Motivation in the buisness world.

When studying chapter eight, we came across Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. As most of us are probably psychology majors, we have heard of this before. There are others taking this class for other reasons though. One that comes to mind is business majors. Motivation is a major problem in business. Especially for business men and women moving into their careers. How do you motivate your employees to be wonderful workers.

One of my professors at a previous university talked to me about a study done on this very area. Motivation in the workplace!

At first, the research team interviewed thousands of employees for many major companies (Waste Management, McKee Foods, Wal-Mart, Staples, Exxon Mobile, General Motors (now Government Motors :)) and Bank of America) and found that most employee’s problems were in many of the needs listed in Maslow’s hierarchy. Big surprise right?

Next they interviewed a number of managers and told them their findings. Most were surprised by the low safety, social, or physiological scores that their employees were dealing with. Many of the managers and companies felt that some of these needs were not their responsibility.

So, the researchers set out to prove that worker’s needs which were met were more motivated and productive than those who’s needs were not met (please excuse the grammar errors). It was a success! The human resources managers were given the task of educating management on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

McGraw Hill-Higher Education has a flash program that illustrates this education of Maslow’s hierarchy in the business world. You can practice your knowledge of Maslow’s Hierarchy here:

http://www.mhhe.com/business/management/nickels_assess/Maslow%27s%20Hierarchy%20of%20Needs/knowledge3-noframes.html