High Level Motivators for Public Sector Employees: a Critical Review of What Motivates Professional and Technical Staff in Large Public Organisations

This book focuses on factors that motivate technical and professional staff in Large Public Organisations with reference to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Theory and Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory. Based on the literature review, twenty-one high level motivators have been identified for study which relate to the top three levels of the Hierarchy of Needs including social and affiliation needs, self-esteem needs and self-actualisation needs. Maslow's theory postulates that employees would strive for the next higher level if their lower level needs have been satisfied. This cannot be substantiated from the data obtained from the research. Most respondents appear to be less concerned with satisfying their self-actualisation needs as long as their social and affiliation and self-esteem needs have been largely satisfied. The study also noted important variations in terms of motivators for different cohorts, and that application of the same set of motivators may not necessarily lead to similar results if applied to different populations.