Abraham Maslow, a psychologist, developed a theory related to human needs that have become popularly known as Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs. The needs were associated with the human environment in society. Maslow conducted thorough research on the study of human psychology and motivation. Consequently, his investigation led to him coming up with the hierarchy of needs theory. While propounding the hierarchy of needs, Maslow stated that five levels of needs drive people psychological needs, safety needs, belonging needs, esteem needs, and self-actualization needs (Aruma & Hanachor, 2017). In the hierarchy of human needs, Maslow viewed human nature as based on internal and universal predispositions. Under the physiological category in the Hierarchy of Needs, Maslow categorized food, water, shelter, clothing, comfort, rest, reproduction, and procreation. Moreover, in safety needs category, he argued that people should be protected from dangerous physical and social situations.
Furthermore, the category of social needs addressed the need for love and support of a group. Esteem and prestige need to address self-worth, respect, status, recognition, reputation, and confidence, and finally, self-actualization addresses the need to develop inborn talent, potential resources, and accomplishment. This paper provides insights on Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, its relation to the hospitality industry, especially the bartender job, and the effects if not implemented.
The application of the hierarchy of needs has been of great importance in enhancing human culture and meeting their needs, especially in an organization setup. The hierarchy of needs is applied at workplaces to provide for employee motivation and confidence at work. The application of self-actualization in most businesses has criticized the leaders who fail to help deliver a purposeful employee mindset. Furthermore, the managers can account for the safety of the employees by ensuring favorable working conditions. The managers are also given the responsibility to ensure employee satisfaction through secure compensation of employees and providing proper means of salary pay and job safety, which is the essential need of employees.
The hospitality industry has a broad category of fields under the service industry, including; lodgings, event planning, bartender, and transportation industries. The hospitality industry has a broad relationship with Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs as it correlates psychological needs, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and actualization because the needs are obtained from other people. In the bartender’s job, the need for self-actualization enables them to understand the customer’s desire by assessing its importance and how it affects them. The physiological needs are often met even before the bartender meets their guest, as it is achieved by the bar’s attractive outlook. The physiological needs are, therefore, the significant needs offered by the bar. Some bars also offer reproductive leisure services hence contributing to satisfying the psychological needs of the clients. While the clients are at the bar, the friendly interaction between the bartender and the customer enables the satisfaction of love.
Love that makes a person want to belong to a group, including family group, peer group, and friendship group, is most satisfied in the bar. The job as a bartender includes creating a serene environment for the guest by first welcoming the guest via a friendly conversation. This helps in bringing the client closer by making him feel like a part of the community. The conversation might go on as the client still thinks of what recipe he will take, therefore, enhancing the understanding of needs. The job as a bartender leads to the creation of peer groups. The customer, therefore, will feel like returning to the bar as he might feel part of it. Understanding needs through love shows a significant correlation between Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and the bartender job in the hospitality industry.
Furthermore, the hierarchy of needs has been used to develop a unified community in contemporary society. The understanding of community development describes an effort of the members of the participating communities initiated by those in the general authority to create a favorable environment for the satisfaction of human desires. A bar does that by uniting people with various needs, including shelter, food, and group love, by putting the bartender as the link to the diverse needs required by the guest.
Self-actualization in the hospitality industry enables a bartender to add some structures to the operational study goals. These structures might include ensuring the guests get a good night’s sleep before investing time in loyalty to the client. The self-actualization in the bartender job involves the self-devotion to serving the clients despite what circumstances. In this case, the bartender should respond quickly and positively to all the clients’ questions. This makes the guest feel much welcomed and part of that community hence enabling future attraction of the customers.
Esteem and prestige stated in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs correlate with the bartender job. In this case, the client is to be accorded some degree of respect and recognition. The respect paid to guests makes them feel like superiors and that the bartenders are at their service such that everything they want is laid before them as fast as possible (Chalakova & Ferreira, 2018).
Respect creates a bond with the customers, therefore, improving the business sales. The guest might also desire that the bartender recognize their status hence building self-esteem.
Moreover, recognition is an essential element in the bartender’s job during client serving. This enables the bartender to identify a new client and serve him with respect and love. In some cases, the bar might be full, and some customers might be left unattended. Thus, the lack of attention makes the customer feel highly unwelcome. Admiration in self-esteem needs positively correlates with the bartender business. In this case, when a new guest enters the bar, he wants to be admired, leaving the bartender responsible for fulfilling that need.
