Frederick Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory: Why a Raise Won't Fix Your Job

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In the late 1950s psychologist Frederick Herzberg interviewed 203 engineers and accountants in the Pittsburgh area using the critical incident technique, asking them to describe times they felt exceptionally good or bad at work. The stories showed that the things causing dissatisfaction were different from the things causing satisfaction. Herzberg concluded these are two independent dimensions, not opposite ends of one scale. Hygiene factors such as salary, job security, benefits, working conditions, supervision and company policy can make people miserable when poor but do not motivate when good. He called incentives and threats KITA, for kick in the ass, and found that company policy and administration, not pay, was the leading source of dissatisfaction. Motivators such as challenging work, recognition, responsibility and growth produce real satisfaction.

The two dials yield four workplaces, from golden handcuffs with good pay and dull work to startups with poor conditions and high drive. Herzberg's remedy was job enrichment: reduce management control, give workers complete and natural units of work and route feedback directly to them. By 1968 the study had been replicated 16 times, including in communist countries, and Gallup's 12 questions, developed with Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, leaned heavily on intrinsic motivators. In December 1973 George Hines published a study in the Journal of Applied Psychology finding that satisfied New Zealand managers and salaried staff did value supervision and relationships. Critics also argued the split reflected how people tell stories, and Victor Vroom's expectancy theory offered a model built on expectancy, instrumentality and valence.

• Herzberg's approach was compared to Maslow's hierarchy, with motivators serving higher needs such as achievement and self-realization.
• Gallup's questions include whether you get to do what you do best every day and whether someone at work encourages your development.
• Critics noted that people credit themselves for good moments and blame their environment for bad ones, a classic attribution error.
• A highly motivated employee who channels the need for achievement into golf can be satisfied and unproductive at once.
• Vroom's model holds that performance equals motivation multiplied by ability, so either at zero yields zero.