Organizations and their managers are understandably concerned about motivation. Motivated employees are happy, productive and loyal, and that's what companies want. Although motivating employees can be challenging, a number of theories about motivation at work can be used as a basis for creating practices, procedures and processes to affect employee motivation.

I. MSLOW’S NEED HIERARCHY THEORY

According to Maslow. employees have five levels of needs (Maslow. 1943): physiological. safety. social. ego. and self- actualizing. Maslow argued that lower level needs had to he satisfied before the next higher level need would motivate employees. Maslow described human needs in the form of hierarchy ascending from the lowest to the highest need. The provision of these needs changes peopIes behavior or employees behaviour in working towards achieving organizational objectives. He pointed out that when a need or set of needs is satistied. it can no longer motivate someone.

• Phsiological needs: this has to do with human needs food water and emotional satisfaction for sustaining human life. Satisfaction with these basic needs enables the individual to sun’ive and the employees behaviour is directed at satisfying the needs on the next level.

• Safety iieeds: these are needs for freedom ti-orn tar. threat or danger. They are also need from job security in workplace.

• Social needs: These are concerned with establishing and maintaining relationship with others. These represent the need tir love friendship affection or o belong to a group and being accepted by one’s peers.

• Esteem needs: this refers to the need for self-respect. self-eontidence, recognition and respect from others

• Self-Actualization: these are the highest order needs which refers to the desire for self- fulfillment of potentials and personal goals both in work area and lif in general.

Basic assumptions of Maslos’s hierarchy:

• individuals have multiple needs
• needs are ordered into levels, creating a ‘ hierarchy’ ‘
• a need, once satisfied, is no longer a need

To be of use. Maslow’s basic theory needs qualification to include the individual as a detemiining factor in motivation aiid behaviour. [bese include:

• Levels in the hierarchy are not rigidly fixed; boundaries between them are indistinct and overlap.

• There are individual exceptions to the general ranking of the hierarchy. Some people never progress beyond the first or second level for example. many inhabitants of the third world). others are so obsessed with the higher needs that lower ones may go largely unnoticed.

• Variables apart from individual needs may motivate e.g.. social standards and a sense of duty.

• An act is seldom motivated by a single need: any act is more likely to he caused by several needs.

• The same need will not give rise in the same response in all individuals.

• Substitute goals may take the place of a need that is blocked.

2. HERZBERZ'S TWO- FACTOR THEORY Herzberg’s work categorized motivation into two factors: motivators and hygienes (Herzberg. tausner. & Snyderman. 1959). Motivator or intrinsic factors, such as achievemeru and recognition, produce job satisfaction. Hygiene or extrinsic factors. such as pay and job security. produce job dissatisfaction.

One set of factors are those which, it absent, cause d,ssatist’aciion. These factors are related to job context. ‘they are concerned with job environment and are extrinsic to the job itself.

They are called ‘hygiene’ factors and include such elements as:

• company policies arid administration
• supervision
• working conditions
• interpersonal