In a respected psychology paper published in 1943 and titled "A Theory of Human Motivation" Abraham Maslow defined his hierarchy of human needs. It is described in summary in this pyramid diagram with the most basic human needs at the bottom.
Employment by itself provides part of the basic needs but engagement and motivation play a bigger role in supporting the higher level needs.
In more recent research Dr Gerald Graham conducted studies into levels of employee motivation and found that money was not the biggest motivator for people. (This may be different if there is a big discrepancy with market rates). The top 3 motivators were:
- Personal thanks from their direct Manager.
- Written thanks from their manager.
- Promotion based upon merit/performance.
As can be seen these are within the reach of all managers and can be achieved without the expenditure of unreasonable amounts of time and effort.
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