To what extent and in what ways has Human Relations humanised the workplace?
To what extent and in what ways has Human Relations humanised the workplace?
Human Relations in the work environment can be described as the personal relationships within working groups and between management and workers. To quote from Organisation and Identities, "The 'human relations' form of discipline emphasises the need for positive social relationships within working groups and between workers and managers. A 'considerate' management style is advocated and job satisfaction for workers is held to be compatible with, if not essential for, high productivity". (Clark, Chandler and Barry, 1999, p.212). The approach is therefore concerned with the informal organisation and also the social and mental needs of people at work. This raises important questions about the agenda behind the application of human relations techniques in the workplace, and the effect it has on management and workers.
This essay looks in particular at the historical background of human relations, the reasons for its development and its social impact on the workplace. It considers how far it has made the workplace more pleasant or suitable for people. It also considers ways in which the approach failed to make the workplace better, thereby making the approach ineffective. I am going to concentrate on the classical approach of scientific management and the human relations approach. The subsequent improvements upon the Human Relations approach with the aim of making the workplace more flexible, such as the Neo-Human Relations and Total Quality Management are also discussed briefly and brought together in the conclusion.
Industrial capitalism during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries brought about waged labour and new businesses were developed with the sole aim of the owners (capitalists) making profits year by year. Production processes were becoming larger and more complex, (mass production) and it became necessary for factories and organisations to become more efficient and to improve the productivity of workers. In order to achieve this, Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915), a first level supervisory manager who was born during that time developed a system which came to be known as Taylorism or Scientific Management, on how the workforce should be managed. As Silverman points out, "The techniques offered by the school of 'Scientific Management' combined, in a most acceptable manner, spurious 'scientific' appeal and practical ideas which seemed in harmony with intuition. These techniques (time and motion studies, economic incentive schemes) stemmed from the assumption that man was an economic creature, limited in his pursuit of gain only by his physiological capacities". (Silverman 1978, p.75).
Taylor believed that just as there is a best machine for each job, there is also 'one best way' to perform any task. The labour process was thus divided, with managers doing the mental work and the workers doing the manual work. This form of management control with the division of labour resulted in the deskilling of work and simple autonomous tasks leading to demotivation, dehumanisation, degradation and alienation. According to Braverman, "Thus, in the setting of antagonistic social relations, of alienated labor, hand and brain become not just separated, but divided and hostile, and the human unity ...
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Taylor believed that just as there is a best machine for each job, there is also 'one best way' to perform any task. The labour process was thus divided, with managers doing the mental work and the workers doing the manual work. This form of management control with the division of labour resulted in the deskilling of work and simple autonomous tasks leading to demotivation, dehumanisation, degradation and alienation. According to Braverman, "Thus, in the setting of antagonistic social relations, of alienated labor, hand and brain become not just separated, but divided and hostile, and the human unity of the hand and brain turns into its opposite, something less than human." (Clark, Chandler and Barry 1999, p.385)
Taylor made several proposals known as the principles of scientific management. Referring to Management and Organisational Behaviour, Mullins wrote: "...These principles are usually summarised as:
* the development of a true science for each person's work;
* the scientific selection, training and development of the workers;
* co-operation with the workers to ensure work is carried out in the prescribed way;
* the division of work and responsibility between management and the workers". (Mullins 1999, p.49)
Taylor's scientific strategy was for each worker to have one task, the individualisation of the workforce known as fragmentation. Secondly, there was re-integration in which workers found themselves under dualistic management control with dualism between manager and the managed (worker). Workers had no control over decision processes. Lastly, he wanted a cost-accounting system for development control, which was mainly for the pursuit of profit. Taylorism was strongly criticized because of the issue of the 'economic man' with financial incentives being the main motivator and the absence of any consideration for workers.
According to Mullins, "For Taylor, motivation was a comparatively simple issue - what the workers wanted from their employers more than anything else was high wages. This approach is the rational-economic concept of motivation. The human relations writers, however, demonstrated that people go to work to satisfy a range of different needs, and not simply for monetary reward". (Mullins 1999, p.411)
So what was the agenda behind Human Relations? There are two conflicting alternative interpretations of the apparent progress from Scientific Management to Human Relations. The first view is on the discontinuity of the process. In this, some writers like Friedman argue that human relations genuinely is a process of relation. They claim that it is fundamentally about humanising the workplace under capitalist and Taylorist management to make it more productive and efficient. The second view is of the fact that there is continuity between Scientific Management and Human Relations. Those of this view, state that human relations is a continuation of the scientific management strategy to disempower the workforce by controlling the production process and maintaining power and management control. In such an instance, workers do not feel the effects of humanization, as they continue to feel knackered instead of feeling 'enriched'.
