Taylorism vs Human Relations: Who did it better?
Introduction
Just like how every business wants to make more and more profits, every business wants to have a more productive and efficient staff that can help them get there. Due to this mindset, there are many different theories of management, that can help businesses achieve this. However, there are two different theories of management, that stand out to the others, Taylorism and The Human Relations School of Thought, due to their successes as well as their limitations. Through this essay, we will be comparing these two management theories on the basis of their ideologies and coming to the conclusion of why The Human Relations School of Thought can be considered better compared to Taylorism.
Discussion
Taylorism
Taylorism got its name by its founder, Frederick Winslow Taylor in the early 20th century. It is also popularly known as Scientific Management. The objective of this was for workers to find one best way to complete a task and increase efficiency in the workplace. (The Economist, 2009). Taylor wanted to minimize wastage of motion, time and movement. He wanted to reduce cost and increase productivity. However, it was a controversial theory as it was a technique which treated workers as robots or machines, not human beings. (MindTools, 2017)
Human Relations School of Thought
Scientific Management was the technique used in most of corporate America, until after world war two, with the introduction of the Human Relations School of thought, founded by Elton Mayo(the 1920’s). This theory/ movement emphasized on the workers being viewed as human beings, not robots and focusing on their emotions and needs. By fulfilling these needs, companies got more output from the workers. (Mulder, 2017) Mayo conducted the infamous Hawthorne experiment which formed the basis of the Human Relations School of Thought. The largest social experiment ever on an industrial scale that was backed by the National Council of Research. (Perry, 2017) This experiment as a whole proved that workers are not only motivated by pay/wage incentives, it includes their intangible features like their attitudes, the attention they receive, morale, as well as the way humans interact with each other in the workplace. It proved there are many complex relationships that need to be understood in order to increase the productivity and efficiency of a worker, and thus, we got the theory of human relations. (Chlldress, n.d) Arm Holdings, a subsidiary of Soft Bank used Human Relations in their organization and was very pleased with the results. They used methods like giving their workers individual attention, providing them with benefits, like health insurance. Giving teamwork-related tasks to increase coordination in the workplace. They also gave initiative to the employees and asked them for feedback, which increased worker confidence in the workplace. The management took suggestions from the workers while making the decisions that included them, this built a very strong relationship between both of them as well. Overall, this was a successful approach to the business. Human Relations is now also used in many of the big businesses today, like Google, Virgin Group, etc (Businesscasestudy, 2017)
Advantages of Taylorism: Fordism & other case studies
Many scholars (Copley, 1923; Drucker, 1954; Kakar, 1970; Nelson, 1980; Wrege and Greenwood, 1991; Wren, 1994) noted on the record, that Taylor had a huge positive impact on the twentieth-century businesses, due to his writings of the Principle Of Scientific Management theory. (Rahman, 2015.)
