Who wouldn’t want to have motivated employees?
Having a motivated workforce is essential for many reasons such as the productivity
and performance levels of employees alongside the general morale of the team.
This video investigates Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as a theory of motivation with supporting
examples of the model applied to McDonald’s. In 1943 Abraham Maslow released a paper named
“A Theory of Human Motivation” which implied, that as humans, we naturally strive to fullfill 5
sets of basic human needs and we are programmed do so in a particular order, this concept is well
known today as “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs”. Right at the top of the hierarchy is
where Maslow believed we can achieve our full potential as humans, naming this
stage as “self-actualisation”. However, Maslow argued that we must first address
our fundamental needs to have any chance of progressing through the hierarchy, starting
with what he referred to as physiological needs. Following these physiological needs, Maslow
believed that we also require our safety, social, and esteem needs to be met before
we can eventually become self-actualised. In the modern world, these same principles
can be applied to businesses to effectively support the development of their employees
and allow them to reach their full potential, which in turn will help the business to succeed.
Let’s have a look at each stage in more detail with supporting examples of how Maslow’s Hierarchy
of Needs could be applied to McDonald’s and how they aim to motivate their employees
through the use of the theoretical model. So, first of all, right at the bottom of
the hierarchy is the Physiological needs, referring to the basic needs of humans which are
typically vital to our survival including food, water, and shelter just to name a few. A good
example of the physiological needs being met by McDonald’s is them providing staff with a
free meal whilst at work, ensuring that they have eaten and are hydrated which helps them to
focus in their role as they are likely to have increased concentration and energy levels,
therefore maximising their performance. Also, McDonald’s provides employees with a
standard uniform based on their role and supplied free of charge, so they don’t have the worry of
purchasing clothes for work. Now, one of the most obvious ways in which McDonald’s supports their
employees to meet their physiological needs is to ensure they pay the minimum wage, as being able
to afford to live, eat, and pay the bills outside of the workplace is one of the main reasons
most people are motivated to work initially. Moving up the hierarchy, the next stage is safety.
Safety refers to how safe and secure an individual feels according to two main categories, health
and wealth. Having a safe working environment, which does not put employees in danger and
one where they are treated with respect, whilst receiving fair pay for their service
are all important factors in this stage. The pension scheme offered by McDonald’s to its
eligible employees allows them to contribute a set percentage of their wage to their future
pension pot, which McDonald’s also contributes too, providing employees with a sense of
security in their future retirement income. Another example of McDonald’s meeting the safety
needs of employees is the guaranteed levels of holiday and sick pay it provides, whilst these
are legal obligations, they still contribute to the employee’s safety needs being met.
Furthermore, the use of flexible scheduling provides employees with the opportunity
to develop a good work life balance whether this be for parents working around
childcare commitments or students working around their studies, all employees can make
flexible working request via an online platform. Job security, alongside fair pay which could be
referred to today as the living wage are also crucial factors which contribute to the basic
needs of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs being met. However, McDonald’s approach to meeting both of
these came under scrutiny in 2019 when McDonald’s employees went on what became known as ‘McStrike’
within which employees protested against low pay and zero-hour contracts, demanding
wages of £15 per hour, guaranteed hours, and an end to youth rates. Arguing that the
current rate of pay and variable hours meant they were sometimes left unable to pay the bills,
therefore impacting their physiological needs. So, once the first two stages of the hierarchy
which are collectively known as the “basic needs” have been met, we can effectively progress to what
can be known as our higher-level needs, starting with social. Social needs are based on our natural
desire to feel loved, accepted and wanted. At this stage within the hierarchy, positive relationships
between employees and the business are crucial, a sense of belonging is pivotal. Feeling part
of a team, creating friendships, and forming professional relationship all play an influential
role in social needs being satisfied. McDonald’s views people development as a very serious matter,
which effectively makes employees feel wanted and invested in as people, which in turn increases
their loyalty and commitment to the business as their social needs are met. This is evident
in their Learning and Development strategy which plays a huge role at McDonald’s and is promoted
as a key benefit of working for the business, they believe if employees want to learn,
develop and further progress their career, then they will be provided with the
opportunity to do so, regardless of their length of service, role, or contracted hours.
