Basic needs should always not required to be satisfied to proceed up to the next step in ladder(Salanova & Kirmanen, 2010) .The needs of people varies from person to person or based on situations(Armstrong, 2013). Basic needs should always not required to be satisfied to proceed up to the next step in ladder(Salanova & Kirmanen, 2010). The needs of people vary from person to person or based on situations (Armstrong, 2013).
Person 'A' above, may lose employment, yet the passion driven practice of painting remains intact.
Owing to the current COVID-19 pandemic situation and resulting job redundancies across the world, the employee of Cathay Pacific who was promoted happened to lose the job. This becomes a serious concern in terms of job security. Unsatisfied fulfilment or absence of this safety need will not impede the employee in building new social relationships; instead, such relationships themselves pitch in to overcome the circumstantial inconvenience/difficulties. Failure of Maslow's Need theory to elucidate similar debates, beseech for a more flexible approach as a tool.
References
Armstrong, Michael 2013, Armstrong’s handbook of human resource management practice,13th edition, Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data, accessed 02 November 2020.
Faizul Haque, M., Aminul Haque, M. and MD, S., 2014. (PDF) Motivational Theories – A Critical Analysis, ResearchGate, viewed 04 November 2020.
Huitt, W. (2007). Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University
Indeed.co.uk. 2020. Working At Ryanair: 141 Reviews | Indeed.Co.Uk, viewed 02 November 2020.
Salanova, A., & Kirmanen, S. (2010). Employee Satisfaction and Work Motivation – Research in Prisma Mikkeli. Mikkeli University of Applied Sciences.
Virgin Atlantic Careers UK. n.d. Benefits Of Working For Virgin Atlantic | Virgin Atlantic Careers, viewed 04 November 2020.
