ABSTRACT

It has become almost axiomatic in the field of industrial relations that a knowledge of what a worker wants from his job is essential to sound personnel practice. Many practitioners of personnel administration accept the seemingly variable nature of the job needs expressed by employees as evidence for the irrationality of employee motivation. Other observers of employee motivation have felt that there is some order to the seeming capriciousness of employee wants. They adopt from a theory of motivation by Maslow the concept of a "need hierarchy" in which the various needs of an individual can be placed on a hierarchy of prepotency. In Maslow's system the hierarchy begins with the basic physiological needs as initially the most prepotent in the motivation of the organism and extends through a variety of psychological needs as initially less prepotent, but ready to become more prepotent when the physiological needs are satisfied.