Supporting or Thwarting? Basic Needs at Work
Introduction
When considering employee motivation at work, something called Self-Determination Theory (SDT) is often referenced by practitioners trying to shape interventions to strengthen it. Using SDT as a framework, those tasked with improving motivation in an organisation will carefully consider how employees are experiencing competence, autonomy, and relatedness. This is usually measured by how much employees feel mastery (of a skill, for example), feel the power to make decisions, and feel connected to others with a sense of belonging.[1, 2]
So far, so good. If the top brass want motivated workers, they can greenlight that which ticks the SDT boxes - right?
Well. There is some fine print.
The Fine Print
As with any theory, if you give it a quick once-over and forget that humans are complex creatures, you may not get the results you'd hoped for. Motivation comes from different sources, and reacts to a variety of things depending on another variety of other things. Motivation is sometimes intrinsic, sometimes extrinsic; sometimes autonomous, other times controlled.[3] Suddenly, the once neat tick-boxes-for-employee-motivation begin developing some blurry lines.
An additionally (and most unfortunately) glazed-over aspect of SDT is the organismic dialectic perspective in which the theory sits comfortably. I suppose it's not the easiest part of the package to sell with language like that. However, it is nevertheless important to understand, and glazing over it will weaken many attempts to improve employee motivation.
Most applications of SDT in the workplace seem comfortable enough with the assumption that humans have innate basic psychological needs (i.e., competence, autonomy, relatedness). In fact, you may have seen it on a slide deck from that management training course a few months back. What is less apparent (and supported) is the idea that this should not be taken for granted. Rather, "SDT posits that there are clear and specifiable social-contextual factors thatsupport this innate tendency, and that there are other specifiable factors that thwart or hinder this fundamental process," [4]. Additionally, "the foundations of SDT reside in a dialectical view which concerns the interaction between an active, integrating human nature and social contexts that either nurture or impede the organism's active nature," [5]. (Bold italics mine)
So, yes. The theory says humans have basic psychological needs but, crucially, they do not exist apart from and with no relationship to the environment that surrounds them. Rather the opposite. The social context of a work environment, for example, can hinder the process of an employee trying to develop their sense of self via realising these basic needs. How odd that this part never makes it into the slide deck! I blame the obsession with individualism at work; that you are the captain of your ship and it's up to you to make good decisions. Similarly, if you don’t feel motivated, that’s also on you alone.
You are, of course, the captain of your ship, but you do not control the weather, the waves, nor the other ships.
Future Possibility with this Perspective
Rethinking SDT in its application to make work less soul-destroying for everyone requires us to prioritise this perspective. Thinking about motivation in a work context cannot be a one-way street, nor can it be seen as an individual project. Particularly at this point in history where automation, algorithms, and AI are growing like a slime mold over a workforce whose needs and expectations are shifting almost as quickly, basic needs must inform the new systems we design. Any assessments applied to contemporary initiatives like flexible work, leadership training, selection procedures, etc. should question how the initiative supports employees' autonomy, competence, and relatedness. [1] And not as an individual issue, rather as an interconnected one requiring social-contextual support.
This approach makes great use of a wonderful opportunity we have right now. Post pandemic takeaways, later retirement, and new technologies all open a space for designing different and better ways of working. In the AI panic over job loss there's not nearly enough focus on what is more likely to happen - certain aspects of many jobs we have today will continue to evolve and have increasingly more automated components. There is a lack of serious discussion around how people work together and respond to their evolving environments as tasks and demographics change.
How are our work environments shaping us as our tasks become increasingly automated? How are we shaping them and others within it? What are the developmental tendencies within us, and what social nutriments do they require? [6] How are the interventions providing those nutriments? In support of the dialectic, how are we engaged in conversations that use different (and at times, opposing views) to arrive at a collective and synthesized truth?
If motivation is to be of any use, be it a bottom line or helping people feel a more coherent sense of self, it really would help to read the fine print. And to put the perspective into practice.
Works Cited
[1] Gagné, M., Olafsen, A. H., Carpini, J. A., & Frølund, C. W. (2026). Self-determination theory in the workplace: the evolution, present, and beyond. Journal of Business Research, 210, 116146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2026.116146
[2] Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2002). Overview of self-determination theory: An organismic-dialectical perspective. In E. L. Deci & R. M. Ryan (Eds.), Handbook of self-determination research (pp. 3–33). University of Rochester Press.
[3] Howard, J. L., Gagné, M., Van Den Broeck, A., Guay, F., Chatzisarantis, N., Ntoumanis, N., & Pelletier, L. G. (2020). A review and empirical comparison of motivation scoring methods: An application to self-determination theory. Motivation and Emotion, 44(4), 534–548. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11031-020-09831-9
[4] Ryan & Deci (2002), p. 5.
[5] Ibid., p. 6.
[6] The Theory. (2026). Center for Self-Determination Theory from https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/