The Human Relations Movement - Term Paper Example

?Management Every good story requires its villains, heroes and heroines. The study of management is no different and a perusal of organisational Textbooks, more often than not, depicts F. W. Taylor’s Scientific Management theory as the villain of the story and the Human Relations Movement as the hero or heroine. The Human Relations Movement is portrayed as the proverbial knight in shining white armour whose arrival, via enlightened managerial practices, will enable employees to commit themselves, readily, to organisational effectiveness and efficiency. Critically discuss the validity of this observation. Response Scientific management concept gave birth to the field of management about a century ago with pioneering work performed by Fredrick W Taylor during 1900s. Concept of management has, ever since, evolved and developed into a completely new framework that is based on quite contrasting factors described in scientific management, referred to as the human relations movement, after pioneering work of Elton May and colleagues through the Hawthorne experiments. While scientific management levied greater emphasis on the employer and the business, contemporary management levies higher significance on employees. However, both management concepts are focused towards improving and growing business and reducing costs and wastage. Management specialists regard scientific management or Taylorism as the villain and the Human Relations Movement as the hero of present times. This discourse evaluates this comparison in lieu of current organisational challenges. In the process, it also evaluates various situations that continue to apply scientific management concepts and how these concepts continue to save organisations. At the same time, application concepts from human relations movement are also analysed. Scientific management was indeed first science applied to management in order to help the employer reap maximum benefits from his/her employers’ efforts. Although workers during scientific management era committed themselves to their work, most of the employers did not trust their employees’ intentions and commitment. As Taylor explained, most believed that interests of employees and employers were mostly antagonistic (2008, p.5). In order to improve productivity or output, Taylor designed certain rules of thumb to be followed in order to accomplish certain tasks. Taylor strongly believed that not all members in a group can be equally efficient or productive. In order to minimize inefficiency, he proposed principles of management based on scientific study conducted in manufacturing industry. Taylor believed that the principal object of management should be to secure maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with the maximum prosperity for the employee (qtd. In Schermerhorn, 2010). Scientific management or Taylorism is based on three core principles derived from three myths as considered by Taylor (2008). Firstly, it is a myth that increased output or productivity would make some workers redundant and would be made jobless. Taylor’s ideology is that excess production would lower production costs as well as costs of the product, which will increase sales and hence demand for the product. So, workers will have sufficient work to do. Secondly, employees were of the belief that excess output would earn no extra income or any favour from their employer; this notion made the smart employers also waste their time by soldiering. Taylor’s observations resulted in the conclusion that different employees tend perform a particular task in many different ways. His time studies of these different types resulted in opting for the best method, which would increase overall efficiency of the workers. If workers were given incentives or premium of some kind, it would automatically increase their efficiency. Thirdly, the thumb-of-rule method which was already known to many was considered of no use as it would require much time to train the employees on these methods. Taylor challenged this method by introducing precise procedures to perform smallest of the tasks to the most challenging ones. Human relations movement was born out of the Hawthorn experiments conducted by Elton Mayo, which focused on studying work outputs with varying working conditions. These studies concluded that work output is influenced by workers’ psychological and social factors. These psychological and social factors included recognition and social cohesion along with monetary incentives and working conditions. The concept of management advocated by Mayo and colleagues were quite contrasting to scientific management principles. For instance, this movement promoted worker participation and participative leadership in order to improve relationship among workers and their commitment towards higher quality and productivity at work (Bratton, 2001). Wren and Greenwood (1998) argued that, somewhere, Taylorism laid foundations to what is now referred to as the human relations movement, but from different perspective (Wren & Greenwood, 1998).Although the human relations movement perspective was presented by Mayo’s experiments, these considerations existed much before these declarations. For instance, Taylor suggests motivating employees with extrinsic motivators such as incentives (Bruce & Nylan, 2011). Human relations movement also supports employee motivation through extrinsic factors such as working conditions, performance monitoring etc. Application of classic scientific management approach is rampant in contemporary