A number of writers like Elton Mayo, Abraham Maslow, Herzberg and McGregor researched on how to lessen the impact of capitalism and Taylorism through job enlargement and job enrichment. Writing on this, Roger Bennett wrote: "This emerged as a reaction against scientific management the classical approach. It began through the work of G. Elton Mayo (1880-1949) who, with others, conducted a series of experiments at the Hawthorne plant of the General Electrical Company in Chicago during the years 1927-32 (actually the 'Hawthorne experiments' had started in 1924 under the direction of GEC executives). Mayo sought to evaluate the effects of changes in physical working conditions which, according to scientific management, should cause significant variations in productivity." (Bennett 1997, p.9).
Whereas Taylor wanted to fragment jobs, the human relations writers were concerned with the creation of a variety of more interesting jobs to make the workers interested in their work. The humanizing of work was through democratic working arrangement with a focus on the group and not the individual and also union participation. To achieve this aim, it became necessary to provide motivation of the right type to all in the organization. In 1943, Abraham Maslow published his theory of individual development and motivation based on a hierarchy of needs. To quote from Management and Organisational Behaviour, "Maslow identified eight innate needs, including the need to know and understand aesthetic needs, and the need for transcendence. However, the hierarchy is usually shown as ranging through five main levels, from at the lowest level, physiological needs, through safety needs, love needs, and esteem needs, to the need for self actualisation at the highest level". (Mullins 1999, p.416)
Frederick Herzberg is often referred to as a neo-human relations writer because although he shares many of the claims of human relations writers, he concentrates on the individual and the job instead of the group. His approach to job enrichment was based on the analysis of interviews of 203 engineers and accountants. Herzberg called his theory the 'two factor theory of motivation'. The events, which led to satisfaction, were called motivators and those that led to dissatisfaction were called hygiene factors. McGregor's theories X and Y were based on assumptions about people and work.
The advocates of human relations view the movement as a 'democratic style', implying that there should be effective involvement of participation in decision-making. A typical example of how trade unions contributed to participation is what happened at the Ford Plant at Dagenham Assembly Plant. A rebellion triggered through issues of participation. The anti-racism outcome of Ford Dagenham was a public humiliation of their management for being racist. There was a democracy-based privatisation of the anti-racist equal opportunity agenda. Workers took control by forcing new body.
Although human relations is still of relevance today, other approaches such as Total Quality Management (TQM) has also been introduced to improve organisational performance. An example of Total Quality Management is the Japanese style of management. According to Mullins, "a way of life for an organisation as a whole, committed to total customer satisfaction through a continuous process of improvement, and the contribution and involvement of people". (Mullins 1999, p.865).
Human Relations has attempted to humanise the workplace by the formation of work groups, motivating workers, introducing more interesting jobs and the participation of workers in decision making through trade unions. However, critics of the approach recognise the attempt by managers to treat workers nicely as sheer pretence. They view it as another way of enforcing power and control on the workers because there is little change to social relations and the nature of work when human relations techniques are applied.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bennett R. (1997), Management, 3rd edn. Glasgow, Bell and Bain
Buchanan, D. and Huczynski, A. (1998). Organisational Behaviour an introductory text, 3rd edn. United Kingdom : Prentice Hall.
Clark, H., Chandler, J., and Barry, J. (1999). Organisations and Identities, 3rd edn. London: International Thompson Business Press.
Haralambos, M. and Holborn, M. (1991). Sociology, Themes and Perspectives, 3rd edn. London: Harper Collins.
Mullins, L.J., (1999). Management and Organisational Behaviour, 5th edn. London: Pitman Publishing.
Rose, M. (1988). Industrial Behaviour, 2nd edn. London: The Penguin Group
Silverman, D. (1978). The Theory of Organisations, 1st edn. London: Heinemann Educational Books.
Website References:
http://www.accel-team.com/motivation/theory_01.html 9 November 2000
http://www.accel-team.com/motivation/theory_02.html 9 November 2000
http://www.acas.org.uk/663.htm 13 November 2000
http://melbecon.unimelb.edu.au/het/taylor/sciman.htm 13 November 2000
