Principles of Frederick W. Taylor Essay

Frederick Taylor (1917) developed scientific management theory (often called "Taylorism") at the beginning of this century. His theory had four basic principles: 1) find the one "best way" to perform each task, 2) carefully match each worker to each task, 3) closely supervise workers, and use reward and punishment as motivators, and 4) the task of management is planning and control.

Management has indeed evolved since Frederick Taylor’s writings in 1911. Taylor, a pioneer of modern management theory, is best known for developing the ‘scientific management approach’, Kemp (2013). The development of management since Taylor’s writings is a response to the larger economic and social circumstances of our time. Today we are living in a digital era, whereas then, it was an industrial era. Taylor’s approach is built on the premise that in order to maximize production efficiency workers should be seen as individuals and that the more effort put in, the wealthier the man, George (1968). Taylor’s (1911) ideas have not disappeared; they have evolved to meet the challenge of a different era. In 1911, Taylor came up with four theories

Frederick Taylor’s fundamental thoughts on scientific management dated back to early 1880s when he was employed at Midvale Steel Company and observed his coworkers “soldiering” at work. In the following two decades, he moved around different companies while developing his management theory

Taylor the “Father of Scientific Management” was an American mechanical engineer, born in 1856. He decided against going to Harvard despite passing the entrance exam, instead joining the working world and later whilst working for Midvale Steel he completed his degree at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey. He would go on to apply his engineering background to the scientific study of management (Simha and Lemak 2010).

Scientific management or "Taylorism" is an approach to job design, developed by Frederick Taylor (1856-1915) during the Second World War. With the industrial revolution came a fast growing pool of people, seeking jobs, that required a new approach of management. Scientific management was the first management theory, applied internationally. It believes in the rational use of resources for utmost output, hence motivating workers to earn more money. Taylor believed that the incompetence of managers was the major obstacle on the way of productivity increase of human labour. Consequently, this idea led to the need of change of management principles. On the base of research, involving analysing controlled experiments under various working

Scientific Management is also known as Taylorism. Fredrick Winslow Taylor wanted to divide the work process into small, simple and separate steps (Division of Labor). Division of Labor meant every worker only had one or two steps, this was created to boost productivity. Taylor also believed in Hierarchy, he wanted a clear chain of command that separated the managers from workers. He did this so managers would design work process and enforced how the work was performed and employees would simply follow directions. Taylor wanted to select and train high performing workers or first-class employees and match them to a job that best suited them. Taylor believed the most productive workers should be paid more. Employees who could not meet the new higher standard were fired.

Frederick W. Taylor was ahead of his time for his concept of Scientific management. It was a revolutionary way of running a business, that swept all over the globe, and his ideas were applicable to many different industries. Substituting disorder and conflict for a new untested method of control, cooperation, and science. Taylor understood there were no incentives for working harder. Knowing this, he payed workers based on output, allowing workers to make more money on any given day. It seemed like everyone would enjoy and prosper under this system, but that was not the case. Workers liked the opportunity to make more money in this system but many of them resisted this new idea. Being under constant supervision made work much harder for them.

He believed that these employees were easily replaceable for less pay. These kinds of procedures and ideas created an environment that was ripe for alienation. In an attempt to satisfy workers, “In return for a workers lost dignity, freedom, power and skill, Taylor promised higher pay” (Hoopes 48). Taylor also created the “differential piece rate” (Hoopes 38) which would further alienate workers from each other, claiming it improved production. Overall, Taylor’s theory of scientific management created a good environment for business owners but it only fueled alienation between the workers and the workers and society.

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.

All these adoptions gave rise to a new management school of thought centered around a more productive work place, which Taylor considered to be “maximum prosperity” (Taylor, 1911). Taylor firmly believed in developing “captains of industry” rather than waiting on natural-born leaders to come along (Taylor, 1911). He also recognized a need for more involvement from the supervisors in the workplace to help eliminate what he referred to as soldiering, or, laxed employee output. He said, “The 30 percent to 100 percent increase in wages which the workmen are able to earn beyond what they receive under the old type of management, coupled with the daily intimate shoulder to shoulder contact with the management, entirely removes all cause for soldiering” (Taylor, 1911).

When Taylor published The Principles of Scientific Management in 1911, he was the first theorist to study organizational behaviour in depth. When working as a shop superintendent at the Midvale Steel Company he noticed that workers used different and mostly inefficient work methods when completing tasks along the assembly line (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2017).  Taylor (1911) argued that the primary objective of a firm’s administration should be to achieve maximum prosperity for both employers and employees. From this, he

Scientific management (also called Taylorism, the Taylor system, or the Classical Perspective) is a theory of management that analyzes and synthesizes workflow processes, improving labor productivity. The core ideas of the theory were developed by Frederick Winslow Taylor in the 1880s and 1890s, and were first published in his monographs, Shop Management (1905) and The Principles of Scientific Management (1911).[1] Taylor believed that decisions based upon tradition and rules of thumb should be replaced by precise procedures developed after careful study of an individual at work.

Scientific management was created and nurtured after industrial evolution in an era that science is regarded as a way of life and living. Frederick W. Taylor was a central figure in the development of scientific management theory. He and his contemporaries provided the early impetus for scientific management movement, which is also regarded as Taylorism. Following the urging of Fayol and Weber, who developed the management

Scientific management theory was introduced by Frederick Winslow Taylor, which explains the application of science to work. Taylor (1911) emphasized that the wages should be provided in accordance with mental and physical difficulty of tasks. Taylor also argued on ‘one best way’ of doing a job, and also selecting the right person for the job, provide training and then motivate them.