Meeting basic needs at work isn’t just a “nice to have”—it’s foundational not only for happiness, but also for motivation and productivity. Using the BAMBA model as a framework, "Basic Needs" stand as the first determinant of well-being in professional life.

Basic needs at work break down into three core domains:

• Physical Needs: physical safety, comfort, and health.
• Emotional Needs: trust, liking, and respect.
• Mental Needs: fairness, access to information, and role clarity.

Usually when we think about Basic Needs we think about the physical needs, but we overlook the mental and emotional needs.

The emotional needs revolve around workplace relationships. Feeling trusted by leaders builds confidence and engagement. Being liked by peers cultivates connection and teamwork. Crucially, feeling respected by peers, leaders and direct reports—is vital for morale. The absence of these elements breeds stress and alienation.

Fairness as a mental need is perhaps the single most salient measure of satisfaction, especially regarding compensation and assignment of duties. Human nature is attuned to peer comparison — unfairness quickly erodes morale. Role Clarity and access to information are mental needs, directly linked to fairness. Knowing one’s place and evaluation criteria is indispensable as is the ability to obtain what is needed to perform one’s job.

Improving basic needs at work, usually starts with understanding the status-quo, where we are at the moment. Marshall Goldsmith and prof. Raj Raghunathan have developed an 18-item scale to assess fulfillment of basic needs at work, split evenly between organizational contribution and individual efforts. This highlights a key principle: while organizations lay the groundwork, each individual can take proactive steps as well. If you join our Happiness & Wellbeing Officer Certification Program you will get access to this and other BAMBA scales.

We would like to emphasize that fulfilling basic needs at work is not only about what the organization can provide — people have immense power to shape their own happiness at work. Here are some practical tips:

What you can do for yourself:

Journal: Maintaining a daily journal (just ten minutes!) delivers psychological closure, improves sleep, and aids personal reflection. Each entry can follow this quick routine:

• One-line title (to sum up the day)
• Three meaningful experiences and their lessons
• A happiness score (emoji-based)

Lead a Healthy Lifestyle: Small, sustainable behaviors yield major gains — “eating right” for gut and brain health, “moving more” for physical and emotional resilience, and prioritizing quality sleep.

What a happiness officer can do for the team:

Foster Healthy Lifestyle: Replace junk food with nutritious options, reduce the stigma of seeking help by openly discussing health and stress, organize a workshop for the team to help them improve their healthy lifestyle. Here is as a compliment for you and exercise that you can use in this workshop: Healthy Lifestyle Exercise Worksheet

Emphasize fairness: Train leaders to give regular feedback. Fairness—especially around pay and work assignments—is the linchpin of mental well-being at work. Even monkeys, as studies have shown, recoil at unfair treatment. The human mind is acutely sensitive to perceived unfairness. Even the most fair decision may be perceived as unfair. Open, clear and informative communication about the decision is a way to avoid this.

For more information, guidance and most importantly tools how to improve happiness and engagement at work join our Happiness & Wellbeing Officer Certification Program.

Learn more and enroll today: Happiness & Wellbeing Officer Certification Program

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