Contributions To The Human Side Of Enterprise, Elton Mayo, Abraham Maslow, And Douglas Mcgregor

McGregor first published his ideas in his book, The Human Side of Enterprise. One of the experiences he had that influenced his thoughts was from work that he did at his grandfather’s establishment for temporary workers in Detroit. Because he was a close acquaintance of Abraham Maslow, who developed “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs,” McGregor wished to counter the scientific approach on management (“Douglas McGregor,” 2008) and named Theories X & Y.

Behavioral Management Theory is the understanding and response of employee needs to enforce motivation. This theory guides management in a better understanding of the human aspect. It involves management to treat employees as important resources in the workforce. The goal is to raise productivity and to do this by motivating employees. Motivating employees can involve incentives like employee bonuses, promotions, and the collection and redeeming of points for rewards. As the management takes interest in employees, it makes them feel like an important part of the puzzle, and in turn motivates employees to work harder. Like in most cases, if the employees are satisfied and working conditions are good, productivity raises automatically. A theorist by the name of Mayo Hawthorne devised an experiment that allowed a group of telephone line workers to be separated and observed in a private room. The controlled group of employees increased greatly in productivity. This brought the human relations movement that involved management spending time, showing interest, and rewarding employees to increase productivity. Employees felt management was

Human Relations is defined as “the skill or ability to work effectively through and with other people” by Lamberton, L. H., & Minor, L. (2014) . However, there are external and internal influencing forces regarding human behavior that impact how we interact with others or behave in the workplace. It is vital for all employees in a company (regardless if they work in the Human Relations Department or) to be aware of influencing factors so they can not only be successful with their performance, but be successful as a team and help bolster the company’s successes. Some of the most important influencing factors are organizational climate/culture, work/life balance, Supervisor/Management, conflict/resolution, job performance/responsibility, and personal characteristics.

It is believed by some sociologists that attempts to humanize the workplace are simply ways to manipulate workers into cooperating in their own exploitation. This belief is most aligned with the ________ perspective.

There is plenty of work to do if people would do it” (Zinn 387). Ford’s explanation about the work ethics of the majority of people shows the necessity for high wages in his company.

Researchers in the past have made valuable discovery about employee relations what is the cause of dissatisfaction and satisfaction at work. Companies that want to

2. Leatherbarrow, C., Fletcher, J. & Currie, D. (2010) Introduction to Human Resource Management. 2nd Edition. London: CIPD

Currie, D (2010). Introduction to Human Resource Management. 2nd ed. London: Chartered Institute of Personnel Development. 293

Theory X and Theory Y, developed by Douglas McGregor, grew out of opposition towards classical management methods. Classical management theorists, such as Fredrick Taylor, focused on scientific training and efficiency and did not account for personal and behavioral issues, such as management styles or job satisfaction. McGregor saw these deficiencies in the classical school of management which lead him to develop a theory of management that would factor the importance of the individual worker. If a manager could tap into the feelings and attitudes of their workers, then the manager would be able increase their employee’s motivation which would then increase production. McGregor’s theory viewed the employee as a person and not as a machine

Of course, the disciplines of organisational sociology and human resource management are vast and the aims of this paper are modest. It is impossible to treat the literature on these subjects in great depth here. The main aim of this paper is to identify a number of “landmark studies”, defined as frequently cited review articles, that try to make sense of the burgeoning literature on organisational performance. These studies could contribute to the development of theory in this area. A second aim is to identify variables at different levels of analysis—individual, organisational, and environmental—that could be used in future models of hospital organisation and quality of patient care.

M. Marchington & A. Wilkinson, 2008, Human Resource Management at Work 4th Edition, London, CIPD

Mayo was one of the first to think about individual behavior and how it integrates with group processes. Mayo's human relations approach says; a happy worker is an efficient worker; that means if an organization can keep its workforce happy, it would bring more productivity and more profit because if a worker is happy what the organization provides. Elton Mayo for the first time brought out the importance of relationships between social factors and productivity. Before his studies, the productivity of the employees was considered to be a function only of physical conditions of work and money wages paid to them. Simon, on the other hand, was a further departure from the classical approach to Public Administration. Although Simon was noted to having some similar views to some of the theorists before him but according to Fry and Raadschelders (2014),"truly distinctive feature of Simons work lies in his preoccupation with decision making in the organization" (P281). His work known as "satisficing" was that Simon maintained that individuals do not seek to maximize their benefit from a particular course of action (Guru, 2009). Simon contended that individuals were limited in their ability to assess all information that would be needed in order to maximize their benefit. Bounded by cognitive limits. Hence people seek something which is good

The Human Side of Enterprise, written my McGregor in 1960, was voted the fourth most influential management book of the 20th century by the Fellows of the Academy of Management. The ideas and theories shown in the book have remained relevant and are taught in Universities across

Cartrawler pays lots of attention to each individual employee, so as to satisfy their personal needs and wants as well as to make sure they are working at their optimum level. The Human relations management in addition to being focused on the importance of the working environment for employees as a social group that is aimed at satisfying personal needs and wants there is another aspect of the human relations movement this is that there is good two way communication between employees and managers. Bartol (2005) emphasises that ‘collaborative and co-operative supervisor and worker relationships’ are vital. During the hawthorn experiment, Mayo had discovered that communication was one of the most important fundamentals to stimulate motivation. Unlike the classical perspectives of management which believed that one way communication by giving orders was best, the Human Relations Movement focuses on ‘the importance of an adequate communication system, particularly upwards from workers to management’ (Pugh & hickson 1989 p.155) In the centre of excellence, the department where I work, employees are split into smaller groups and are managed by a team leader. Each employee has weekly one-to-ones with their team leader to see how they are getting on, if they have any problems or given positive affirmations for good work. Within the group each day every team has a group ‘huddle’ to bring up any issues or positive feedback to the

The studies failed to prove any positive correlations between workplace conditions and productivity. The results of the studies demonstrated that innate forces of human behavior may have a greater influence on organizations than do mechanistic incentive systems. The legacy of the Hawthorne studies and other organizational research efforts of that period began to emphasize the importance of individual and group interaction, humanistic management skills, and social relationships in the workplace.