Despite satisfying the hierarchical needs of guests in the bar, the bartenders also have some desires while working. The essential need that the bartenders highly admire is safety needs. Most bar environments contain people who have psychological issues, and hence they can create violence at any time, which might endanger the employees. Some other dangers might originate from social situations like anxiety, depression, and stress, which might be due interaction of the bartenders with rude and abusive employees, who might cause harassment to the employees. Such action might lower the self-esteem and respect of the bartender. Security of personal information is also crucial at the point of work, especially as a bartender. This is because some clients might decide to expose the bartender’s confidential information when drunk. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, safety and security needs include shelter, health, and a safe environment. Most bartenders often work for more than two shifts a day which might lead to health deterioration of the bartender. Lack of sleep might lead to depression in the bartender, which causes a low work rate.
As indicated in the hierarchy of needs, a safe environment under safety needs is an essential factor provided to the bartender. For confidence at work, the bartender should not be afraid of environmental safety if the manager provides them with physical security, for example, guards. In most scenarios, bartenders often leave work late at night, making them victims of harassment; therefore, employee safety is essential in this position. While enhancing work safety for bartenders, there ought to be the maintenance of law and order in the environs of the workplace. Employers often employ security guards to ensure the environment is safe for both the employee and the customer.
The bartenders are also people; hence, they develop psychological needs such as food, shelter, and comfort, especially at work. They achieve those needs by providing housing allowances to the bartenders, especially for houses located close to the bar. Furthermore, the bartender should be given a work break to find food, or food should be offered at the workplace for those working long shifts. For the bartenders to effectively achieve such needs, their salaries must be enough to meet them.
For bartenders, love and belonging needs are pretty essential in the workplace. In the work environment, bartenders, in general, should link together and form a group friendships. The bartender’s job involves the interconnection of activities in which one possesses a partner’s duty. Therefore, without love and belonging among the employees, the execution of some responsibilities will be delayed (Tikkanen, 2007). Self-actualization is also an essential need that enables bartenders to develop their inborn talent, potential, resources, and accomplishments. Self-actualization need motivates the bartenders as they are granted the free will to practice what they know best. Therefore, the bartenders with the ability to convince customers are granted the opportunity to do so, while those with serving skills are given the ability to do so; this enhances group unity. The need for self-esteem and prestige is also essential for bartenders as it enables reputation, recognition, and respect between the bartenders and the managers, allowing them to navigate the bars’ harsh environment.
The failure to adopt Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs might negatively affect the organization’s activities and success. The organization’s flexibility will be affected due to a lack of self-actualization, enabling the employees to stabilize their talents and abilities, leading to low productivity in the business. The abandoning of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs will undermine love and belonging, enabling the employees to engage in teamwork; therefore, there will be slow services provision without collaboration, especially in the bar; hence, the bar might lose its customers. Productivity depends on the workers to continuously concentrate at work without being destructed. When there is poor security in the working environment, the employees will develop fear at work. Consequently, the general productivity will be affected as the employees will not be at their best at work.
On the other hand, the failure to adapt Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs will also lead to low employee turnover. With the employees not unified or demoralized by the working conditions, their work rate might reduce from the initial rate, causing a reduction in productivity. A decrease in productivity will therefore lead to a decline in the business’s income. Lack of employee self-esteem will lead to customer disrespect which can push away customers; hence the company’s sales will reduce, leading to a low company turnover. Some other factors like poor security standards might lead to the loss of goods due to theft; hence the companies’ sales might reduce. Furthermore, when a company faces insecurity issues, customers tend to restrain from purchasing the company products and services, affecting the turnover rate by declining sales.
Understanding employee needs is essential for organizational success. Both productivity and turnover depend on this factor. Poor understanding of employee needs might lead to the disunity of the employees as they might fail to adhere to the job instructions, which in turn lowers productivity and hence low rates of turnover. Disunity will deter skill development, therefore, affecting the aesthetic human environment. A favorable working business environment often guides employee morals. Lack of recognition in the workplace might cause the demoralization of the employees, which, in turn, leads to them reducing their workforce. Lack of employee security might lead to a negative attitude towards work. Employees will spend most of their time enhancing their safety if the poor shelter and lack of proper clothing affect their work perspectives.
References
Aruma, D. E., & Hanachor, &. D. (2017). Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and assessment of needs. International journal of development and economic sustainability, 5(7), 15-27.
Chalakova, v., & Ferreira, &. P. (2018). A hospitality value perception model based on. Master in innovation and technological entrepreneurship, 1-77.
Tikkanen, i. (2007). Maslow’s hierarchy and food tourism in Finland: five cases.British food journal. Web.