Douglas McGregors Theory X and Theory Y - Case Study Example

“In HR theory, practice and in the workplace experience, though people appear to be of central concern, the rich, warm and unpredictable face of humanity are all too clearly absent" (Bolton and Houlihan, 2008) Drawing on theoretical debates and empirical examples surrounding HRM, to what extent would you agree that the soft rhetoric of HRM obscures the 'hard' people management practices experienced in the workplace? Introduction: Over the years there have been a number of different approaches that have been developed by scholars to ensure better management of people at work. Every leader has an individual approach to managing their people. Famous psychologist and scholars have devised a number of different theories for leadership. One of the famous theories that have been derived is by Douglas McGregor. This study aims at understanding the theory set down by Douglas McGregor. The first section will provide a clear understanding of the theory, following which a focus will be made on understanding whether the soft approach of the theory in any way obscures the ‘hard’ people management practices in the workplace. Theory X and Theory Y: Douglas McGregor was an American social psychologist who believed that there are two ways of motivating people within an organisation. Focusing on this he developed the theory X and theory Y, which has been used in the human resources management, organisational behaviour and organisational development for years now. He introduced his theory in his book ‘The Human Side of Enterprise’ which was published in 1960. He maintained that there were two main ways of managing people. His theory acts as a reminder to the managers who under normal pressure forget the rules of managing people within an organisation (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2004). Theory X: This theory assumes that an average employee: Do not like work and if given an option would prefer to avoid work, Do not have any ambitions, Do not want responsibilities, Prefer being lead than to lead, Are not open the changes, Do not care about the organisational goals and are very self-centred, and Are not very intelligent and thus can be very gullible. The theory was based on the main assumption that employees work only for money and security. This theory assumes that the people are extremely lazy and employees who fall in this are very concerned about self interest only (Bach, 2006). This mainly highlights that there exists two goals, one that is set down by the company and the other is the one set down by the employee. Hence the management is required to ensure that the employees work towards attaining the goals of the company rather than their own. This style is a combination of correctives and coercions. Theory Y: This theory assumes on the basis of the integration of individuals and organisational goals: Work is as natural as rest and play thus employees do not dislike work, If an employee is committed to a job they would be self motivated and self directed, Rewards plays a very important role and makes people more committed when higher needs are fulfilled, With all the above factors employees will seek responsibilities, Almost every individual can handle responsibility since ingenuity and creativeness is common. These goals allow employees goals to be in line with the goals of the organisation. McGregor also emphasised on the fact that some people are not mature enough to meet up to that assumed within the theory hence a hard approach is used until the employees reach the level of maturity. This method as seen is a complete opposite of the previous theory (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2004). It is believed in this method that every person has a different mode of working, and different style, hence it is up to the manager to allow the employees to work as per their desire as long as the end product is in favour of the company and its progress (Bach, 2006). Figure 1: Douglas McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2004) Approaches to the theory: McGregor classified the management approaches into two main categories: The Hard Approach: This approach for the management was based on compulsion, threatening, tight controls and very close supervision. The management was expected to build an environment of command and control where employees would have to follow all the rules set down by the management (Legge, 2005). This approach however was not the optimum approach as it led employees to become very de-motivated and result in low productivity, unwillingness to cooperate with management and resentment. The main reason for the hard behaviour of the management was based on the assumption that most people do not like work and only commanding and control would make people work. This resulted in managers utilising the authoritarian approach of leadership where employees would work only under the threat of punishment. The Soft Approach: Unlike the hard approach this was a completely different approach where the management would require building an environment of harmony within the organisation for employees. The main reason and aim behind this approach is that if employees are treated with a soft approach the employees would reciprocate by working harder and cooperate with the management when asked to do so (Porter,et. al., 2008). This approach based on the assumption that employees would cooperate when requested, this however was not the case. Management realised the approach resulted in the employees requesting for more rewards for lesser work output. This is an extreme approach and it was noticed that the approach resulted in making employees lazier with endless requests for rewards. Affects of Soft approach on Hard Management: There have been a number of different arguments that have been presented on the hard approach of management. It has been said a number of times that the Theory X when followed reflect the nature of the organisation and does not consider the feelings of the employees. Here the management treats employees to be like machinery which is as any other resource. Looking at humans as resources and in the current economic conditions, management only aim at achieving as much utility as possible from the employees, through this approach. This approach is normally referred to as the classic approach or hard HRM (Slocum & Hellriegel, 2006). This is a very common