Some organisations has tried the scientific management as we can see in George Ritzer book “The Mc’Donaldisation of Society” which illustrate the same study that Taylor has researched about ‘‘The time and Motion Study” this told workers precise cooking times for all products and temperature settings for all equipment…It specified that French fries be cut at nine-thirty-seconds thick…Grill men…were instructed to put hamburgers down on the grill moving left to right, creating six rows of six patties each” (Ritzer 2000, p. 38).
McDonalds employed the scientific management in production and it is an example of an organisation employing scientific management in production. Within McDonald’s restaurants, uniformity is complete, in every branch of McDonalds is the same, as are the methods used to prepare food, clean floors, promote staff and lock up on closing? With this method used the McDonald’s they have the ability to supply standard food services throughout the world.(Peters and Waterman 1982, p. 173-174).
Is been said that scientific management has no relevance this present but I can argue that it still influence organisational production activities and an example is the McDonald’s production line. Other theories which are based on scientific theories include Fordism and Elton Mayo’s theories and other theory such as Henry Grant also contributed to scientific management.
Henry Grant main theory building on Taylor’s ideas but also saw the importance of human element in the production line and introduced the motivation of employees, he introduced new features about Taylor’s pay scheme which included that employees should get bonuses if they finished their work load, this meant that foreman’s will also get bonuses so they will motivate their staff to work well. He also made the idea that employees should be rate publicly
Henry Ford’s theory which can also be called Fordism and mainly based on the idea of mass production in industry (Marcouse, 1996) and this theory had the idea of assembly line and Taylor’s theory of division of labour and payment. While Taylor’s theory was about dividing people into different groups and instructing them what to do, Fordism was more about jobs being broken down into unskilled and semi-skilled task for workers to do. It can be said that for Ford’s theory retain the faults of Taylor’s because of the assembly of consumer goods such as cars but Taylor’s theory has a benefit as his work is the piece rate system because workers are motivated financially so they will rather be paid higher wages which will allow employers to be in controlled of the workforce. Other characteristics that associate with Fordism are that it has strong hierarchical control, with workers in a production line that is often restricted to the one single task, usually specialised and unskilled.
Elton Mayo’s theory was more of the relationships between workers and managers at the workplace (Human Relations). His theory was based on his research at the Hawthrone electrical factory, his research was to see how productivity will improve if the lighting condition changes and he followed Taylor’s scientific principles by testing the changes against control, with part of the factory lighting being unchanged, (Kelly 1982). For an organisation to be successful there will have to be a relationship between the employers and also the workers, as we can see in the Hawthrone studies it shows that workers will perform well if managers took interest in their employees personal life or social life, they will be more motivated to work and the employees will also feel valued by the organisation. Scientific theory gives companies the opportunities to focus on its structure so they could meet their objectives of both the employer and employees. Elton Mayo believed that if there is good communication between managers and their employees it will lead to increase in productivity, confidence of employees, healthy relationship between them and efficiency.
As the scientific management was a 19th century practices , people argue that it has no relevance in this present day which can be argue that it don’t have no value to organisation’s in 21st century but in some cases it can also be argued that is still have the importance it had during the 19th century. Many things has changed since the scientific management in the 19th century, employees are more skilled and also the development in technology.
The improvement in technology has made scientific management less significant in this 21st century era and has no application to what some organisation does nowadays. How factories or organisation manufacture is becoming easy due to the advanced in technology as organisations are able to produce more products in less time than they did in the 19th century where scientific management was being used
Employees being more skilled and knowledgeable or having more intelligence makes it difficult for organisations to control them. During the 19th century everything that employees did was controlled but in this modern world employees are not controlled as organisation’s have been aware that controlling employees will not increase productivity but will make employees more demotivated, organisations value employees in this present more than they did in the 21st century.
During the scientific management period workers were given certain task to do, at certain time that they should complete it by , which was not explained to them what they should be doing and how but what has changed in the modern day organisations is that businesses tells its employees their aims and objectives, what the organisation stands for, the strategy that they are using, organisation’s do this because they feel it will motivate the employees to work harder , do their jobs to their best ability which will help the organisations to be effective, they also encourage them to communicate across with each other. Example will be the EXXON scientists, marketers and manufacturers are aware of what ever each other are doing. (Peters & Waterman 1982, p. 218).
Another reason why people think scientific management has no relevance this present day is that, it is incomplete because people feel when jobs are broken down into smaller elements and worker task being more easier , what they give to the organisation is not required which can also be said the input and their motions do little to develop themselves.
There are negatives and positives of the scientific management; the negative side shows that employees can be highly specified in a job which means they will not have others skills that is required to do other jobs which in the 21st century makes it difficult for organisation because they also want flexibility. Other negative aspect of the scientific management it that it did not allow employees to use their own initiatives as work was given to them which highlights a problem because in 21st century employees are encourage to use their initiatives. Scientific management can sometimes be seen as a failure because of Taylor’s studies which ignores the individuality of workers in the organisation, the most efficient way for one worker may not the best way for another worker.
As Taylor said if there were a division between the employees and the managers or owners productivity will arise he also mentioned employees must be taught what to do daily by people who got more power over them e.g. managers. Its been said this style of management is not effective it can be agree in a way because employees will not feel they are valued, not treated with the respect they deserve and because of this they will not work to their best.
It can be argued that scientific management still has relevance in this 21st century and this is because scientific management has allowed organisations to control its workforce which is what the company wants their employees to do and with this control of workforce the organisations are guaranteed higher level of productivity and efficiency. Taylor’s idea of divide between managers and employees has been widely used at all levels in industries. In addition its strengths in making organizations efficient through replacement of “rules of thumb” with scientific fact has both insured its widespread application and ironically bred the conditions that make it less applicable to modern organizations. During the 19th century humanistic factors such as initiative, loyalty was not valued but in this present day organisations make sure it is important in what they are doing and for this it’s been said Taylor’s study that workers only wants money can be seen as untrue or false.
Taylor’s idea of people being scientifically selected for a particular job can be seen in the 21st century as in many organisations managers are told to select the employees suitable for doing a particular job.
Scientific management can be recognized within the modern day workplace and example of organisations are car and computer plants, the environment people work every day and also even restaurants like McDonald’s and it can said that all these organisations function effectively due to the application of Scientific Management.
Conclusion
Scientific management theory is interesting and can still be said it has influence on what organisations operate and deals with its people and some points can be interest to the modern managers but also it also have weakness which makes people rethink about what influence it has on the modern organisation.
Bibliography & References
- Dale, Ernest. (1973), Management, Theory & Practice. McGraw-Hill Publication.
- Kelly, John. (1982), Scientific Management, Job Redesign, & Work Performance. Academic Press.
- Marcouse, I. et al. (1996), The Complete A-Z Business Studies Handbook, Hodder & Stoughton.
- Nelson, David. (1980), Frederick W Taylor and the Rise of Scientific Management. The University of Wisconsin Press.
- Peters, Tom & Waterman, Robert. (1988) In Search Of Excellence. Harper & Row Publications.
- Ritzer, George. (2000) The McDonaldization Of Society. Sage Publications Inc.
- Taylor, Frederic. (1998), The Principles of Scientific Management. Re-Published. Originally published in 1911. Dover Publications.
by
ooa (student)
