Frederick W. Taylor And Human Relations Essay

Chapter 2: The classical approaches (scientific management, administrative principles, and bureaucratic organization) share a common assumption: people at work act in a rational manner that is primarily driven by economic concerns. Scientific Management: in 1911, Fredrick W. Taylor published The Principles of Scientific Management, in which he made the following statement: “The principle object of management should be to secure maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with the maximum prosperity for the employee. He noticed that many workers did their jobs their own ways and without clear and uniform specifications. He believed this caused them to lose efficiency and underperform. He believed the problem would be fixed by scientific

Frederick W. Taylor worked across the United States in the first 15 years of the 20th century looking to solve production problems (Owens & Valesky, 2011, p. 67). He was an engineer in steel manufacturing and studied developed what what is now known as the four principles of scientific management. These principles spell out what both managers and workers are to do. Two important principles include having the management set goals, plan, and supervise workers, and the workers perform the work, and that organizations should establish the standard where management “sets the objectives and the workers cooperate in achieving them” (p. 67). Taylor’s principles are still used today by some organizational leaders who fight the movement that management should work as a team with the workers (pp. 67-68). Taylor’s principles have led to things such as strict discipline, the idea that workers must focus on their task with little or no interaction with colleagues, and the idea of incentive

Scientific management evolved into Fordism, which was established by the American entrepreneur Henry Ford. It basically involved mass production and an assembly line. Workers were attracted and motivated by higher wages, paid daily, which resulted in reduced staff turnover and productivity increase. Scientific management had many disadvantages, especially for the worker. Workers felt socially isolated, the work was exhausting, monotonous and stressful. As a result, in the 1930s, a movement, opposing Scientific management was created- the Human Relations movement. It emphasized on the cooperation of workers by treating them humanely and shifted the emphasis from utilitarian to normative control. Yet, it developed from Scientific management's principles. Post Tayloristic ideas influenced modern HRM, which unlike Taylorism, emphasizes on the commitment and individuality of

In F. W. Taylor’s scientific management theory, he tried to convey the idea of specialisation. This means “dividing and co-ordinating the various tasks necessary to produce a finished product” by “simplifying jobs and having each worker perform fewer, more routine tasks”, aiming to increase efficiency in the workplace. By doing so, workers would have to make fewer motions to complete a task and also, repeatedly doing the same task, which would make workers more and more used to and skilled at that task. As a result, they can do it more efficiently and quicker.

Frederick Winslow Talyor developed a theory called the Scientific Management. It is a theory of management that analyse and improve work process, aiming to increase labour productivity. Scientific management methods are used to optimize productivity and simplifying the jobs so that workers could be trained to perform their task in one “best” way.

Many people and companies have rejected the theory of scientific management that Frederic Taylor developed in the early 1900’s because it wasn’t working effectively for the companies. However as Rober Kanigel make clear in his biography of Frederick Taylor One Best Way the problem wasn’t with the theory of scientific management , but with the Frederic Taylor and his attempts at managing his own theories. Frederic Taylor was an engineer, a perfectionist; he didn’t have personality skills necessary to be an effective manager or leader. Someone how had these skills could manage a company well with his theory. What scientific management really is "a complete method of creative problem solving and decision

The year 1911 saw Frederick Winslow Taylor publish a book titled ‘The principles of scientific management’ in which he aimed to prove that the scientific method could be used in producing profits for an organization through the improvement of an employee’s efficiency. During that decade, management practice was focused on initiative and incentives which gave autonomy to the workman. He thus argued that one half of the problem was up to management, and both the worker and manager needed to cooperate in order to produce the greatest prosperity.

Managers throughout history have been interested in studying ways to increase productivity. For example, Frederick Taylor began the movement of scientific management in the 1880’s. Scientific management looked to improve productivity through means of scientific analysis of worker’s tasks and work processes rather than the old “rule of thumb” (Taylor, 1914). Taylor believed that he could maximize worker efficiency and productivity through focusing on workers specific hand motions and patterns. After this period, beginning in about the 1930’s, managers looked to take productivity to yet another level by studying worker physiology and motivation. This new movement came to be known as the human relations movement.

