For a better understanding of human resources in the workplace, it is important to know the causes that originate human behavior. The behavior is caused, motivated and goal oriented. In this sense, by managing motivation, the administrator can operate these elements in order for his organization to function more adequately and its members to feel more satisfied and achieve its realization; as long as the other variables of production are controlled.
This is how motivation becomes an important element, among others, that will allow channeling the effort, energy and general behavior of the worker towards the achievement of objectives that interest organizations and the person himself. For this reason, administrators or managers should be interested in resorting to aspects related to motivation, to help achieve their objectives.
However, knowing the motives for motivation is as complex as human nature is. If we analyze the reasons why a person works or contributes their effort to an organization, we will find that there are many factors. From wanting to have money that allows you to at least cover your basic needs, to higher aspirations such as self-realization. Given this complexity, there are various theories that try to explain the causes, actions and consequences of motivation. This situation necessarily entails, on the one hand, taking into consideration the sociocultural aspects of the society where the worker operates and, on the other hand, his individuality.
Below we present the results of a survey on the factors that Argentines consider the most important. That is, they expect the following from their work:
Undoubtedly, the different theories on motivation are not always fully applicable to all realities and in all countries. It will depend on the culture, customs, values, social and economic situations and other factors, which will condition the way of thinking and acting of workers, situations that affect the studies carried out in relation to motivation.
In a global economy, managers need to understand cultural differences and adjust their organizations and management style to them. Understanding the common characteristics of people within a given country is important if you are to be successful in managerial performance.
Consequently, in all research related to work motivation, existing theoretical concepts should not be applied generically; rather, these must also be analyzed according to each society or culture, before their application.
Motivation is a factor that should interest every administrator. Without it, it would be impossible to try to achieve the correct functioning of your organization and therefore the fulfillment of the objectives. The theoretical systems that exist are attempts to understand the why of human behavior. The theory should not be taken without first doing a thorough review of the empirical research that has been carried out and, above all, its application within work organizations. The administrator must be aware of the need to establish systems according to the reality of her country, and when doing this she must take into account that motivation is a determining factor in the establishment of said systems. Every individual has a personality; Every company also has its own personality; every country,certain social and cultural characteristics; In order to understand the motivations in all these cases, it is important to develop research in the motivational field.
These and other arguments about motivation discussed by scientists dedicated to the study of human behavior and the analysis of what organizations must do to get people to feel motivated to carry out their work efficiently and effectively, show us that in In the corporate world, talk of motivation not only means money but also other things that go beyond money.
Motivation theories
In order to explain any type of behavior, we must first describe it, then try to explain it, starting from some theoretical position. These positions presuppose the existence of certain laws or principles based on the accumulation of empirical observations. Therefore, motivational processes can be explained from various theoretical points of view. Each theory of motivation claims to describe what humans are and what they can become.
Each of the needs theories describes a specific set of needs that, in the opinion of the researchers, people have, and each of them differs somewhat from the others in terms of the number and type of needs identified. They also differ in how unmet needs influence motivation.
Needs motivate behavior. At each stage of our life, and as we evolve and we reach objectives, needs may change, but they will always produce in people the impulse to generate a behavior, an effort, to satisfy those needs. This is a premise that most researchers agree with.
A need is an internal state of tension that makes certain manifestations appear attractive. The need creates a tension that causes internal stimuli to appear that encourage their behavior. These internal stimuli generate a specific goal-seeking behavior, which, if achieved, will satisfy the need and reduce tension.
Maslow and the hierarchy of needs
A first aspect that the administrator needs to know are human needs. This will allow you to better understand man's behavior and use motivation as a powerful means to improve the quality of life within the organization.
This theory, also called the hierarchy of needs, was developed by the North American psychologist and consultant Dr. Abraham Maslow (1). In his work Motivation and Personality, starting from the basis that man is a being with desires and whose behavior is aimed at achieving objectives, he establishes five basic categories of needs: physiological, security, social, ego and self-realization.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Human needs - according to Maslow - are organized in five levels according to a hierarchy of importance and influence:
1. Physiological needs
These needs are the most essential and elementary that we all have, and are directly related to the survival and preservation of life; for example, the need for food, drink, shelter, rest, sleep, reproduction, breathing, etc. Another characteristic is that this need can be satisfied, unlike the secondary ones.
2. Security needs
When physiological needs are reasonably satisfied, then safety needs are activated.
By his nature, man wishes to be, as far as possible, protected against danger or deprivation, covered from future contingencies; It requires feeling secure in the future, being free from dangers and living in a pleasant environment, for him and for his family. Also, you need to feel secure in respect and esteem for members of your social groups.