Another factor supporting McDonald’s employees to meet their social needs is being part of a
clearly structured team, whether their role is customer facing, in the kitchen cooking the food,
or even the distribution centres, every employee is part of a team which allows them to build
positive relationships and a sense of belonging. Near the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy is the need
for self-esteem, which is linked to the feeling of being appreciated and valued, whilst effort
and achievement is duly recognised, providing an individual with a sense of self-worth and pride.
At McDonald’s, every employee has three separate performance reviews within their first year and
every six months from then on, allowing employees to truly understand how they are performing
and where they need to develop as individuals. These performance reviews not only allow
employees to be praised for their efforts and achievements which in turn increase self-esteem,
but they are also linked to an annual pay review, which increases the focus on personal performance.
McDonald’s also use a recognition schemes such as “employee of the month” to acknowledge and
appreciate individual employees’ effort and achievements with the aim of
increasing their self-worth and pride. Another strategy to boost self-esteem amongst
employees is the “Service Awards” within which employees are rewarded for their continued
service and loyalty to McDonald’s through a recognition and reward scheme, within which
employees can receive retail gift vouchers which can be worth up to £1,000 for employees
who have worked at the business for 30 years. Right at the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy
of Needs is self-actualisation, which Maslow believes to be the stage where a person
achieves their full potential as a human being. Essentially, they have developed their craft,
nurtured their skills, and stretched themselves to a point where they are at their peak and
doing everything they are truly capable of at that moment in time. However, it is important
to be aware that a person rarely stays in a permanent state of self-actualisation as it is an
ongoing need for personal growth and discovery. Put simply, what makes a person
self-actualised at one point in their life maybe completely different to what makes
a person self-actualised later in life as their desires, attitude to life,
and personal circumstances change. At McDonald’s, the opportunity for promotion
not only acts as a motivator in general, but if achieved, promotion can be the reason why
an employee progresses to the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and becomes self-actualised
for a period of time. An example of this could be an employee who has worked for McDonald’s
for a number of years in various roles, undertaken lots of different training and
development opportunities and has finally achieved their ambition of becoming a Manager. This is the
story for 90% of McDonald’s Managers who started at McDonald’s as crew members and worked their
way up the career ladder due to the emphasis of McDonalds internally promoting employees rather
than recruiting externally where possible. At this point, when the employee
is fulfilling their potential and working at their full capability, they
have the potential to become self-actualised. However, it’s important to note that becoming
self-actualised for employees of any business, not just McDonald’s, isn’t just solely centred
around promotion and a job title, it could be through job enrichment and taking on additional
responsibilities or leading on a challenging project, anything that provides an employee
with the opportunity to fulfil their potential. Now that we’ve looked at each stage of
the hierarchy and some examples of how McDonald’s as a business potentially supports
their employees to progress to the point of being self-actualised, it’s very important to consider some of the key advantages and
disadvantages of the motivational theory. A key advantage of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is
it being a very straight forward and logical model which is easy to understand and apply to a given
to business, effectively allowing a manager or the owners of a business to identify any missing
elements in their employee engagement strategy. Following this, human nature is taken into account
and the theory carefully considers the correlation between our needs and wants as human beings and
the impact of these on our levels of motivation, emphasising the importance of meeting our
basic needs before anything else can be achieved to maximise performance in the workplace.
However, humans are very complex and not every employee is going to be motivated by the same
factors. Infact each individual employee is likely to motivated to a different degree by each stage
of the hierarchy. For example, certain employees may be highly motivated by the basic physiological
needs but have no desire to have other factors such as their social or esteem needs to be met
due to personal circumstances or preferences. Whereas other employees could have completely
different reasons for coming to work, it could be solely based on having their
social needs met. Therefore, they never strive to become self-actualised, so they aren’t
motivated by money nor progression opportunities. Therefore, to ensure all employees remain
motivated it is important that businesses get to know them on an individual basis to
clarify what motivates them personally and why they come to work, rather than just
assuming and applying a blanket approach. A final factor to consider is
the difficulty managers face when trying to measure which stage an
individual employee is at within the hierarchy and the impact of them satisfying certain
needs as it is subjective in nature. So that’s it, Malow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
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Thanks for listening and all the best.