Motivation Theories Explained in 10 Minutes SPEAKER: Hello. And welcome to today's lesson, where we're looking at motivation theories. Since the beginning of industrialization and the advent of factories, people have been trying to figure out what motivates employees. Now, different people who've tried to figure this out, have come up with different answers resulting in many different theories of motivation. One of the very first theories was developed by Frederick Taylor in 1911, called Scientific Management. And in a general sense, you can think of motivation as working as follows. Now each of us has needs. Now obviously, your needs will be different from my needs but each of us is motivated by our needs to exhibit certain behaviors. And the aim of our behaviors is obviously to see if we can satisfy our needs. Now, whether our needs are satisfied or not, can then cause us to change our needs. And in this way, the cycle begins again with our new needs potentially causing us to exhibit new behaviors. So for example, if you were thirsty, and your thirst is satisfied, you may develop a new need of hunger and trying to satisfy your hunger. Now, as we've already said, there are many different theories of motivation. However, they can be categorized into two groups -- Content Theories and Process Theories. Now Content Theories look at motivation from the perspective of our needs and our aspirations. These theories then discuss motivation in terms of fulfilling these needs. So you can think of Content Theories, as focusing on what will motivate us. Process Theories on the other hand, look at how people are motivated. They're concerned with the process by which motivation occurs and how we can adjust our processes to alter motivation levels. So you can think of Process Theories of Motivation as focusing on how motivation occurs. So now let's jump in and give an overview of all of these theories of motivation, starting with the Content Theories. But hold on to your hats, because I'm going to go as quick as I can. But if you'd like to dig deeper than I've provided links. So you can learn more about all of these theories. So first, we have Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. Now Maslow described needs in terms of the hierarchy and the concept being that needs at the bottom of the hierarchy must be satisfied before an individual can move to the next level and seek to satisfy those needs. Now, the five levels are physiological needs, such as food and water or safety needs, things like being free from war, having a secure job. Social needs like having relationships and belonging to groups. Esteem needs or self-esteem needs, such as receiving praise, recognition and status.
And finally, what Maslow called self-actualization needs, such as wanting to be the best we can be. Next, Herzberg's two Factor Theory -- now Herzberg argued that there are two factors, which are essential in the motivation of employees