April 18 2020 at 10:00AM
Back to basics: relevance of Maslow's Hierarchy during Covid-19 pandemic
Challenges related to Human Capital
One of the biggest questions that organizations around the world face in these tough times is "how to boost their Human capital" which is a loose term that refers to knowledge, experience and skills possessed by employees. This ultimately relates to ensuring well being of their employees. So, what defines well being ? Well, it used to be different a few months ago than what it is now.
This can be best illustrated with the help of Maslow's hierarchy of needs which is a motivational theory in psychology comprising a five-tier model of human needs, often depicted as hierarchical levels within a pyramid.
Needs lower down in the hierarchy must be satisfied before individuals can attend to needs higher up. From the bottom of the hierarchy upwards, the needs are: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.
Changing focus of Organizations
Generally, in an organization, human resources focus on level 4 and 5 i.e. esteem and self-actualization. This can be explained by looking at their talent acquisition process where organizations are mostly looking for self-motivated candidates. Also, talent management process is focussed on making employees realize their strenghts to make them best versions of themselves. There is an underlying assumption that all are doing well on their physiological, safety and love & belongingness aspects. In these tough times, bottom layers of pyramid cannot be ignored if an organization goes on to understand the well being requirements of its employees. Let's try to expand and understand what goes into bottom layers.
- Physiological needs- Biological requirements for human survival such as air, food, drink, shelter, clothing, warmth, sex, sleep fall in this category. Human body cannot function optimally, if these needs are not satisfied. Maslow considered physiological needs the most important as all the other needs become secondary until these needs are met.
- Safety needs- Once physiological needs are satisfied, next come safety and security. People want to experience order, predictability and control in their lives. These needs can be fulfilled by the family and society and include emotional security, financial security, law and order, freedom from fear, social stability, property, health and wellbeing.
- Love and belongingness needs- after physiological and safety needs have been fulfilled, the third level of human needs is social and involves feelings of belongingness. The need for interpersonal relationships motivates behavior.
Today, with technological advancements, it is comparatively easy to stay connected with your team for work. However, above levels of safety pyramid are good to keep in mind while you ask regarding well being of your colleagues.
