It is however, generally considered that this humanistic approach started with Elton Mayo’s Hawthorne experiments. It was here discovered that the powerful incentive toward increased production, was not the physical working conditions or the financial rewards, but because of the Hawthorne Effect, whereby workers felt important and appreciated because they were chosen as subjects in a scientific study. Mayo termed this new concept of the ‘social man’: individuals are motivated by social needs and interpersonal relationships, and respond better to work-group pressure than to management control activities. These experiments became unquestionably, the single most influence of the Human Relations Movement, and brought human standards to bear on the extrinsic side of work and organisation. They became the stimulus to the humanistic approach to management and provided its conceptual framework, namely: increasing morale results in increased productivity. This created a revelation in both work organisation and people management, and resulted in a shift away from the individualistic ethic, toward the social ethic that has interpersonal relations and well-being at its foundations. This findings, and complementary research, created a new view that people are motivated to work not solely by economic means, but by complex needs. Scientific Management principles and their ‘dehumanising’ nature were questioned, and as a result the value and importance of human resources in organisations increased. In ‘Motivation and Psychology’, Saul Gellerman stated that, ‘In final analysis is was warmth rather than any particular style of managing that Mayo was pleading for’.
Unlike Taylorism, which came onto the scene quickly and with a relative degree of finality, the human relations movement has evolved over a long period of time, and is still evolving in the present day. Its exposure of working conditions and employee rights has influenced the progressive era, establishing employment laws and acts such as the Occupational Health and Safety Act. In terms of a ‘revolutionary approach’ the human relations movement not only made significant contributions towards the understanding of people at work, people in groups, and people in organisation, but also stimulated numerous research studies into new areas of work organisation and people management, with humanistic processes as the core principle.
One of the main areas of research, which have stemmed from the human relations movement, is the influence of social sciences and social processes in work organisation. The Human Relations approach to management held the view that work should be a source of social relationships for individuals, a way of meeting their need for belonging, personal identity and for group membership. In his book, ‘The Social Problems of an Industrial Society’ (1945), Mayo proposed a social physiology which placed groups at the centre of understanding human behaviour in organisations. Through this, the importance of informal groups were stressed, and encouragement for managers to implement such group organisation within the workplace. Mayo’s vision was of a community organisation in which all or most employees were members of well-knit, natural groups that were linked together in common purpose. This approach highlighted the need for integration, and effective interpersonal relations and communication, within work organisation.
Again, this Human Relations theory of group organisation stimulated further research by a succession of well-known academics and consultants, in promoting the cause for group organisation. In the 1970’s Leavitt (1975), asked management to use ‘small groups as the basic building blocks for an organisation’, and similarly Likert (1961) highlighted the role of ‘group forces’ in influencing the behaviour of individual work groups with regard to productivity, waste absence and in affecting the performance of the entire organisation. This influence has developed through to the 1980’s, when Tom Peters (1987) said that: ‘The modest-sized, task orientated, semi-autonomous, mainly self-managing team should be the basic organisation building block’, and 1990’s where Katzenbach and Smith (1993), and Jenkins (1994), proposed their own team-based organisational models. This development of group influence in work organisation has highlighted the need for employee’s personal control within work organisations, and has developed the theory of group self-organisation i.e., the tendency of groups to form interests, develop autonomy, and establish identities. This draws attention to the individual hopes, needs, desires and personal goals which employees will bring to their employment, and the necessity of management to account for these factors to ensure employees are satisfied at work, and that everyone is working towards a collective purpose.
Based on this theory, the Human Relations movement has led to the development of theories of motivation and job-satisfaction, with human nature as the fundamental principle. The most famous motivation theory is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which draws attention towards five underlying human needs, which need to be satisfied within the work organisation. These needs include, physiological needs, safety needs, belonging needs, esteem needs, and the need to achieve self-actualisation. This theory highlights the importance of humanistic management approaches, ensuring that employees remain motivated within their work; their needs need to be achieved at each level in order to move towards the top of the hierarchy, and achieve self-actualisation. If employees are highly motivated and satisfied within their workplace, then they will be more productive and committed in achieving corporate goals. A similar approach to motivation was developed by McGregor in his book ‘The Human Side of Enterprise (1960)’, where a sharp distinction was drawn between two views of human nature and organisation. The two contrasting views of theory X (primarily driven by principles of scientific management and formal organisation), and theory Y (driven by human relation principles and a more informal organisation), highlight the need for an effective understanding of the nature of people within an organisation, and the need for adaptive management. Members of the human relations school of management plausibly argued that scientific managers suffered from an extrinsic incentives bias: they overestimated how much employees care about extrinsic task features e.g., pay, and they underestimated how much employees were motivated by intrinsic features e.g., meaningful work.
