Motivating Optometry Employees

In Optometry Practice management textbooks, we are often introduced to a number of factors that motivate individuals. Those factors are found in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, and by applying them to the profession of Optometry, they give us the impressions that they are meant to make optometrists knowledgeable of what would be most effective in motivating employees. However, those are very basic factors and they solely relate to extrinsic motivation that is related to the social context we live in. In other words, those factors come from outside, are the result of imposed conditions, and are based on offers and rewards. Whereas, intrinsic motivation comes from inside of the employee and consists of the employee’s drive for fulfillment and growth or getting better.

As Deci and Ryan (2008) put it in their Self Determination Theory (SDT) that motivation is divided into two main types intrinsic and extrinsic and they both shape the way we behave linking personality, motivation, and optimal functioning into one theory. Motivation is predominantly and primarily affected by the role of intrinsic motivation in helping us to feel motivated in the workplace and life in general. The role of extrinsic motivation is thus less dominant and helps understand the conditions under which extrinsic motivation can help us.

In his bestselling book “Drive”, author Daniel Pink set up a notion of motivation that has become extremely valuable and known to psychologists. He divided the understanding of motivation into three stages. The first stage which he calls Stage 1.0 that is all about fundamental biological needs, the need for safety, security, and economic wellbeing that is very much similar to the base level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Maslow’s hierarchy includes:

Physiological Needs, that consist of fulfilling basic needs necessary to survive like food, water, shelter, sleep, clothing, and reproduction.

Security and Safety Needs, that consist of fulfilling needs like personal security, continuous employment, health plans, being able to own a property, etc.

Social Needs of Love and Belonging, that consist of fulfilling the needs of the relationship, connecting, socializing, maintain friendships, intimacy, and family.

Esteem, that consists of fulfilling the need to be free, respected, revered, have status, recognition, self-esteem, prestige, and strength.

Self-actualization, that consists of fulfilling the need to achieve one’s full potential, and the desire to become the most that one can be.