Managerial psychology

More recently, their contributions have expanded to include learning, perception, personality, emotions, training, leadership, effectiveness, needs and motivational forces, job satisfaction, decision-making processes, performance appraisals, attitude measurement, employee-selection techniques, work design, and job stress.

[3] Hygiene factors are characterized as extrinsic components of job design that contribute to employee dissatisfaction if they are not met.

[4][5] Most job satisfaction and motivation research literature is concerned with organisational or situational predictors (such as pay and supervision) while neglecting individual differences.

It consists of 37 items and requires individuals to report the extent to which intrinsic (e.g. responsibility and personal growth) and extrinsic (e.g. pay and benefits) components are important to them on a six-point scale.

[12] A 2009 issue of Journal of Managerial Psychology presents an experiment with 202 full-time employees (81 males, mean age=38.3 and 121 females, mean age= 28.4) working in very different jobs in the retail, manufacturing and healthcare to investigate the extent to which personality and demographic factors explain variance in motivation and job satisfaction as defined by Herzberg et al.’s two-factor theory.

Negative relationships were observed between the security and conditions factor and job status, as well as years in full-time employment.

These results further validate the contention that work attitudes are not the product of situational factors alone, and that both literature and organisations should further investigate the variables that contribute to these values with the intention of increasing job satisfaction and performance, through effective selection methods and pervasive job interventions.

Maslow's ideas surrounding the Hierarchy of Needs concern the responsibility of employers to provide a workplace environment that encourages and enables employees to fulfill their own unique potential (self-actualization).

While Maslow referred to various additional aspects of motivation, he expressed the Hierarchy of Needs in these five clear stages: Douglas McGregor proposed his X-Y theory in his 1960 book 'The Human Side Of Enterprise'.

It's still important to give balanced feedback, but if you start your appraisal by emphasizing their good working relationship and your trust in them, they'll likely be more open to what you say.