Maslow's hierarchy of needs and its impacts on work design

 

                One of the most popular needs theories is Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory. Maslow proposed that motivation is the result of a person's attempt at fulfilling five basic needs: physiological,

safety, social, esteem and self-actualization. According to Maslow, these needs can create internal

pressures that can influence a person's behavior.

    When an organization design the job role or work human resource managers considering the above mentioned Maslow's hierarchy of needs based on their organization's size and capacity. At this current competitive economies employees also concern about their basic needs and requirement. According to Maslow's theory human resource managers to be design job roles to meet both parties win win situation. 

Job Design is another method used by Human Resources Management in an attempt to motivate employees and increase their commitment towards the workplace. These promotions and recognition related to Job Enrichment. Job Enrichment refers to attempting to change the relationship between the employee and their job by providing them with greater responsibilities, the power of decision making, a greater variety of tasks and feedback on their performance.  Job Enrichment provides an employee with more opportunities to enhance and utilize their skills, build skills, have a higher authority and recognition. More importantly, Job Enrichment motivates employees as they wish to fulfill the expectations placed upon them and work towards an even higher promotion.

For example, if a staff member of retail sales outlet was dissatisfied and monotonous within the workplace, Management may present the employee with an opportunity to enhance their skills in a position of higher authority. This in turn, would motivate the employee as their job would become more rewarding, satisfying and they would receive more recognition within the workplace. Employees who seek knowledge and recognition would be highly motivated by promotion and gratitude rather than increased wages. Such as  friendly working environment, clean water facility, if can provide food with quality, safety working place or if traveling employees they seek high benefit medical insurances, consistently maintaining staff get-togethers, very good relationships between employees and organizations. In addition some organization's are basically they offer above mentioned examples for all kind of employees and but it's very rare to see in Sri Lanka small and medium organization. Therefore staff dissatisfied with their day today work.  

Dissatisfaction can lead to absences from the workplace, sick leave and mental health days which are all unnecessary costs for the business. If the worker was given a target to meet in a certain period of time (e.g. to make a certain amount of sales per month) and a promotion would be given at the end of the period, this would give the employee something to work towards. Once the employee has obtained that need (promotion), they will feel satisfied and accomplished, and will work towards placing themselves higher in the business.

Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs theories that employee’s most basic needs must be met before they will be motivated by higher needs.

Problems associated with this theory is that individual behavior tends to respond to several needs, not just one; The same need may cause different behavior for different people; There is no way to tell when a level has been fully satisfied and Maslow’s model ignores the common behavior of employees who tolerate low-paid jobs for the promise of a future promotion.

References 

https://study.com/academy/lesson/the-needs-theory-motivating-employees-with-maslows

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

Maslow, A.H. (1943). "A theory of human motivation". Psychological Review. 50 (4): 370–96