organisations. For instance, standardization of processes is adopted in routine tasks as a method of improving efficiency and reducing waste in lean organisations. A few examples include McDonalds, Toyota, Starbucks and most of the back office and call center operations. The time-studies conducted by Taylor are used even today, especially in service industries, like back office and call center operations, to measure and monitor number of entries passed or calls taken, respectively. These again refer to classical Taylorist methods applied to measure and control office employees’ output (Bain et al., 2001). Performance management in these systems is also based on monitoring and measuring outcomes based on pre decided targets. Employees hired for the job are provided with necessary on-the-job or skill training to perform the job in a particular style. Scientific management also used similar technique of work management, which involved breaking down the tasks into most simple elemental activities that could be learned in no time and performed by many workers, and thus avoid wastage of time and effort. Taylor advocated for incentive system through extra wages for workers that exceeded their targets; this process is currently referred to as job simplification (Schermerhorn et al., 2011). Most of these broken down jobs required no special skills, but only an understanding of the activities. Overseeing the quality, overall output, job performance still remained with the supervisors. Human relations movement emphasizes employees’ motivation, participation, and relationships, all of which are directed towards employee commitment, innovation and business growth. Employee motivation is crucial for commitment and innovation. Piller and Walcher (2006) point out that approaches used for innovation, such as standard open sources, also employ certain tools and mass customization methods. While the human relations movement emphasizes employee involvement in innovation, contemporary management, like traditional management, also emphasizes clarity in roles and goals. So, all innovations would be confined to their existing roles, which do not really widen their scope or opportunity for innovation. These are most applicable in information technology oriented businesses that work on single software platforms and all innovations are confined to the main software. Nevertheless, employee involvement through participation in innovation is a consequence of human relations movement. Employee motivation is a driving factor for successful innovation, a factor emphasized in Taylorism as essential for effective outcomes. Principles and practices of Taylorism vouch effective and positive outcomes from employees; however, too much relevance and involvement in innovation also requires time, efforts and investment along with risk of ambiguity in the outcome. One of the major challenges faced by contemporary organisations is ‘change,’ which requires involvement of all employees at all levels. This multidimensional process too requires standardized procedures and practices across all levels. Most changes at organisation level are lead by change agents that facilitate change through collaboration and cooperation between different functions and across various levels. Moreoften, the triggers for change include mergers and acquisition, changes in top management, changes in administration, job redesign due to new technology, cost savings, changes in marketing strategy, staff redundancies, new product/service introduction, new clients or customers etc (Senior, 1997). All these changes are triggered due to influences from external factors, which necessitate such changes in order to sustain and grow the business. Almost all the times, change is countered with resistance to change, mostly from employees; however, change is inevitable. In such cases, human relations orientation takes a hit and changes have to be imposed in the organisation, much against the will of its employees. In the context of scientific management, implementation of change would have been much simpler. In lieu of this, giving too much importance to human relations actually becomes a bane to management making change implementation extremely difficult and challenging. The most serious challenge faced by managers today is employee retention. Advancement in information and technology, innovation, developing economy and globalization are contributing to increase in opportunities for employees. Hence, gaining employee commitment is becoming extremely difficult. Effective leadership alone would be insufficient to tackle this problem. Employees are given extreme importance not only by their employers but also from other employers wanting to hire the best talent in the market. More and more organisations are adopting effective performance management plans to motivate and retain their high performers through performance measurement, rewards and recognition, bonuses and incentives, and various other activities (McKenna, 2000); yet employee turnover is much more than what it used to be during last century, all attributable to increasing opportunities, better working conditions and pay structures, learning opportunities etc. McKenna (2000) identifies five core requirements for effective performance review plan: specific targets and plans for every employee; clarity of job roles and goals; rewards and recognition programmes; demarcation in levels of performance to differentiate high performance from average and low; clear communication of the plan to employees. From critiques’ viewpoint, all these requirement set