In past centuries work was often despised. why - Assignment Example

In The Past Centuries Work Was Often Despised. Why? Full s Full [Day Month Year] In the early times, bosses or the person in charge assumed that his employees and the people working with him were there only for their benefits and reasons and they had no devotion and sincerity for the company in which they were working. The only reason for their work was that they needed money. These were just the perceptions of the mangers, not what the employees were like actually. In the earlier years the managers thought so because they themselves knew that the employers were not being given their deserving salaries, bonuses and other incentives.

In order to free themselves from the blame they put the blame on the employers. This theory has been explained by Douglas McGregor and is known as the theory X. This theory was published in 1960 in his book. According to this theory, all the employees are lazy, lethargic and sluggish. They do not have any ambition. They are not willing to work late hours and will never give a good output until they are severely treated. Or in the other case the mangers should make some sort of an agreement with them that if they complete a certain task they will be given so and so reward.

The employer is believed to have no interest in the organizational goals and avoids doing work. He is selfish and self-centered, and is not willing to take responsibilities and take initiatives. The sole purpose of his doing the job is for money and getting security (Clark, 1995). These were the assumptions of the mangers, not the actual behavior. If theory X is considered we can see that it is based on extremism that is getting the job done either by implicit threats, and tight controls or be lenient and listen to the employee.

Both of these approaches will result in low productivity and low output, for the former case the employers will deliberately produce lower outputs, and for the latter the demands of the employers will never end resulting in an ever decreasing work output. Therefore both of the approaches failed to increase efficiency and a new theory was introduced- theory Y (Chapman, 2010). This theory is quiet an optimistic one. According to this theory the managers assume that all the employers are lively, keen and interested in doing the work.

They are ready to take responsibility of different works and are ready to take initiatives. They are interested in the progress of the organization. The people will complete tasks on their own without having any strict supervision and control because the employers are self-motivated and have made the goals of the company their motives and will work laboriously. This approach proved to be a much better approach than the theory X. Using this assumption the work output greatly increased and increased efficiency could be observed (Clark, 1995).

It can be clearly observed that these two theories have completely different attitudes. Theory X is difficult to implement, however it was a practice of the early eras and can be used initially by managers and authorities. Mangers are the higher authorities and therefore they would never want the blame on themselves that is in the past centuries it was because of them that the workers were not being paid satisfactorily so they used to put the entire blame on the workers. Work was not despised by the early people but it was only the assumption of the administrators that the people are lazy and self-centered.

However with the change in the assumption this misconception and confusion have been erased up to quite an extent. REFERENCES Clark, Donald. (1995). Theory X and Theory Y. Available from [21-03-2012]Internet Center for Management and Business Administration, Inc. (2002-2012). Theory X and Theory Y. Available from [21-03-2012]Chapman, Alan. (1995-2010). Douglas McGregor - theory x y. Available from [21-03-2012]Accel-Team. (2012). Human Relations Contributors. Available from [21-03-2012]