Employee Motivation: Understanding Employees' Needs

Motivating employees can be a challenging task. Inused extrinsic motivation. In order to better understand
order to drive your employees to be motivated it helpshow to motivate employees you must first understand
to understand what motivates people. This articlehow motivation works. According to Abraham Maslow,
discusses some of the key factors that motivatespeople are motivated by unmet needs. Maslow's
people. Understanding these motivating factors canhierarchy of needs:
help in finding the right solutions in motivating1. Psychological needs - these are your basic survival
employees.needs, like food, water, and shelter.
One of the keys to being a successful manager is the2. Safety needs - employees want to feel secure at
ability to motivate employees to perform at their best.work.
When employees aren't interested in their work or3. Social needs - the need to feel accepted and part
they're bored, employee motivation is low andof the group.
productivity drops. Generally, employees are willing and4. Esteem needs - the need for acknowledgement
able to work if they feel their job is important and theyand recognition from others.
are appreciated. When motivating employees there5. Self-actualization needs - the need to develop to
are two main types of rewards, intrinsic reward andyour fullest potential.
extrinsic reward.In theory, when one of these needs is met a person
People are motivated in different ways, one of whichwill start to satisfy the next need. As a manager it is
is by intrinsic reward. Intrinsic rewards or intrinsicimportant to understand the types of needs you are
motivation primarily deals with the feelings andealing with. Your needs and the needs of your
employee has when they have done a good job.employees, for the most part, are the same. When
They do it because they enjoy it. This can be seenmotivating your employees it is important to have a
more in hobbies or in the feeling of obligation to do wellgood understanding of what your needs are to better
at ones job. The second type of reward is extrinsic.understand your employees. There are many methods
Extrinsic rewards or extrinsic motivation refers to athat are used in motivating employees. This article was
tangible or intangible reward given to you by someonewritten to help give you insight on the types of needs
else. Praise, pay increases, bonuses, and promotionsyou may encounter while implementing techniques that
are a few examples of extrinsic rewards. Theare key to motivating employees.
traditional method of motivating employees has been