Perhaps the main influences of the Human Relations movement were the development of organisational culture and the re-launch of Human Resources (Guest,1985). Human resource management (HRM) developed an important link between managers and employees, and ‘involves all management decisions and actions that affect the nature of the relationship between the organisation and its employees – its human resources’ (Beer et al, 1984). This process has developed over the past two decades to the accompaniment of corporate culture, flexibility, commitment, employee involvement and TQM. The newfound value of social influence and interpersonal relations during the human relations movement, gave rise to the development of numerous areas with human resource management including, recruitment and training, job design, work organisation, organisational culture, communication and motivation. HRM has led to an integration of employees and management, to aid the development of a culture that stresses commitment to organisational goals, quality and commitment. The awareness of human needs as a result of the human relations movement, has influenced these objectives, and enabled HRM and management to design more effective work organisations. The key concept of this is people processing, which relates to those activities of HRM that involve the acquisition development, motivation and control of individuals at work. Important factors such as communication, interpersonal relationships, team working, individual development and motivation can therefore be addressed and controlled, in order to ensure that employees needs are satisfied, and that both management and employees are working towards a common organisational goal.
These processes have enabled employees to have more rights at work, and have led to a grater personal empowerment of employees, which should have positive influencing effects on their attitude, commitment and motivation at work. Industrial relations based on the relations between employees and employers, has led to the formation of trade unions to represent employees rights, views and to negotiate at work. However, some authors (e.g., Guest, 1995) have suggested that the presence of trade unions at a workplace constraints the ability of management to develop functional flexibility and job redesign. In addition, the shift towards global markets has undermined the strength and transitional role of unions (Marshall, 1992). Further developments based on the theory of human relations, have enabled an introduction of new working practices to work organisation. These include job rotation, job enrichment, multi-skilling and job enlargement, which are designed to both satisfy the needs of employees and to create greater commitment and productivity within the organisation. Job enlargement for example, is quite consistent with theory Y. It encourages responsibility at the bottom of the organisation; it provides opportunity to satisfy social and egotistic needs. Similarly the processes of decentralisation and delegation are consistent with human relation theories, as these are processes that enable the freeing of people from the close control of conventional organisation. This gives individuals the ability and freedom to direct their own activities, to assume responsibility and to satisfy their egotistic needs. The realisation of the need for individuals to have independence and responsibility, has seen an increase the flat organisation in recent years. Moreover, self-managing work teams and flexible job design have been found to have the greatest potential to enhance productivity at the workplace (Eaton and Voos, 1992). Osterman (1994) focuses on the development of flexible work systems and includes ‘self-directed work teams’ as a key component in developing these.
Another example of the humanistic and social influence of the human relations movement can be seen through the process of participation and consultative management. This provides encouragement to people to direct their creative energies towards organisational objectives, gives them a voice in decisions which affect them, and provides significant opportunities for them to satisfy their social and egotistic needs. However, one of the most effective methods for human resource management is through employee performance appraisals. In theory, these appraisals should enable employees to raise their views, concerns, hopes and goals, and receive feedback regarding their performance. Above all, the employee is encouraged to take a greater responsibility for planning and appraising their own contribution to organisational objectives, with the accompanying affects on egotistic and self-fulfilment needs being substantial.
In closure, regardless of personal judgements or beliefs, it is evident that the human relations movement has had both a significant impact and influence, on the theory of work organisation and management. At the time of its development, it represented a new revolutionary concept in the importance of people in the role of the organisation, and gave rise to a shift away from the individualistic ethic, toward the social ethic of work organisation. Human relations thinking has stimulated research developments into the management of people, and in the development of an effective work organisation, through highlighting the principles of satisfaction of needs, team working, and interpersonal relations. It is however, clearly an evolutionally approach, which has evolved through the years and will continue to evolve beyond the present day. It may be that an interaction of both human relations and scientific management principles, may be most effective in ensuring that work efficiency and effectiveness are maximised, whilst at the same time, in ensuring employee’s needs are accounted for. Time alone will show the true value of the Human Relations approach, yet it will undoubtedly remain a major influence in the historical development of the organisation of work
