People Whose Ideas Influence Organisational Work
Frederick Winslow Taylor
Scientific Management (1856-1915)
An American engineer who worked his way through evening studies for his qualifications. From being an engineer in a steel company he became one of the first of a new breed of very influential management writers and theorists. He is known for defining the techniques of scientific management which is the study of relationships between people and tasks for the p 17317i82r urpose of redesigning the work process to increase efficiency.
He was writing at a time when factories were creating big problems for management who needed new methods for dealing with the management challenges.
Taylor was one of the first to attempt to systematically analyze behaviour at work. His model was the machine therefore his ideas are often characterised as the machine model of organisations. Each task was broken down to its smallest unit to identify the best way to do each job. Then the supervisor, would teach it to the worker and make sure the worker did only those actions essential to the task.. This is why is it referred to as scientific management as Taylor attempted to make a science for each element of work and restrict alternatives to remove human variability or errors.
Taylor was not really concerned with other organisational or management issues, his focus was on efficiency.
Taylor believed that by increasing specialisation and the division of labour, the production process would become more efficient.
This process of could best be determined using scientific management techniques rather than informal "rule of thumb" knowledge.
Study the way workers perform their tasks, gather all the informal job knowledge possessed by workers, and experiment with ways of improving the way tasks are performed to increase efficiency.
Codify the new methods of performing tasks into written work rules and standard operating procedures.
Carefully select workers so that they possess the skills and abilities that match the needs of the task and train them to perform the tasks according to the rules and procedures established in step 2.
Establish a fair or acceptable level of performance for a task and then develop a pay system that provides a higher reward for performance above the acceptable level.
He also proposed to split the task of the first-line supervisor into eight specialisms, each would be held by a different person. As some writers feel, an idea which eventually led to the idea of matrix organisations.
The Principles of Scientific Management 1911
His ideas had a major effect on organisation of work and the way people were managed. Unfortunately although things became more productive they also became repetitive, and monotonous and a many employees were very unhappy at work.
Productivity under Taylor's methods dramatically increased - it seemed to work. New departments appeared like personnel and quality control. More and more middle managers appeared as planning was separated from operations. Formality was increased and the supervisor with stop watch and clipboard was appeared in all work settings while groups of workers would find all kinds of ways to resist.
There are cultural critiques which point out that his work was developed in a society of immigrants where large number of workers with diverse backgrounds and skills had to be enabled to work successfully together. Those conditions did not necessarily continue to exist or cause the same problems that caused him to undertake his work.
Much of the core of scientific management remains with us today. It has only been modified, updated and given a human face.
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