Comparison of the Attitudes of Two Management Principles - Assignment Example

Compare and contrast the attitudes of the Scientific School of Management thought (Taylor et al) with those of the Human Relations Movement (Mayo et al) with regard to people at work For this paper I will be comparing two management principles: the Scientific Management Theory and the Human Relations Movement. The examination of these principles would underscore why the latter is the more effective of the two and, hence, widely preferred today among business organizations. The Scientific Management Theory was introduced by Frederick Taylor, a mechanical engineer by profession, in the early 20th century. This approach have focused on the study of the workers’ behavior towards work and, hence, have introduced several practices, including the determination of the most effective way to coordinate tasks, careful selection of employees for different positions, proper training and development of the workforce, and the introduction of economic incentives in order to motivate employees. Taylor’s scientific management theory is widely used today and underlies many management techniques from work study to standard costing. In scientific management theory, Taylor believed that management’s objective should be to secure maximum prosperity for both employers and employees in both the short and long term. He was able to arrive at this principle by studying the causes of hostility and inefficiency in the workplace. In his investigation, Taylor believed that left to their own devices, workers toiled inefficiently, basing their work practices on custom and habit rather than on scientific principles. In addition, he attributed hostility to the belief among workers that increases in output would naturally result in unemployment and that the traditional practice created inefficient methods of work and that workers restricted their outputs in order to protect their interests. (Cascarion and Esch, p. 106) Taylor called this as workers’ engagement in “soldiering.” He outlined two types of soldiering: Natural soldiering was more or less the natural tendency among workers to work at an easy, comfortable pace. This is supposedly a naturally spontaneous and benign form of soldiering. Systematic soldiering, on the other hand, is the concerted restriction of output and the more problematic of the two. This attitude was rooted in management’s failure to develop appropriate authority and legitimation for standard work. (Collins 1998, p. 11) Taylor addressed this challenge by studying each job in order to discover the best way in doing it. He was able to identify the best means of control. He developed four approaches to management designed to be able to recruit and maintain workers – whose needs and attitudes towards work are met: The development of a science of work intended to determine what constitutes a fair day’s work for a first class man/woman for which he/she would receive a high rate pay. The selection, training and development of the worker to ensure that he/she was enabled to do the highest, most interesting and most profitable class of work of which he/she was capable. The bringing together of the science of work and the scientifically selected and trained person to cause the mental revolution in management that Taylor wanted. The close cooperation of management and workers to show that management decisions are not arbitrary, and thereby reduce the likelihood of conflict. (Cascarion and Esch 2006, p. 107) Through the previous principles Taylor was able to design a set of standards in regard to control and workers’ wages in terms of scientifically determined standards. In this regard, one sees Taylor’s scientific management approach as one that sees workers mechanistically. For Taylor, the scientific approach to management had to be considered as a coherent philosophy wherein the management must embrace the whole philosophy of scientific management and resist the poaching of only certain aspects of this model. The Human Relations Movement (HRM), on the other hand, was first introduced by Elton Mayo and Fritz Rochthlisberger in the giant utility company General Electric. Primarily, like the scientific management, the HRM anchored its principles over the importance of the employees in an organization’s strategy in addressing the problems of low productivity, in increasing efficiency and in improving various characteristics of the work setting. However, in contrast to Taylor’s scientific management approach, HRM focused on the human side of management and provided insight in regard to how social and psychological factors could be important in understanding and influencing workplace performance. The approach was primarily a reaction to the scientific movements and its flaws, which it preceded. Most of the principles behind the HRM approach emerged out of the famous Hawthorne Studies, an experiment chronicled by Rocthlisberger and William Dickinson in the premises of GE. The experiment initially attempted to investigate how characteristics of work setting – specifically – the level of lighting or illumination – affect worker fatigue and performance. The researchers found that regardless of whether they raised or lowered the level of lighting, productivity increased and that it fell only when illumination was dropped to the level of moonlight. (Jones and George 2004, p. 37) Mayo was called to interpret the results and conduct more experiments. The