Pros and Cons of Taylorism as Scientific Management - Essay Example

Running header: Taylorism Student’s name: Instructor’s name: Subject code: Date of submission: Taylorism Introduction Also known as scientific management was named after its inventor Fredrick Winslow Taylor. The theory aimed at improving economic efficiency with regard to labour productivity and analyzed and synthesized workflows. Therefore, this was a production efficiency methodology that emphasized on breaking each task, job or action into smaller but simpler segments that are easy to analyze and teach. Introduced in the beginning of the 20th century, Taylorism had a number of aims which included achievement of maximum job fragmentation aimed at minimizing skill requirements as well as learning time, separation of work execution from work planning , separation of direct labour from indirect labour, replacement of thumb productivity estimates with exact measurements, introduction of time and motion studies for optimization of work performance ,tool and work station design as well as cost accounting and enabling payment through result method of wage determination (Dawson, 2005). Taylorism had laid down principles of industrial manufacturing through assembly line factories. The method had the emphasis of maximum output from the worker and the machine and hence maximized profits for the benefit of both management and workers. Despite the fact that Taylorism has contributed a lot in the modern day working organization theories, it has various shortcomings that make it undesirable for application in the modern industry. This paper critically analyses Taylorism in terms of both its strengths and weaknesses in an attempt to show that it is unrealistic and that it can not be successfully applied in the modern day organization. Critique Why Taylorism? It is no doubt that the desire to control workers has been at the heart of the management for a longtime- since industrial revolution times. As such, the management has been working out strategies aimed at enabling them to evaluate, direct and supervise the work process. Taylorism was hence developed with an aim of putting the work process firmly in the management’s hands. It is a fact that Taylorism greatly boosted efficiency in production through the establishment of the so called ‘work study’ which is a methodical study of the work process that give the most efficient ways of performing a task. Through Taylorism, the work process is broken down into smaller tasks. It is possible to simplify the tasks implying that the whole process can now rely less on skilled workers. This means that through Taylorism, it becomes possible to reduce labour cost achievable through deskilling as well as rationalization of work force. Through Taylorism, the management can also be able to gain an upper hand (control) on workers (Head, 2007). The Taylorism strategy is also centered around work study which emphasizes on piece work hence enabling the workers pays to be pegged on their output. This would create the overall incentive of economic gain since the more the output; the better would be the pay. This would in no doubt ensure that less pressure is used in making workers produce as much as possible within a short time. As such the management would be able to set the working hours and also introduce piecework and hence efficiency related pay. In Taylorism, economic rewards are considered the best incentive to work harder as a worker receives what is commensurate with his/her effort. This means that management has increased control on overall cost of production. Furthermore, worker specialization of repeated tasks would lead to increased output. Taylorism’s techniques are geared towards ensuring that managers are solely responsible for organization and direction of work since if tasks are to be carried out efficiently, workers have to follow the managerial directions strictly. Through Taylorism, workers would be responsible for performance of their tasks while all aspects of planning are taken over by the management (Hartness, 2010). Hence, the management would be able to know what the employees are doing at any particular time since they are the ones who plan. Through Taylorism, it would be possible to reduce worker autonomy as the management is given more control over what he/she does. This is because leaving the worker alone and not controlling him/her through work specification means that the worker will do as little as possible. This they would do to conceal their full potential to the management. Furthermore, hard work and efficiency would not be a priority to the worker (Carl, 2011). Taylorism therefore serves to reduce this risk. It would also lead to increased division of labour not only for the shop floor workers but also for lower level managers. This would make workers more specialized hence reducing the role diversity. Criticizing Taylorism Despite its initial success, many of its aspects are questionable making it inappropriate for the modern day work organization. Taylorism assumes a factory life with deskilled workers who are ready to obey without questioning. However, with the era of trade unions, this is impossible. Unions usually question the management decisions on various issues affecting workers. Management are not always in full control of workers and there has to be cooperation between the workers and the management for the organization to succeed (Head, 2007). For instance, Japan’s management strategy gives room for employee participation in decision making and hence the division between the workforce and management is not clear cut. In order to increase productivity, there has to be worker management cooperation. In addition, changes in the labour process may be brought about by external forces such as safety and health executives hence influencing the overall planning and organization externally to a great extent. According to Taylorism, payment should be based on piece work and this is seen as an inducement to hard work as pay is related to effort. However, it may be difficult to determine what a fair pay for a fair days work is and this has to be constantly reviewed by both management and workforce. Price of labour is also externally determined by such forces as product demand, scarcity and prevailing economic conditions which management has no control over. Through Taylorism, one is made to believe that management plays the most important role in controlling via a weak set of strategies. This is unrealistic as it overlooks the existence of many more alternative strategies. Taylorism also assumes that management has unwavering support and loyalty towards the organization in carrying out their functions of planning and directing workers (Head, 2007). As such, it denies the fact that managers can chose from a variety of strategies and at times be flexible in their approach to the workforce. The significance of Taylorism as a management strategy is highly questionable. As a practical tool of increasing worker control by management, Taylorism is a failure. In fact, evidence shows that the strategy’s impact was only limited to a very small percentage of organizations introducing Taylorism strategies. Despite the fact that Taylorism has been utilized in gaining control. This has been supplemented by the necessity to incorporate staff participation and improvement of management communication with the workers. The image portrayed by Taylorism has therefore been replaced by a more civilized working environment. Taylorism is a rigid and unyielding management policy. It for instance contradicts the need by the management to promote the shop floor workers interests and hence ensure enthusiastic participation. This is only achievable through employee-centered as opposed to job centered planning of tasks hence giving the worker more control over the nature of the work he/she does (Hartness, 2010). Although Taylorism aims at reducing or removing worker autonomy as well as discretion, the worker is inevitably left with some level of individual freedom. Although Taylorism puts pressure on worker discretion, the worker still has some level of choice of action whether this is only on the production line or other issues. In the final analysis, the worker will have discretion on whether to be self motivated, conscientious or hardworking. Such omissive actions are often used by workers as bargaining points with the management. Taylorism assumes that the relationship between workers and management is only based on the production line (Carl, 2011). However in the modern days management is able to manipulate workers beyond the product line by taking advantage of the dependency of workers on the companies by offering incentives to them. The incentives can always be withdrawn when the worker performs dismally. These kinds of incentives make the workers more royal to the management as they are afraid of loosing the benefits. Conclusion Taylorism to some extent succeeded in increasing workers control by management and introducing division of labour. it was also successful in ensuring efficiency in the organization and hence reduction of labour. However, Taylorism has been found to have a lot of shortcomings which is the reason why it can no longer be applicable in the modern day organization. Workers are nowadays more informed of their rights than ever before. Furthermore, the rise of trade unions has gone a long way in determining the level of control that management can have on workers. Furthermore, cooperation between workers and management is the only tool that can assure management of increased productivity by workforce. It is no wonder then that Taylorism has been replaced by more realistic techniques that provide a better working environment in the modern organization. However despite the shortcomings, Taylorism has played a great role in improving efficiency and worker control as the latter techniques have borrowed heavily from it. References: Dawson, M 2005, The consumer trap, University of Illinois press, Urbana. Head, S 2007, Work and power in the modern age, Oxford University press, Oxford. Hartness, J2010, Scientific management, Columbia university press, New York. Carl, M 2011, Management, Macmillan, New York. Read More