Page 21 - Retaining Top Employees

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“Employee What?!” 9

human potential, believing that we all strive to reach the highest
levels of our capabilities. He is considered the founder of
humanistic psychology. In his book Motivation and Personality
(1954), he introduced psychological concepts that are now
standard, such as “needs hierarchy,” “self-actualization,” and
“peak experience.”
Maslow once summarized his findings as follows: “The
unhappiness, unease and unrest in the world today is caused by
people living far below their capacity.” Substitute “workplace”
for “world” and you can see the impact his thinking has on
employee retention.
Maslow created a model of human needs that’s often depict-
ed in the form of a pyramid. The foundation level consists of
basic biological or physiological needs—oxygen, water, food,
and so forth: these needs are the strongest because we need to
satisfy them to remain alive. Our needs in the next level up are
for safety and security. One level higher are social needs—a
sense of belonging, acceptance, friendship, love. Above that
level are ego needs: the need for respect, esteem, recognition,
and status. Finally, we have the peak—self-actualization, fulfill-
ment, self-development. Maslow showed that we must satisfy our
needs one level at a time, going from basic to self-actualization.
The implications for employee retention were enormous and
wide-ranging. Just looking
at the terms in the para- Maslow’s hierarchy of
graph above provides a needs A model of human
shopping list of ways in needs,from basic biological
which organizations have and physiological needs to self-actual-
been trying to achieve ization.We must satisfy our needs
one level at a time,going from basic
employee retention during
to self-actualization.
the past 10 to 15 years:
• Acceptance (assimilation programs, orientation pro-
grams, company retreats)
• Respect (suggestion programs, diversity programs, 360-
degree evaluations, corporate visions and values)
• Status (job titles, executive perks, cars, corner offices,