To run a smallholder rubber plantation as a productive and profitable venture, the higher motivation of its waged labourers to their operational role in farming is essential. This study adopted Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory to identify the existing satisfactory level of smallholder rubber plantation labourers in latex harvesting in Sri Lanka. It formulates the relevant probabilities of improving job satisfaction concerning their satisfaction with needs. Using the ordered logistic regression, we examined the socio-demographic and job-specific environmental characteristics of 231 latex harvesters from the smallholder rubber lands in the Kegalle District of Sri Lanka. Our results revealed that the overall satisfaction of a latex harvester lies between dissatisfaction to a neutral level. Moreover, it can be improved by 5%–11% when the satisfaction level goes from dissatisfied to satisfied level in hierarchical needs. Results of the field survey suggest that working environment improvement of latex harvesters, relationships with the owner and incentives to harvesters are the foremost needs to motivate harvesters in the job. Some measures were discussed to uplift the satisfactory level of harvesters while safeguarding the smallholder rubber growers. Further investigation into other regions with diverse socioeconomic characteristics was also discussed to generalise the findings of this study.