In the workplace, these needs translate into a desire for job stability, family health insurance, financial security, retirement pension, etc.
3. Social needs
Once the physiological and safety needs are met, according to Maslow, they no longer motivate the behavior. Now social needs become the active motivators of behavior: needs such as filiation, giving and receiving affection and friendship. That is, it refers to the affective aspect, desire for belonging and social participation.
Men, as social beings, need the company of their fellow men. They seek to communicate with other people and achieve friendship. They want to express affection as well as to receive. Also, to survive, they need to ally; they require living within a community. So far the purely utilitarian aspect of society; but, in addition, the human being needs to feel that he belongs to the group and that he is accepted within it.
To meet these needs, in companies it is advisable to promote social, cultural, sports activities, quality circles, teamwork, etc., aimed at giving workers the opportunity to exercise this need. Even encouraging proactive informal groups is a good decision. A sample of the social manifestation of this need are the marriages that take place between men and women in a company, a situation that shows that the worker, in addition to fulfilling his obligations, is concerned with the social aspect.
4. The needs of the ego or esteem
For every person it is essential, emotionally, to feel appreciated, esteemed, have a certain prestige and stand out within the context of their social group. Also, this need includes self-respect and self-worth before others. Man, by nature, needs to be important.
Ego needs are rarely met. People have a constant appetite for greater achievement, greater recognition. However, as with the other needs, ego needs only motivate behavior once the lower-level needs have been reasonably satisfied.
5. Self-actualization needs
Self-actualization is an ideal that we all aspire to achieve. It is satisfied by opportunities to develop talent to the fullest, express ideas and knowledge, pour out and achieve personal achievement. In this context, man needs to transcend, he wants to leave a mark of his passage in this world. One way to do this is to create and perform your own work. This is the need that drives the artist to express himself on canvas, the need that motivates a student to work all day and seek to obtain a degree by studying at night.
In industrial work, this need is thwarted by mass production and the fragmentation of work operations, becoming an obstacle to meeting this need.
The need for self-realization, like that of the ego, is rarely satisfied, generally becoming a utopia. Those who achieve optimal self-actualization, Maslow says, see themselves as whole.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory (2), presupposes a series of conditions that must be taken into consideration to understand human motivation. And these aspects are the following:
- When a need of a lower level is satisfied or is duly attended, the behavior oriented to wanting to satisfy another need of the immediately higher level arises. In other words, when a need of the lowest level is satisfied, it ceases to be a motivator of behavior, which induces that the need for a higher level is met, becoming a motivational factor. Not all people manage to reach the goal. top of the pyramid. Some people, thanks to life's opportunities, become strongly concerned with self-realization needs; others get stuck in the needs of esteem; others in social needs, while many others remain exclusively concerned with safety and physiological needs, without being able to fully satisfy them.When lower-level needs are reasonably satisfied, higher-level needs begin to dominate behavior. However, when a need is not satisfied, it again predominates in behavior, generating tension in the body. The most important or most pressing need monopolizes the individual and tends, automatically, to organize the mobilization of the various faculties of the body to meet it. Each person has more than one motivation. All levels act together in the body, but the highest needs predominate over the lowest if they have been sufficiently satisfied or met. Every need is closely related to the state of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of other needs.Its effect on the organism is always global and joint, never isolated. Any motivated behavior is like a channel, through which many needs can be expressed or satisfied jointly. When an obstacle to satisfy a need arises frustration, becoming a threat psychological. These threats produce the general emergency reactions in human behavior.
Maslow postulates that the motivation to satisfy a need of a higher type only appears and is operative when the needs of a lower type are satisfied. Thus, for example, a person will be motivated to seek the satisfaction of security needs when he has reasonably satisfied the physiological ones, in the same way he will seek to satisfy the needs for self-realization when he has satisfied the previous four.
It is important to note that in practice the satisfaction of needs is not clearly distinguished on many occasions, but rather they are mixed and confused, offering complex forms of satisfaction shaped to a large extent by society. Likewise, it should be emphasized that secondary needs manifest themselves in different degrees in different individuals and at different ages. On the other hand, not all needs operate on a conscious level; at times, they function outside the individual's field of knowledge, on an unconscious level.
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Here is a video in which Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory is presented, a good complement to reinforce your learning about motivation theory in business management. (Educatina)
MASLOW, Abraham, Motivation and personality, New York, Harper & Row, 1954.
MASLOW Abraham, A theory of human motivation, Psychological Review, New York, Vol. 50, 1943.