There are a number of management theories that have changed the management business environment in the twentieth century. The theories have assisted managers to come up with better ways of management and organization of people. Managers have been able to increase profits, reduce costs and maximize efficiency. The purpose of this essay is to compare and contrast the contributions of scientific management and the human relations movement to the modern management. This essay will use Frederick Winslow Taylor’s theory on scientific management and Elton Mayo’s human relations theory. These two movements have been proven to increase productivity in the workplace (Mullins, 2005).

Taylorism is a management system which was popular in the late 19th century. It was designed to increase efficiency by breaking down and specialising repetitive tasks. This is exhibited as mentioned in ‘Selection and Development: A new perspective on some old problems’ that several jobs presently no longer consist of clusters of similar tasks, but are now process based collections of activities (Harrington, Hill & Linley 2005). According to Weber’s foundation of organisation theory; bureaucracy was portrayed as an “instrument or tool of unrivalled technical superiority which entailed charismatic, traditional and rational authority” (1978, cited in Clegg 1994). Thereafter, other theories derived based on the instrument being used as a form of manipulation. This is evident in Knights & Roberts’ (1982) concept of human resource management and staff misunderstanding the nature of power, treating it as if it were an individual possession, as opposed to a relationship between people (Knights & Roberts 1982). Subsequently, this led to the establishment of unions and increasing cooperative resistance in the workplace as employees seek change in the occupational structure (Courpasson & Clegg 2012). The change in this occupational structure was based around the ‘superior-inferior’ concept where managers prioritise their own success

Throughout history, there have been many different approaches of management theories. Some theories longer exist because they are no longer relevant in today’s environment, but some theories are still implemented like Scientific Management and Human Relations. Scientific management emphasizes on efficiency productivity by motivating workers with monetary rewards. Human relations emphasize on motivation of workers by both financial rewards and a range of social factors (e.g. praise, a sense of belonging, feelings of achievement and pride in one’s work).

By examining Taylor’s theory and its impact on business management practices today, it is evident that there are still supporters as well as increasing critics of his concept. Whilst there are indications of successful implementation of his practices in businesses today, there are also many negative facets of his theory regarding its impact on the employee. This research suggests that although scientific

The scientific management theory have an assumption that workers are lazy, not smart in analyzing tasks, only prefers simplified work and only works for money (Miller & Form, 1964). According to Taylor (2004), workers are unable figure out the most efficient way in doing work. Therefore, they are thought as replaceable working parts like a machine in the production line and can be trained to specialize in a certain procedure in the production. They are assumed to adopt the Protestant work ethic, working for long hours and not taking any breaks. Whenever a worker or a ‘part’ failed to perform its tasks, they

Although his work emphasized the technical rather than purely human side of management, he did point out the role of specific incentives in motivating workers and the value of specialization. Perhaps Taylor’s greatest contribution to the study of management and organizational behaviour was his approach of applying the scientific method to industrial problems. (Colonel Samuel H Hays and Lieutenant Colonel William N Thomas,Taking Command, Stackpole Books, USA, 1976, p 93). This scientific approach has been adopted by several theorists and applied to the filed of organizational behaviour.

Frederic Winslow Taylor (1865-1915) was an engineer and most importantly an innovator who affects the way many organizations function even today. In his time he introduced the term of scientific management which refers to a system where leaders are capable of managing and workers are able to execute the tasks given by the managers in the most efficient and productive way in a mass production environment with the basic element of job specialization (McKenna, 2012, p.7). According to Taylor, scientific management should include the selection of the best qualified people to work in a company, the incentives to work harder and as a result more efficient by awarding them with higher salaries as well as the authority given to the managers to control