Final answer:
Employee needs are goal-directed forces that people experience and have evolved to include a need for education, autonomy, fulfillment, and the ability to keep up with rapid production changes. The modern workforce is influenced by innate behaviors, cultural factors, and social conditioning as studied by industrial and organizational psychology.
Step-by-step explanation:
Employee needs can be defined as goal-directed forces that people experience. These needs have greatly influenced the evolution of the modern workforce. In the wake of the Industrial Revolution, factory jobs required little thinking or decision making. However, today's jobs demand higher levels of education, people management skills, autonomy, fulfillment, and the ability to keep pace with rapid production due to the information age. Additionally, human behavior and employee needs are also influenced to various degrees by innate tendencies, social conditioning, cultural factors, and external forces, often leading individuals to seek in-group approval. This complex interplay of factors shapes individual behavior and decision-making in the workplace. Industrial and organizational psychology is the field that studies these dynamics and seeks to optimize worker productivity, safety, and health.