Needs Hierarchy Theory, Motivation Need Hygiene Theory - Essay Example

Once physiological needs are satisfied, safety needs emerge and become dominant. These needs imply the need for self-preservation and economic independence. These are the needs for being free from physical danger, threat, and deprivation.
Social needs
Man is a social animal. He, therefore, wants association, belonging, friendship, love, and affection. These are the need to seek affiliation and affection of one’s fellow beings. People form informal groups to seek meaningful association and companionship.

Esteem needs
These are concerned with awareness of self-importance and recognition from others. Esteem needs consist of such needs as self-importance, self-confidence, respect, achievement, praise, and status.

Self-actualization needs
This implies a desire to become more and more of what one is, to become everything that one is capable of.’ It involves self-fulfillment or achieving what one considers to be a mission in life. It urges an individual to realize his full potential for continued self-development and for being creative in the broader sense of the word.

Maslow pointed out that the first three categories are lower-level needs. The remaining two are higher-order needs. He states that the needs have a definite sequence of priority. They arise in a certain order of preference and not randomly. Safety needs do not dominate behavior until physiological needs are satisfied. Man is a wanting animal. He always continues to want something or the other. He is never satisfied. If one need is satisfied, another takes its place. If one need is satisfied it ceases to be a motivating factor. Thus, if lower-level needs are satisfied an individual can be motivated only by satisfying his higher-level needs. Physiological and security needs are finite while the other needs are to a large extent infinite. Maslow suggests that the various needs levels are interdependent and overlapping, each higher level need emerging before the lower level need has been completely satisfied. Finally, Maslow points out that an individual may jumble the order and importance of the needs according to his preference.

MOTIVATION NEEDS HYGIENE THEORY
Motivation theory is concerned with the employee’s needs and preferences. Frederick Herzberg and his associates conducted research wherein they interviewed 200 engineers and accountants from nine different companies in the Pittsburg area of the USA. These executives were asked to recall specific incidents in their work experience which made them feel exceptionally good or exceptionally bad. Based on their study, Herzberg concluded that some job conditions operate primarily to dissatisfy the employees while another job condition operates primarily to fulfill the needs of the employees and to build strong motivation and high job satisfaction. He called these factors hygiene factors and motivation factors respectively.

Hygiene factors
These factors do not motivate employees but the absence of these factors serves as dis-satisfiers. These factors are known as maintenance factors as they are necessary to maintain a reasonable level of satisfaction among the employees. Many of these factors are traditionally perceived by the management as motivators but these are more potent as dis-satisfiers. These are called hygiene factors because they support the mental health of the employees. Hygiene factors include salary, job, security, personal life, working conditions, company policy and administration, technical supervision, status, and interpersonal relations with superiors, subordinates, and peers. These factors are not an intrinsic part of a job. Rather these are related to the conditions under which a job is performed. The presence of these factors helps to prevent job dissatisfaction. So, they have a negative value.

Motivational factors
These factors help in satisfying the needs of the employees and help in building strong motivation and high job satisfaction. They are also called satisfiers. These are related to the job content. Their absence or decrease will affect the level of job satisfaction. These factors are achievement, recognition, advancement; work itself, possibility of growth, and responsibility.

Herzberg stated that managers should not focus on hygiene factors. It is necessary to use motivational factors to increase the level of motivation and performance of employees. Herzberg maintains that the potency of various factors is not entirely a function of the factors themselves. It is also influenced by the personality characteristics of the individuals. From this, viewpoint, individuals may be of two kinds – motivation seekers and maintenance seekers. The motivation seekers are motivated primarily by the motivation factors while the maintenance seekers are concerned mainly with the hygiene factors.

This theory has been criticized on the following grounds-
1. Job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction are the two opposite points on a single continuum. Individuals on the job are affected by a change in both the job content and the job behavior.
2. Herzberg’s theory is method bound. Several different methods used for similar studies have shown different results.
3. The theory does not attach much significance to pay, job security, and status. Read More