Ninety-six percent of the employees didn’t mention pay at all. In a recent study by psychologist Susan David of highly engaged employees at work, David asked people what made them so engaged and excited about their work. Non-hierarchical thinking about employee needs is important for your whole team - even your best performers. A New Theory of Motivation for High Performance Herzberg posited that factors like job recognition, potential for promotion, or even passion for the work itself could motivate an individual beyond the satisfaction of her or his basic needs.Īccording to Amabile and Kramer, the most important motivator for employees at work is “ the power of small wins”: employees are highly productive and driven to do their best work when they feel as if they’re making progress every day toward a meaningful goal. Their work built on psychologist Frederick Herzberg’s departure from Maslow’s theory in 1968. It’s not the supposedly foundational needs in Maslow’s hierarchy. It’s not money, safety, security, or pressure that drives employees at work. A shocking 95% of them got the answer wrong. In fact, Amabile and Kramer talked with 600 managers about what they thought was the single most important motivator for employees at work. Amabile and Kramer eventually analyzed 12,000 diary entries in total and what they discovered was totally contrary to Maslow’s hierarchy and conventional managerial wisdom. In a wide-ranging study of employee motivation, Harvard Business School professor Teresa Amabile and psychologist Steven Kramer asked hundreds of employees to maintain a diary chronicling their peaks and valleys in motivation at work. Recent psychological research disproves the conventional wisdom around Maslow’s hierarchy, providing proof that it should be eradicated from how you think about your employees. Maslow’s hierarchy caught on immediately in the early 1940s - and perseveres today - because it’s simple to understand. Seeing such needs as more fundamental in Maslow’s hierarchy than self-esteem and respect means it’s logical that threats and pressure should motivate employees to work harder. They’re attempting to hit a base need in Maslow’s hierarchy of safety and security (working conditions) in order to motivate. The rationale is that money is a more fundamental need in the hierarchy than passion or purpose, and therefore you can neglect the latter in favor of the former.Īnother example is when managers threaten job security to drive performance. Maslow’s hierarchy provides the basis for the kind of managerial thinking that focuses on cash bonuses as a reward for good performance. The pyramid shows a path of growth in an individual’s motivation as she satisfies one need and moves up to the next level. After that, you have safety, then love/belonging, then esteem, and finally, self-actualization in the higher levels. Seventy years ago, psychologist Abraham Maslow published the Hierarchy of Needs, which has dominated popular thinking on the psychology of human motivation ever since.Īt the lower level of the hierarchy, Maslow’s theory holds that you have your physiological needs: food, water, and other basic needs like sleep. Not only that, they’re thinking about employee motivation fundamentally wrong. A massive 95% of managers are wrong about what the most powerful motivator is for employees at work. That’s because it’s based on gut instinct and superstition - and managerial understanding of motivation is no different.
Long-held conventional wisdom on management dies hard. The thinking is that if you want exceptional performance, you align employee objectives with end-of-year bonuses for hitting certain milestones and then employees will turn up their work ethic to reach them. Typically, managers believe the idea that pressure makes diamonds. What, by a long shot, is the most important motivator for employees at work? Is it money, pressure, or praise? It has been revamped with additional research and advice for managers in 2019. This post was originally published in 2014.