Maslow Hierarchy

Maslow Hierarchy

Introduction

Abraham Maslow was a well known and renowned American Psychologist. He became extremely popular because of the Maslow's hierarchy that he proposed in the year 1943. This theory has divided human needs into different levels and defined that a person looks for a higher level need when then current level need is satisfied or met (Carroll & Buchholtz, 2009 Pp. 253). In total, there are five psychological need stages which the model has developed and defined. Water, food, air and other basic necessities constitute the first level needs are which have been termed as the physiological needs. Safety needs are the second level needs, which cover the aspects of health, personal security, and safety. Human beings have a need of social belonging and sense of acceptability in the society and among friends and family members which is part of the third level needs. Self esteem needs are the fourth level needs in the pyramid which suggest that people need respect and achievements and they care about self-esteem. The last level of needs is self actualization needs which are related to realizing the inner satisfaction and the full potential of any human being.

The research sample of Maslow's need hierarchy is also interesting to note. Contrary to the common psychological researches of gathering random sample or subject suffering from problem, his research sample included geniuses like the Albert Einstein and other who had probably reached the self-actualization stage. This strategy was probably used in order to carefully evaluate all the stages that a common man has to cover in order to reach the top of the pyramid.

Discussion

The 'Maslow's hierarchy of needs' has been used in a number of subjects like psychology, philosophy, and economics. A number of researcher have tried to analyze the validity of the model and whether the model can be generalized in all the settings where need of the subject has to be evaluated.

The growth of the field of human resource management during the 1980s and the evolution of the concept of 'strategic human resource management', grabbed the interest of researcher to critically analyze the needs of an employee. This was important because human capital was realized to be an important asset for the success of any company and therefore, their motivation and satisfaction became primary concern for the companies.

In an organizational setting, employees having the best talent are recruited. The duration of an employment usually depends on the motivation level and the extent of job satisfaction. A primary for this satisfaction is the encouragement from the organization to move to the self-actualization stage at the workplace.

The physiological level needs of employees are associated with the basic pay salary and monetary benefits given to employees. For an employee at the lowest stage of the needs hierarchy, sustenance is primary motivation factor. This need usually gets satisfied in the form of paycheck by the company. It also includes providing adequate working conditions to employees (Borkowski, 2005, pp. 109).

The second stage of security needs includes all the requirements ...