in 1969 Clayton Alderfer developed a theory of motivation which is superficially similar to Mars Lowe's hierarchy of needs but it is a different theory it does have some different characteristics and it certainly has something useful to help us understand motivation in the workplace Alderfer suggested that we have three primary needs in the workplace and all of them must be satisfied simultaneously unlike Marlo's hierarchy where we satisfy one at a time and the three needs that Alderfer suggested were existence relatedness and growth giving his model its name the ERG Theory existence is very similar to the
lower levels of Marlowe's hierarchy it's our feeling that we are safe we are secure we have our basic needs met and indeed it also carries that important sense of autonomy if the fact that we have some measure of control over our lives relatedness recognises our social nature as human beings our need to build relationships with people around us in the workplace relationships are mightily important and so we need to be able to build relationships and maintain those relationships and finally growth which is similar to the top levels of Maslow's hierarchy and its idea of self-actualization
growth is about learning developing feeling that when we leave work today which is that little bit more than we were when we arrived and by the end of the year we've developed and moved on in our career and in our skill set so it's easy to recognize those three simple levels as being true motivators but they're not levels in the way that Marlowe had them there are three things that to be simultaneously med consequently we'll only ever be truly motivated if we can meet all three of those needs and therefore what order for suggesting was
that where people aren't motivated in workplace it's because there is a gap in one of those three needs either we don't feel safe and secure autonomous are able to make our own choices or we don't feel that we've able to build and maintain strong relationships or we feel the relationships we have are damaging toxic or in other ways unsatisfactory or we feel stuck not progressing our work no longer able to grow and what order for went on to say is that where we can't satisfy all three we turn our attention to the lowest needs that
we can satisfy and fixate on them consequently if we can't grow we become over fixated on either salary and the existence type needs or on relationships and find ourselves socializing and social life taking over our ability to be effective at work if the relationships are failing then we do rely very much on our existence needs and if our existence needs aren't properly met and then we feel lost we feel insecure and consequently can't focus on our work why this is really useful in my mind is that it allows us to kind of diagnose where someone's
lack of motivation is by their actions if for example they seem to be over socialising gossipy spending time with friends coming into work late because they've been out late the previous evening then they're focusing too much on the relatedness level which suggests they feel they're not growing if they're fixated on basic conditions trying to exert control perhaps inappropriately on their own work life if they are constantly moaning about salary or the equipment they're given and that suggests that relatedness is the issue and if they are seem wholly demotivated then you have to fix that existence
based level and start to look at their sense of security their sense of autonomy and their responsibility at work once you've identified what the problem is the right thing to do is to sit down with that colleague discuss with them find out their finer details and work with them to create a plan for how you can fix it on how you can contribute and how they can contribute and then work for that plan to get them back to their healthy balanced or existence relatedness and growth please give us a thumbs up if you like this
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