Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist who believed that people worked to gain certain things, using this he came up with a theory. He called this theory, ‘a hierarchy of needs’. His theory can be compared to a structure, the very top section cannot be completed until the bottom sections are secured. His theory is shown below, I have indicated on the diagram, which successful motivators, obtained from my questionnaire, relate to each level.
5 - Psychological needs - You must earn sufficient to buy food, clothing and shelter.etc.
4 - Safety Needs - People want to feel safe and secure of their present and future.
3 - Belonging/ social needs - Once they feel safe they can then look for friends and social activities. They want to be actively part of a family or group.
2 - Esteem needs - This relates to status or a good reputation. People need to know they are respected and acknowledged.
1 - Self-actualization - People set themselves targets and attempt to reach them. These targets are never actually fully met.
Motivating staff is a way to try and improve the output of employees. The aim is to try and reduce labor turnover and increase the output of stock. This begs the question of cost.
Although some motivators cost a lot of money they don’t actually motivate them to the best standard. Some of the less expensive motivation techniques may motivate better than their higher priced counterparts. A company won’t know what will motivate its staff and what won’t, unless they do tests. PRP has a weakness as a motivator as it relies on the personal judgment of someone. Some tests they could do to see what motivates them are giving them a selection of benefits and monitor them to see if there is more output from them. There are implications with Non-financial motivation. Some have been listed below:
- Many of the schemes involve Time, Cost and Money.
- Employees have to change their workplace routine.
- Managers face accusations of giving employees more to do, rather than motivating them.
- Redundancies may affect how a technique motivates, because of the lingering insecurity about their job security.
The motivation of staff will almost certainly lead to reduced labour turnover. A motivated workforce will have to work for the company and wouldn’t have much of a reason to leave.
Depending on what motivation methods are used, the cost of motivating the staff will range. All the non-financial benefits that are the most common motivators used wouldn’t cost much money, if any at all.
The financial benefits are the costly ones, but all of the people who received these benefits, were motivated by them, according to the class survey. This may cost money, but in some cases, it is money extremely well spent as the workers’ hard work could bring in additional revenue for the company.
A company knows what will motivate staff, by studying successful companies with a low labour turnover. Also, a company can study facts, in a similar way to what I have done in this assignment and ask the workers what they would like to see implemented.