simple ground rules for employees’ performance, which is also the principle followed in scientific management. Allowing employees say in management aspects has only worsened the leaders’ position in handling their issues and devoting more time. Although contemporary management practices and policies are employee oriented rather than just ‘top-down’ approach, yet all employees including leaders are supposed to strive towards achievement of organisational goals in order to thrive and sustain their business and jobs. This goal is accomplished by today’s management in a more subtle manner, unlike Taylorism’s autocratic approach. Taylor’s principles were focused towards greater profits for the management by reducing wastage and increasing productivity through job simplification and low cost labour. Contemporary management adopts skill-based pay or competency based pay to motivate their employees (McKenna, 2000). This again roles down to simplifying jobs as per the skills; in addition, it encourages employees to acquire multiple skills, which could help the organisation during crises. For employees, this indicates larger amount of work at similar pay, especially during crises. This rules out possibilities of greater pay for larger work. In order to make employees multi-skilled, many organisations provide learning opportunities through training and knowledge retention activities. Such practices only benefit the organisations, not employees unless they are promoted and given higher responsibilities along with increased pay. Opportunities to promote all employees is next to impossible; however, all employees have to be motivated by providing equal opportunities to learn and grow. According to McAllister (1995), recent developments in the organisational sciences reflect the importance of interpersonal trust relationships for sustaining individual and organisational effectiveness. Trust is an important factor for effective team-based working. In most organisations, teams are formed by people with similar or different skills and possess a common goal. Establishing effective interpersonal and inter-professional relationship is tough and time consuming task. Scientific management does not emphasize trust or interpersonal relations as critical success factor. Establishing such relationship also means countering team members’ issues related to attitude, behavior, culture, expectations, ego and skill set. Managers consider these issues as hindering factors to effective outcomes from team-based working. Viewing management from human relations perspective poses serious challenges to executing effective leadership. Scientific management did not have this challenge because the only leadership required in scientific management is the autocratic leadership. While autocratic leadership has its disadvantages and challenges, democratic leadership needed in human relations oriented setup also has its challenges. In the latter type, decision making is slow and time consuming; possibilities of losing focus are high; too much involvement can create chaos and conflicts; these can affect overall business. In scientific management, employees’ comfort is at stake, but not on the business. Business results are achieved faster and/or on time; expectations and roles are clear; decision making is quick; profits and improved productivity are mostly assured (Gaspar, 2006). To address leadership issues arising in exercising human relations, situational leadership is considered as the most suitable style; however, managers in leadership positions must possess the ability to change according to the situations. These arguments point to the fact that the notion that the human relations movement as the knight in shining white armour is a management fad created after the Hawthorne experiments. The findings from these experiments were perceived differently by management researchers at that time, which created a totally different concept. Further development and evolution of the human relations movement resulted in formation of various management practices, policies and structures that ultimately boiled down to the basic principles identified by Taylor long ago. There have certainly been some changes in the way employees are considered and treated in present times, which seems to be the idealistic approach considering humanity and psychological perspectives, these new ways of managing have also accompanied with them certain challenges that could be managed by going back to adopting classical management approaches in a disguised form. Considering these challenges and in lieu of the arguments made in this discourse, it is hard to say and believe that the human relations movement has set grounds to readily improve employee commitment, thereby better organisational effectiveness and efficiency. Sustenance of such achievements in the long term is extremely challenging. References Taylor, F.W. (2008). The principles of scientific management. South Carolina: Forgotten Books. First published in 1911. Bain, P et al., (2001). Taylorism, targets and the quantity-quality dichotomy in call centres. 19th International Labour Process Conference, Royal Holloway College, University of London. Bratton, J. (2001) Restructuring work: Fordism and re-engineering. In Bratton, J. and Gold, J’s Human resource management: Theory and practice. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan (99-126). Bruce, K and Nylan, C (2011). ‘Elton Mayo and the Deification of Human Relations’, Organization Studies, 32 (3) 383-405 Gaspar, J.E. (2006). 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