Henry Ford (The founder of Ford Motors) used the application of Scientific Management which was advised to him by his business consultant Frederick Taylor. (Rofcanin, Principles of organization lecture, October 2, 2018) In 1908, the Model T cars produced by Ford retailed for $960, by 1916, it cost the consumer $360. This would only be possible if Ford was able to build and operate a large and efficient plant. “Every extra motion, every trivial waste of time on the part of any workman must be eliminated. It is the solution to waste motion “- Ford Times 1912 announced. After this was announced, the revolutionary moving assembly line which led to the huge success of the production of Model T cars started to function. This cut down the time taken to build a car by 6x. It was a huge success for Ford as well as Taylor, as it was Taylor’s scientific management that was the theory behind all of Fords plants as well as the moving assembly line. Over here, Taylor showed how his theory helped save time, cost, reduced wastage and increased productivity (Williams, Haslam and Williams, 1992) Another application is with Jim Beam, a bourbon whiskey brand, that used Taylor's techniques to regulate bathroom breaks, as well as lunch breaks to bring uniformity in the plant. There were warnings, fines, penalties that were imposed if these were not met. This lead to the productivity and efficiency of the workers increasing, and subsequently the companies. This showed how standardization, regulation, setting guidelines helped the organization. (Management Study,2017)
Disadvantages of Taylorism
According to Locke, the theory of Taylorism would cause a conflict among the employees and the employers. Due to extreme standardization of employees, there would bound to be a fallout between them. Due to his motion and time study, the workers were put on a clock, and if they did not meet that, they were given negative reviews, which led to further demotivation and increased pressure on the workers. (Locke, 1982) Scientific management does lead to higher productivity, but its all at the expense of the workers. In the Trade Union Congress Report 1910-28, scientific management is a method of squeezing the last ounce of blood from men. The Engineer (1911), called this a new system which is unfair and inhuman. In 2010, Foxconn had workers suicide because of the exhausting and impractical working conditions which led to being an average of 120 overtime hours per month. (Managementstudyguide, 2015) Scientific management also resembled dictatorship and discrimination. On the face of it, scientific management promoted cooperation between the management and workers, but in reality, the employees were just given tasks without any consultation of their own. The workers also never got any initiatives, never got the opportunity to provide their own input in the workplace, which was a factor to why they felt alienated from the workplace. (Bruce & Nyland, 2011: 396-401)
Why is Human Relations better than Taylorism?
Treatment: Robots vs Humans: The main aim of Elton Mayo’s theory of human relations was to take the employees for human beings, not machines (Perry, 2017). However, for Scientific Management, it was quite the opposite. The employees were treated as machines or robots. (Management Study,2017) Motivation: Mayo believed that workers will be motivated by human relations at work, how workers cooperate with each other, to increase productivity in the workplace not the economic/technological conditions. Whereas, Taylor believed that various incentives, like monetary incentives, will motivate workers. For example, the piece-wage system paid the workers according to output, not time. (Management Study,2017) Decision Making: In scientific management, it was all very systematic. There were set rules, which had to be followed by all the employees. There was no initiative, no involvement of the employees in any decision-making policies. However, the employees were encouraged to give suggestions, take initiative which will eventually help the relationships that are to be maintained in the workplace. (Management Study,2017) Individual vs Group: In Taylors, scientific management, workers were trained, allotted tasks, all individually. They were all encouraged to do individual work, and look out only for themselves, not the people around them. There was no support or cooperation between co-workers. Whereas, in Mayo’s human relations school of thought, the workers-built relationships with one another as they were allotted tasks in groups and supported each other to complete the task together. This increased the feeling of teamwork and increased cooperation in the workplace. Human relations school of thought is different to scientific management because they were basically trying to cover all the setbacks faced by scientific management. (Tirintetaake, 2017) Relevance Today: In today’s modern-day business environment, many critics feel that scientific management is not relevant. These days, there is a lot of emphasis on labor and management conflicts, and scientific management did not keep the best relationship between them, there was more authority than equality, whereas Human Relations emphasizes on keeping a good relationship among them, and keeping the labor satisfied. Secondly, the complex tasks today require teamwork, and cannot be done individually, hence, scientific management could not be effective here. Whereas, in Human Relations, most of the tasks are given in groups rather than individually. Third, many organizations train their workers more than the required job, due to job enrichment and rotation, with scientific management, the diversification of jobs would be very difficult, hence, scientific management would not be suitable for this. For Human Relations, the workers are trained to be diversified and know more than their job requires. Leading us to believe that the Human Relations Approach would be more suitable in today’s business environment. (Rahman, 2015)
Conclusion
To conclude the essay, Human Relations, as well as Scientific Management, were both very different theories with different ideologies. Scientific Management was effective during the early 20th century, but in today’s environment, it doesn’t seem effective or practical. The human relations school of thought by Elton Mayo is the method that is most relevant today and is overall a more practical and well- thought out theory of management, for the organization as well the workers.