Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need (Maslow’s Pyramid)
In our daily lives in the ever-challenging balance between our professional lives vs. personal life our needs and wants are been more completed and compulsory on the way to our journey. In this blog, we will take a look at Maslow’s hierarchy (or pyramid) of needs more in-depth to answer these questions. Discover everything that needs to know about motivation through this theory by further relating to an organization in reality.
Figure 1: Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need(Maslow’s Pyramid)
Source :( Maslow, 1954, cited in Jerome 2013)
Maslow’s concepts were originally offered as general explanations of human behavior but quickly became a significant contribution to workplace motivation theory, and are still used by managers today to understand, predict and influence employee motivation (Charted Management Institute, 2012) Maslow suggests that there are five major need categories that apply to human beings, as follows:
1. Physiological needs
2. Safety Needs
3. Needs for love, affection, and belongingness (Social Needs)
4. Esteem Needs
5. Self-actualization Needs
These levels of needs are illustrated as a pyramid where it begins from the bottom to the top level. When the lower need is satisfied the next highest becomes dominant and the individual’s need is focused on the next level of higher need (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014)
The following video 1 explains the importance, and why Maslow’s hierarchy of needs matters.
Video 1: Why Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs matters.
Source: (The School of Life, 2019)
References
Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S. (2014) Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice.13 edn.UK: Kogan Page Limited.
Chartered Management Institute (2012) Abraham Maslow the Hierarchy of Needs Thinker. Corby, UK: Chartered Management Institute.
The School of Life,(2019) Why Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs matters.[online video] Available from https://youtu.be/L0PKWTta7lU [Accessed 10 January 2020].
Chaminda, you have clearly narrated the five major need categories suggested by Maslow which applies to human beings – in addition to this Taormina & Gao says that Maslows (1943) theory specifies that the relative gratification of a need at any of the levels releases the person to start focusing on satisfying the need at the next level up in the hierarchy. Thus, when one’s physiological and safety–security needs are largely satisfied, one will be able to pay more attention to satisfying his or her need to form pleasant interactions with others (Taormina & Gao,2013).
ReplyDeleteThank you for your views, As per Jerome (2013) quotes “Each organization should work towards creating its own unique culture instead of copying another organization’s culture through the right application of the hierarchy of needs theory as propounded by Maslow, the right cultural elements must be selected, blended and fine-tuned over time to fulfill the unique requirements of one’s organization this entails the first stage in the hierarchy pyramid”.And this is where tools such as both extrinsic and intrinsic motivators come in to play. And it is vital as you emphasize to motivate their staff to sustain in its industry. (Kian and Yusoff, 2015).
DeleteHi.. Chaminda, as you aware that the biggest challenge for bank‘s management now a days is to motivate employees for to be more competent than its competitors and to offer better services matched with customer expectations. The most valuable and volatile asset of any institution is a well-motivated and stable workforce with competence, dedication and productive. Motivation is dynamic in nature where income changes, money ceases to be a motivational factor in one day as employees grow older, interesting work becomes a motivational factor (Prahlad, 2011). This also could be considered in the way of interesting place for working.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments, it’s a fact that we can’t ignore that any organization is in need of well-motivated work force in order to reach its moral objectives in a realistic scenario. And this is where tools such as both extrinsic and intrinsic motivators come in to play. And it is vital as you emphasize to motivate their staff to sustain in its industry. (Kian and Yusoff, 2015).
DeleteHi Chaminda , You have address the Maslows hireachy , how it is applied to the organisation . Further if i add , In order to better understand what motivates human beings, Maslow proposed that human needs can be organized into a hierarchy. This hierarchy ranges from more concrete needs—such as food and water—to more abstract concepts such as self-fulfillment. According to Maslow, when a lower need is met, the next need on the hierarchy becomes our focus of attention.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your views, As per Jerome (2013) quotes “Each organization should work towards creating its own unique culture instead of copying another organization’s culture through the right application of the hierarchy of needs theory as propounded by Maslow, the right cultural elements must be selected, blended and fine-tuned over time to fulfill the unique
DeleteHi Chaminda,
ReplyDeleteThis is very fascinating work and can be learnt lot. Although Maslow’s theory is having well recognition it has its own limitations too. According to Graham & Messner (1998) there are generally three major criticisms directed to the need theory (1) There is scant empirical data to support their conclusions, (2) they assume employees are basically alike, and (3) they are not theories of motivation at all, but rather theories of job satisfaction
Thank you for your comments and totally agree with your point of views .As we all aware that in reality it is a basic understanding that no single theory can be applied to all situations, especially dealing with human beings who are different and unique to one another. Maslow’s theory is a general understanding needs of a basic human being in the study of human behavior in a psychological aspect in the 1950s.in today’s context needs of human beings are more complex and varied .however many have apply this theory just for the purpose of understanding basic needs of a human being for motivation. How you effectively do it in an organization is defined by into which extent the implementation of their strategies on human resource management are successfully effected (Jerome 2013).
DeleteWell done Chaminda, You have clearly illustrated how The Maslow's Hierarchy of needs applied for the commercial banking sector in Sri Lanka. Abraham Maslow is well renowned for proposing the Hierarchy of Needs Theory in 1943.This theory is based on the assumption that there is a hierarchy of five needs within each individual.Ranks human needs hierarchically in a five level pyramid where people seek to satisfy their needs from bottom to top starting from Physiological,
ReplyDeleteSafety, Belongingness, Esteem, and moving to Self-Actualization needs(Kakkos and Trivellas,2011).
Thank you for your comments, yes indeed motivation of employees on any organization is vital for its performance and sustainability in the industry. And Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory is one of the most well-spoken theories that simplifies need of basis human being (Jerome, 2013)
Delete