CDA Essentials 2019 • Volume 6 • Issue 5

32 | 2019 | Issue 5 I ssues and P eople • Healthy Workplace Series • H ow would you approach a conversation with the team about their request? When we look at this scenario, it’s important to think about what’s behind the request. Understanding the theory behind Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a helpful way to figure out the possible motivations. H ow does Maslow’s hierarchy of needs relate to employee motivation? Maslow’s hierarchy describes five needs that motivate behaviours: physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self- actualization. At the bottom of Maslow’s hierarchy is the issue of physiological needs; we all need food, we need shelter—all the basics. Next is the need to feel safe; we need to feel like our workplace is free of danger. Then we have social needs, which refers to our interactions on a day-to-day basis, our ability to connect with people in our workplace. As we move up that hierarchy, we have esteem needs, which is the need to be recognized. We’re all good at something that we do but how are we being recognized for those things? At the top of the hierarchy is self-actualization; in other words, how does our workplace support our own personal values and growth? This is the area where we aim to get our employees to shine. So when you get a request from an employee, you really need to try to figure out where is this coming from, in terms of Maslow’s hierarchy. C an you elaborate? You have to figure out why the request is being made, in terms of what need it is addressing for the employee, before you can prioritize it appropriately. For example, if it’s a safety need, that’s very different from a need for long-term improvement, although we could recognize employees at that point for being proactive about something that can help the practice grow. You have to guide your decision-making by the employee’s motivation—if this a safety issue or if it’s because new equipment will be better for our practice over the long term. These are very different conversations. W hat can managers do to increase the likelihood that their employees are going to meet all levels of Maslow’s hierarchy? Part of that depends on the individual employee because some employees will be upfront about what they need: they’ll want to meet with you frequently and you’re going to have to try to figure out what their strengths are and how you can create some professional development to help them reach their goals. Other employees are more introverted and probably need a little more encouragement to meet with you. For these employees you might say, ‘I would love to have a discussion with you, maybe every six months, just to see how things are going and how I can support you.’ The more introverted employees are the ones that can slip through the cracks. We miss the opportunity for professional development with them because we think they’re just showing up—doing what they need to do. But we need to find out what their strengths are and recognize them in the workplace. S o once you’ve established what’s motivating the request, let’s say you aren’t prepared to commit to actions they’ve requested—how do you communicate this to the team? As a manager, you’ve got to look at the long-term goal of how to build trust with the team, not just around this issue, but over the longer term. There’s some interesting work that’s been published in the Harvard Business Review on how managers build trust, especially given this idea of relative power (see p. 33). W hat is relative power? It’s an idea that whenever you’re in a management position, ultimately you have the final say. But you have to be careful about not being perceived as coercive. I think the best managers figure out how to share their power in a way that feels more collaborative. So if possible, provide choices; maybe there are other things that you could offer to the team. Of course, you have the last