Taylors Vision of the Workplace - Essay Example

The philosophy part of scientific management is the belief held by managers that by enforcing the scientific methods to the employees, they will produce more, they will follow the instructions and tasks they have been given and, in the end, will be motivated enough to perform the tasks smoothly.

Why do you think these matters?

The above matters because having the set techniques on how to perform the tasks in the workplace alone without having a belief that it will be possible to enforce these methods and tasks will not lead to the production of results. The belief system acts as an assertion technique for the managers to ensure that they push their employees to work to produce results and benefit both the employees and the employer. Not all managers can enforce the tasks to their employees without having a set system and methodology plan that they should follow. This is therefore the reason why Taylor insists in his scientific management theory about having a set of techniques that act as a guideline for enforcement of tasks.

Taylor suggests that his system will harmonize the interests of business and labor so that they are finally understood to be identical. What is his argument? Do you agree?

Taylor argued that employees wanted the job to earn wages to sustain themselves and they, therefore, provided the required labor as they earned according to the amount of labor provided. The employers whose interest was to increase profits were able to do so by increasing the labor provided by the employees. The employees, therefore, provided cheap labor due to their desperation for work, and the employers benefit from this by having more production at fewer labor costs hence having a harmonized system. This should not be the case as the employees’ labor was being exploited to enrich the greedy and selfish employers. The employers took advantage of the fact that these employers who were desperate immigrants would do any amount of work as long as they got enough wages to buy food.

Can workers be workers and managers at the same time? Why or why not?

Based on Taylor’s analogy of a pig-iron where the man using the pig-iron was not capable of understanding the science behind using it, it is evident that workers cannot become managers and work at the same time (Taylor 34). Taylor differentiates between manual labor and mental labor where he points out that one can either do one but not both at the same time as one involves scientific calculations (mental labor) of planning but the other just requires physical ability to complete the task (manual labor). In this regard, therefore, managers deal solely with planning which is mental labor and workers' completion of the tasks through providing physical manual labor. This, therefore, means that the two cannot be enforced together as one is a set of techniques but the other is merely a philosophy.