Application of Maslow’s Theory in the Information Technology Industry

 

According to Maslow’s employees, have five major needs: safety, physiological, social, esteem, and self- actualizing. His theory mainly based on personal judgment and employee’s lower level of needs have to be fulfill before the next higher-level need. (Abbah, 2014).

Physiological Needs:

A physiological need is the lower level of need and most basic, such as food, air, water and shelter.  Organization must provide reasonable salary to employee to fulfill their main requirement .If the organization fail to give good wedge, result will be less performance and employee want be able to make much of contribution (Ozguner and Ozguner, 2014).

 

Safety Needs:

This is the second level of the needs. After the physiological need fulfilled the employees, consider their working environment free from threats and harms. If employee feels that, they work in unsafe zone and result will be same as less efficiency. Therefor organization must maintain safe and friendly environment, further fallows labor rule and requirement to motivate employees, them to feel free of harm to do their jobs (Kaur, 2013).

 

Social Needs

This is the third level of needs. These needs reflect an individual’s desire for love, affiliation, and acceptance in relationship with other people. In a work environment, social needs are concerned with relating to friendly associates, identification with a good company, and through participation in organized activities such as bowling or softball leagues, picnics, or parties (Ozguner and Ozguner, 2014).

 

Esteem Needs:

Here it explains employee should appreciate for their achievement, recognition, and status. Individuals seek approval and recognition from others. Job title and responsibilities, praise, and competent management are all important factors in satisfying the esteem needs (Ozguner and Ozguner, 2014).

 

Self-Actualization Needs:

This represent the Maslow’s last level of needs and this is the top of triangle. Self-actualization employee valuable asset to the organization .Self-actualization employees deliver the best output through the motivation (Kaur, 2013).

 

I am work for a leading software company providing software development, IT consulting services, enterprise solutions, web applications development, re-engineering solutions and ready-to-deploy business applications for a number of industries including e- commerce, banking and finance, Telecommunication and outsourcing services; the current facilities provided by the company are as follows.

 

  Physiological Needs

Organization, which I work for offer free food, medical, beverages, rest room and separate area to play games.

  Safety Needs

Organization maintain safe and friendly environment, further fallows labor rule and requirement to motivate employees, them to feel free of harm to do their jobs further, the company fallow health and safety practices. 

  Social Needs.

Organization arrange some social events such as annual cricket match, annual picnic, outdoor training and a year-end party.

  Esteem Needs

Organization held an employee day for their achievement and gives promotions, awards or send employee for overseas trainings.

  Self-actualization needs

An employee has opportunity to implement their ideas and them responsible for most of decision.


References

Abbah, M. T., 2014. Employee Motivation: The Key to Effective Organizational Management in Nigeria.. IOSR Journal of Business and Management, Vol 16(4).

Kaur, A., 2013. Maslow’s Need Hierarchy Theory: Applications and Criticisms. Global Journal of Management and Business Studies., Vol 3(No 10), pp. 1061-1064.

Zeynep Ozguner and Mert Ozguner, 2014. A Managerial Point of View on the Relationship between of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and Herzberg’s Dual Factor Theory. International Journal of Business and Social Science, Vol 5(No 7).

 


Comments

  1. I would like to add few points here. An employee is never completely satisfied on any need level, but an adequate amount of fulfilment of lower priority needs must be met if the employee is to seek to satisfy top-level needs (Bordia et al., 2004). Maslow stated a hypothetical example for an average employee who is 85 percent fulfilled in physiological needs, 70 percent in safety requirements, 50 percent in love needs, 40 percent in the self-esteem level, and 10 percent in self-actualization level (Bounckenet al., 2018).

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    2. Adding more to your comment, Maslow's hierarchical needs, the priority order in which employees would rate their needs would differ across different organizations. For example, Lindner (1998) compares the findings on his own study with the research done by Kovach (1987) and Harpaz (1990) - the order in which the employees ranked their needs varied across the three studies, confirming the differences in employee priorities

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  2. I agree with all the above points as they are all valid. According to Smith & Cronje (1992), Maslow’s theory is explained relies on the fact that people want to increase what they want to achieve in life, and their needs are prioritised according to their importance. I work for a leading bank in the financial sector. Once a person’s basic psychological and safety requirements are addressed, the theory states that they will develop a desire to belong, get respect, and eventually realise their full potential. The last stage has the potential to have a negative impact on a bank’s bottom line. While top management ensures that a bank’s process for opening savings accounts is efficient and uses cutting-edge technology, a bank employee will almost certainly be involved at some stage.

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    1. Hi Nirmika. you have mentioned very important point, thank you.

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  3. hi amila, agree with you, adding to your points, Maslow’s theory suggests the management on how to make their employees achieve the final stage of the pyramid. Employees reaching the final stage of self-actualization is vital to an organization as such employees work at their maximum potential creativity. then formulating strategies to achieve this stage may benefit the organization (Kaur, 2010).

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    1. Agreed with you Dineth . Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is applied in psychology as well as in business, and it helps to understand what motivates people. The pyramid has five needs, and according to Maslow’s theory, a person does not feel needs above unless the needs in the bottom have been satisfied. (Jerome2013, 41-42)

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  5. Hi Amila, agreed to your points and adding to that, Maslow has identified the basic needs in terms of physical, biological, social and psychological where according to those needs, he has come up with a hierarchy with five stages (Jerome 2013). But there are criticisms that he has missed the social connection where several researchers were believed that without social connection there is no survival physically as well as emotionally (Rutledge, 2011).

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    1. Thank you very much Lakshan for comment. Point taken.

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  6. Hi Amila. Nicely written article. There are some researches discussing the Criticisms of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs theory. Kaur (2013) mentions that, Maslow proposed that if people grew up in an environment in which their needs aren’t meet, they will not act as healthy, well-adjusted individuals. Research testing Maslow’s theory has supported the difference between the deficiencies and growth needs but showed that not all people are able to satisfy their higher-order needs on the job.

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  7. Agree your points. Therefore, according to Maslow (1943), if managers wish to address the most important motivational factor of Centers' employees, interesting work, physiological, safety, social, and esteem factors must first be satisfied. If managers wished to address the second most important motivational factor of centers' employees, good pay, increased pay would suffice. Contrary to what Maslow's theory suggests, the range of motivational factors are mixed in this study. Maslow's conclusions that lower level motivational factors must be met before ascending to the next level were not confirmed by this study.

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    1. Hi Indika, You have mention an interesting point ,thank you

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  8. Psychologist Abraham Maslow`s original five-stage model has been expanded twice to include cognitive needs, aesthetic needs (Maslow, 1970a)and transcendence needs (Maslow, 1970b) under growth needs. These needs are also important to consider in developing motivational strategies.

    McLeod, S., 2007. Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Simply psychology, 1(1-18).McLeod, S., 2007. Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Simply psychology, 1(1-18).

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  9. Hi Amila, Further the Maslow’s Theory can be categorized in to two as growth need and deficiency needs, Requirements or the elements that used to motivate people can be define as deficiency needs (Swart, 2010). Needs that pushed employees to feel that the person has reached the highest level of satisfaction or capability can be defined as the growth needs. Below shows the mashlow’s hierarchy of needs (Amekudzi, Akofio-Sowah,Boadi,Brodie, Amoaning, Smith-Colin,Fischer and Wall, 2016).

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  10. Well Agreed with your comment Amila, The movement from one level to the next was termed satisfaction progression by Maslow, and it was assumed that over time individuals were motivated to continually progress upward through these levels (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014).

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