role that the managers have been noted to take on while managing people. However, when it comes to a few managers, they follow the theory Y. This is more common referred to as the soft approach of management and this role is where the managers understand the emotions of people and work with empathy as well as sympathy. The biggest issue that is faced when the soft approach is also incorporated within the hard management is the fact that the managers with a soft approach tend to ensure that the employees are provided with the necessary support that they might require in their personal lives (Porter,et. al., 2008). This is a method which works on humanitarian grounds and here the managers understand that ever employee is an individual and not just another resource that is used within the organisation. However, when managers use this approach of being understanding and empathetic, there are strong chances that employees misuse this benefit and instead of putting in their hundred percent to the job, they wrongly try and gain al benefits without committing to the job completely (Noon & Blyton, 2007). Hence one of the major issues that are seen when a manager includes the soft approach of management within a hard approach is that there are high chances of undue advantage to taken by the employees. It is a common scene in a number of companies where the managers provide a few employees with support at work while other misuse this to gain the support and do not work completely committed to their jobs. McGregor argued that the concept put forth by Maslow – The Hierarchy theory was based on the satisfaction of needs however the satisfied need no longer motivates the employees. Theory X however does make firms rely on money and benefits to satisfy employee’s lower needs, which once met the source of motivation is lost (Porter,et. al., 2008). Theory X has put a lot of importance on the money factor for employees. The theory aims at satisfying the lower needs of the employees and taking care of the higher needs leisurely. This however is not very useful in increasing the motivation of the employees since satisfying the higher needs would make the employee more productive. For all the above mentioned reasons McGregor formulated theory Y, to over come the flaws of theory X. The hard approach is in a number of ways a better option to be followed in companies, as this ensures that all the employees are treated the same and are no empathy is seen in the management of the employees. It is also essential to understand that every person is different and so is the method of working, their personal needs and the motivational factors. Thus managers require to make a mix of the two approaches as both the approaches provide a true face of the working environment and in short it is the ‘reality’. As stated in Bolton and Houlihan, 2008, the soft approach does affect the working of the hard approach on the employees and this is very clear due to the two fundamentals of the approaches which are completely irreconcilable and the ideas of each of the approaches work against one another, like self interest vs. self direction, trust vs. distrust and positive vs. the negative (Slocum & Hellriegel, 2006). The soft approach has also in a number of cases caused an issue for the hard approach and has caused for the obscures in the hard approach. In aspects of the job like the holidays, absenteeism, working hours, meeting of deadlines, working conditions, employee favouritism, and productivity it has been noted that the soft approach causes employees to work completely different when compared to how they work under the hard approach (Noon & Blyton, 2007). There has also been a clear influence of how the approach causes favouritism in employees and has become a cause of reducing the efficiency of other already productive workers. The soft approach tries to help and understand the employees who require efforts to be able to produce. Hence there are also times when the employees who are already productive have been over looked and thus this causes a strong influence on their productivity. Also employees try to misuse the soft approach and this leads to delay in meeting the deadlines, and the quality of work also suffers. Also some employees tend to move on to take a higher number of holidays based on the sympathy and empathy grounds, and the amount of absenteeism also increases (Bach, 2006). Hence the soft approach has been seen to cause a number of issues and has been noted to obscure the efforts and results which are got by the hard approach to a great extent (Bolton and Houlihan, 2008). This in a number of ways affects the working of the organisation as a whole and also influences the end product that has been produced by the company. Conclusion: The Soft approach that was devised was mainly to allow the employees to be felt needed at work and to put in their complete commitment to the job. Also this mode was to ensure that the employee’s motivation is kept up and that the coercion mode of management was not needed in any working environment. This has proved to work, however there are a number of situations where this has not worked as well. Since the theory integrates the personal objectives with those within the organisation, it however cannot be done at all times. Here this is what causes the main dilemma between the two modes of management. It is essential to realise that each of the two modes are extremely different and are completely contradictory to each other. A soft approach is good, however when working in an organisation where the hard approach is also used, this approach can cause a number of confusions and chaos in the efficiency of the workers. Bibliography Bach, S., 2006, ‘Managing Human Resources’, 4th edition, Blackwell Publishing Bolton, S. and Houlihan, M., 2007, ‘Searching for the Human in Human Resource Management’, Basingstoke: Palgrave Buchanan D. and Huczynski A., 2004, ‘Organizational behaviour’, 5th edn, Prentice Hall, Essex Legge K, 2005, ‘Human Resource Management: Rhetorics and Realities’, Houndsmills, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan (Anniversary Edition) Noon, M. and Blyton, P., 2007, ‘The Realities of Work’, Basingstoke: Palgrave Porter, C., Bingham, C. and Simmonds, D., 2008, ‘Exploring Human Resource Management’, Berkshire: McGraw-Hill Slocum, J. W. and Hellriegel, D., 2006, ‘Fundamentals of Organizational Behaviour’, Thomson South-Western, USA Read More