Is Scientific Management Good Management?

In order to develop the five principles of scientific management, Taylor considered the necessary changes, these were; the development of a scientific element to each minute section of a task, scientific selection and training of workers, pay/performance to be linked and the division of work and responsibility between management and workers. These aims were based on the improvement of both efficiency and increasing the weight of hierarchical authority. “Not only did Taylor have some definite ideas about work and how it should be studied, organised and rewarded, but it appears he also knew something about organisational change.”

From these aims Taylor formed the principles of scientific management;

1. Clear division of tasks and responsibilities between management and workers.
2. Use of scientific methods to determine the best (most efficient) way of doing a job.
3. Scientific selection of the person best equipped to do the new task.
4. Scientific training of workers, enabling them to perform the job in the specified way.
5. Surveillance of workers through the use of hierarchies of authority and close supervision.

In order for Taylor to achieve his principles he believed only one avenue was viable in the pursuit of his goals, “And this one best method and best implementation can only be discovered or developed though scientific study and analysis… this involves the gradual substitution of science for ‘rule of thumb’ throughout the mechanical arts”. Thus began Taylor in his time/motion studies, one of the first of which was the study of carrying pig iron, “We found that this gang were loading on the average about 12 1/2 long tons per man per day. We were surprised to find, after studying the matter, that a first-class pig-iron handler ought to handle between 47 and 48 long tons per day, instead of 12 1/2 tons”. The first worker to be tested with scientific management was a Pennsylvania Dutchman known as ‘Schmidt’. When managed under Taylor's principles (managed by a superior, who gave individual orders; lift, rest etc, as well as being offered an increased pay incentive) ‘Schmidt’ began to load at the projected rate and indeed had his 47 ½ tons loaded by the end of the afternoon. Despite a 60% raise in pay the experiment was a certain success as it had nearly quadrupled Schmidt’s productivity. This approach was repeated with other scientifically selected men, each of whom loaded at the projected rate and were paid 60% more. By use of time/motion studies Taylor could study the minutiae of each action and remove unnecessary action to make the task as efficient as possible. At Schmidt’s place of work, The Bethlehem Iron Company (later the Bethlehem Steel Company), production was quadrupled using the Taylorist methods making Bethlehem “the world’s most modern factory and potentially a prototype for manufacturers and engineers in other industries”.

While the benefits of Taylor’s scientific management methods are evident there remains criticism of his work as having a ‘dehumanising’ effect on the worker. While Taylor sought to simplify the worker/management relationship by offering enhanced pay schemes he neglected to consider other personal needs, made famous at a later date by the work of Maslow. Taylor’s ignorance of the importance of social relationships was grounded in his view of interaction between workers as a mere inefficiency rather than an important factor in morale and increased productivity. Task allocation was another major factor of scientific management which came under heavy criticism. Taylor advocated “specifying not only what work is to be done but how it is to be done and the exact time allowed for doing it” which left very little scope for the worker to show initiative. Coupled with this, despite the greater pay, workers were often hostile to scientific management as it was tedious and demanding while the greater productivity of the individual led to redundancy. Once again, the inherent conflict between owner and labourer, forwarded by Marx, was not avoided by simply increasing payment. While Taylorism could be accused of damaging labourer morale it also came under fire from some middle managers and foremen. Firstly, in the case of the Bethlehem plant, many managers were landlords, so when Taylor began to ruthlessly cull those who failed to meet his stringent criteria, managers began to worry about the depopulation of their property. Secondly, Taylor’s concept of ‘functional foremanship’ was impractical in the workplace and removed many of the powers of the supervisors.

Combined with the use of scientific selection stopping the power of the foreman to use their power to get friends jobs or promote favourites, there was also the factor of worsening industrial relations caused by Taylorism which, naturally, made the job of the supervisor harder. It is ironic that such militant union action rose from scientific management as Taylor believed that organised union was unnecessary if a man was paid his worth. Taylorism was also rejected by the US government despite use amongst military manufacturing in the First World War. Government is naturally wary of the negative effect of bad industrial relation, especially in the forces. A strike resulting from the implementation of scientific management in a munitions factory led to a house of representatives investigation followed by the banning of all scientific management techniques in the US defence forces.  

While there was much criticism of Taylorism following its initial popularity, much of the criticism may be attributed to the abuse of Scientific Management by people intent on getting Taylorist levels of productivity without offering an increase in wages to supplement the extra work. Taylor said of such practices “the knowledge obtained from accurate time study, for example, is a powerful implement, and can be used, in one case to promote harmony between workman and the manager, by gradually educating, training and leading the workman into new and better methods of doing the work, or in the other case, it may be used more or less as a club to drive the workman into doing a larger day’s work for approximately the same pay that they received in the past”.

Two men who disagreed with may of the fundaments of Scientific Management were Maslow and McGregor. McGregor (1960) titled those who adopted a Taylorist approach as following his ‘Theory X’ approach. Taylor’s theory of natural and systematic soldiering exhibits the belief that the worker is inherently lazy hence managers must coerce him to achieve their goals, this obviously detracts from an employees inclinations to use initiative. McGregor believed in, what he titled, ‘Theory Y’. This was the theory that people are not inherently lazy but rather seek to further themselves through self regulation, not through the enforced efficiency of a Taylorist system. Such a theory was based upon the cornerstone of the work of Maslow (1954). Maslow created a five level ‘hierarchy of needs’ (fig 1) which suggested the presence of five instinctual needs. A person will want (or need) each level, starting from the bottom, and progressing to the next if that was fulfilled. Of self actualisation Maslow states “to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming”. 

FIG 1:

The need to realise one’s potential, Maslow’s Self actualisation, is a major barrier to Taylor’s system as it cannot be ‘bought’ for any period. This does not adhere to Taylor’s method of scientifically regulating tasks, which do little to encourage the employee to excel in his field. Such psychological, rather than technical managerial models, are geared towards the treatment of workers as an individual rather than as a mere cog in the machine. Such an concepts is evident in the popularity of a Human Resource approach with the name itself connoting the importance of individuals- ‘resource’ pertaining to the worth of the worker.

While Taylor is indeed the father of Scientific Management, his work has been forwarded by others, in particular Gantt and the Gilbreths. Gantt served under Taylor at Midvale, but contrary to Taylor’s bullish and often ruthless methods, Gantt took an interest in the human aspect of the changes made under scientific management. Gantt believed that the dehumanisation of workers was apparent in Taylor’s methods which led him to allow employees greater flexibility to improve upon methods while still rewarding hard work with a bonus scheme. It may be said that Gantt’s early recognition of the importance of the worker as a resource was an early example of the principles evident in Human Resource management today. The work of the Gilbreths was also an example of refining the Taylorist approach, focus being made on the efficiency of the workplace in general rather than the individuals and their work. Gilbreth also recognised the link between employee morale and productivity, later printing his findings in ‘fatigue study’, a book he co-wrote with his wife.

Taylorism today could be perceived as archaic in its methodology, and indeed in its ideology. But in a progressive industry it sought to introduce a form of regulation to its employees, something evident in many services and industries today, with IBM’s ‘witness’ monitoring program just one example of this. The massive increase in productivity was eventually overshadowed by the lack of thought to the effects of morale on yield, and the inclination towards a Humanist approach to management is due to the lessons learnt from the failure of Taylorism. Like any concept, Taylorism was flawed, but through the resultant lessons learnt it may be reasonably asserted that though scientific management is not solely viable as a management principle, its influence on models popular today cannot be underestimated or undervalued.

        

 

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