illumination-experiment became a wider and holistic study to increase efficiency. The result was the emergence of what was known as the Hawthorne Effect. Here, the significance of the understanding of behaviors in an organization was demonstrated. The study also found that attitudes of workers toward their managers affect the level of workers’ performance and that the manager’s behavior towards workers or the manager’s leadership approach can affect performance. Based from the Hawthorne Studies and the Hawthorne Effect, Mayo concluded that what was happening in the workplace was more complex than what had been understood, particularly by the scientific management theory. He posited two important principles: First, employees enjoyed the attention that was paid to them and worked more effectively as a result; and, second, despite the intentions of the management at GE, employees had formed informal groups that exerted a powerful independent influence on individuals’ performance. (Brewster, Mayrhofer and Morley, p. 5) Mayo emphasized that the scientific management approach removed the personal contact between management and the workers and hence, it became a source of frustration and psychological deterioration in the work situation. (Sison 1991, p. 6) HRM provided several strategies to offset hostility and inefficiency among workers. First, management should either permit the spontaneous formation of voluntary small groups or organize small groups in order to foster an environment that allows face-to-face interaction. Second, a need for active involvement of workers in the decision-making process must be integrated in the organizations management approach. This allows for workers to feel that they are being treated with dignity and as an important element in the organization. This particular aspect of HRM underscored the more permissive type of control as opposed to the old autocratic methods espoused by Taylor in scientific management. Here, the workers are allowed to express themselves freely, make suggestions and participate in decision-making activities. For instance, workers may participate in the production process of an organization by being allowed to join committees that develop production systems. In addition, face-to-face dialogues on lower management levels are also examples. Through the years, as more and more studies and approaches are conducted, the gap between the scientific management approach and human relations movement became more pronounced. Foremost of this is the approach in regard to control. For the former, control was more blatant and was in the form of increased authority given to the management and the economic incentives given to the workers. For the latter, control was in the permissible strategy wherein human resources managers control work environment through negotiation, consensus building and conflict resolution. To illustrate: managers for the scientific management approach believe that workers must be made to do what is necessary for the success of the organization by focusing on developing rules, standard procedures, well-defined system of rewards and punishments to control behavior; managers for HRM would work around the premise that work setting determine whether workers consider work to be a source of satisfaction or punishment and that control is loose because workers are seen as capable of self-control particularly when circumstances enable them to be committed to the organizational goals. This issue about control also highlighted how workers were seen from the perspective of the management: For the scientific management approach, workers obey authority because of the strong powers given to the management and the amount of economic incentives used to silence possible opposition. HRM, meanwhile, is characterized by the emphasis on the workers’ role on management decisions and so there is collaboration and consensus, which supposedly prevent hostilities and dissatisfaction from the ranks. Moreover, in the industrial-leaning scientific management, the workers are mechanized, treated as machines wherein jobs are studied, quantified and calculated side by side the human productivity in order to achieve the best measurable efficiency. In HRM, focus is given to the social and behavioral aspects in the relationship between management and the workers. In analyzing both of the strategies and their respective principles, it is easy to understand why HRM has been the guiding theory of most of the organizations today. It is the better approach in regard to converting the workplace into a better, favorable and harmonious place to work in because of its collaborative and permissive characteristics. By addressing the workers and the management’s behavior towards each other and the organization’s goals, it eliminated the workers frustrations and dissatisfaction that characterized the authoritarian and one-sided management principle promoted by the scientific management theory. Work Cited Brewster, Chris, Mayrhofer, Wolfgang, and Morley, Michael. Human resource management in Europe: evidence of convergence? Butterworth-Heinemann, 2004. Cascarino, Richard and Esch, Sandy. Internal Auditing. Juta and Company Limited, 2006. Collins, Dave. Organizational change: sociological perspectives. Routledge, 1998. Jones, Gareth and George, Jennifer. Essentials of contemporary management. McGraw-Hill, 2004. Sison, Perfecto. Personnel and Human Resources Management. Rex Books, 1991. Read More