‘Frederick Taylor’s Scientific Management reflects an approach to managing that is no longer appropriate for today’s managers.’ Critically evaluate this statement, with particular reference to an example from a workplace with which you are familiar.
Introduction
Scientific management emerged as a system of achieving efficiency in the performance of employees and productivity of large-scale manufacturing companies. Frederick Taylor espoused scientific management and described this as the process of utilising scientific method in managing workers in order to improve productivity since scientific method involves an organised means of performing tasks and organising various tasks to simplify work assignments and ensure the easy trainability of employees. Scientific management emerged as a means of organising the process of specialisation in order to derive the greatest possible productivity from the workers as contributing units. ( 2003)
As such, many large manufacturing companies adopted this system. These firms welcomed the change because of their previous difficult experiences in obtaining workers with the minimum skills to contribute optimum output. Prior systems of skills development occurred through the apprenticeship system where skilled artisans pass their skills to other people by taking apprentices to train. This does not work well with large production firms because they require more skilled and trainable workers, which they cannot achieve through apprenticeships. During the boom of production, many companies adopted scientific management.
However, at present, scientific management has received a number of criticisms due to the changes in the business environment such as the growth of services sector that required flexibility from workers. The specialisation achieved through scientific management limited opportunities for creativity and innovation or room for flexibility to emerging issues in service industries. As such, the appropriateness of scientific method in current business environments became an important issue, which succeeding discussions seek to unravel.
Principles of Scientific Management
Based on the studies made by Frederick Taylor on steel workers together with other studies, he identified four core principles of scientific management. First principle is the replacement of the rule-of-thumb methods of work with method aligned with the scientific study of tasks. This is done by conducting scientific studies of every aspect of tasks in order to develop the best way of accomplishing the task. Second principle is the active scientific selection, training and development of every worker instead of passively relying on the employees to initiate their personal training. This involves the active role of managers in developing appropriate and effective training and development programs using scientific method. Third principle is developing cooperative relationships with the workers to secure the workers’ adoption of methods derived through the scientific method so that there is need to communicate to the workers the methods planned for use in the production process and seek their approval and recognition to ensure compliance. Fourth principle is dividing work as equally as possible between management and workers in order to align the scientific planning and policies of management with the actualisation of plans and adherence to policies by the workers. The division of work involves the assignment of responsibility to managers to develop scientific plans and responsibility to workers to comply with the plans. By complying with these principles, production firms engaging in scientific management expected to achieve greater productivity required to meet increasing demand as large manufacturing companies expanded to the international market. (2005)
In Taylor’s study of the steel industry, he found that the workers were operating at a level below their output capacity. This situation was termed as soldiering, which is caused by three attitudes or perceptions of the workers. First cause is the general belief arising from the ranks of workers that enhancing their productivity would lead to the need for lesser labour resulting to the elimination of their fellow workers. The fear of losing their jobs resulted to the attitude of limiting their output to an extent that allows them to remain employed but at a lesser rate to maintain the importance of the number of labourers hired by the company. Second cause is the lower levels of productivity in cases on non-incentive wage systems with employees trying to convince the employer to accept the slow pace of production. This is based on the belief of workers that speeding up production would result to the increase in standards so that they end up producing more for the same pay. In case the workers receive pay for every unit produced, they also have the fear that increasing their output would result to a change in output expectations to the extent that they produce more at the same rate with the effect of decreasing their per unit pay. Third cause is the strong reliance of workers on rule-of-thumbs instead of determining work methods directed towards optimised productivity. (2003; 2005)
Due to the recognition of these problems among workers, Taylor conducted experiments resulting to the derivation of the principles as well as general approaches and various elements in decision and policy-making on the part of management. These were based on the optimal performance level of particular jobs together with the factors necessary in achieving this level of performance. These served as guides to production companies in developing plans intended to optimise performance.
Scientific management involves a number of general approaches. First is the importance of defining the set of skills required for every job so that there should be different requirements for the different jobs. By doing this, managers ensure that upon the engagement of workers or employees, these are informed of the requirements constituting the expectations of the firm for hiring the workers. Apart from defining the set of skills for various jobs, these should also be communicated to the workers to ensure the alignment and clarification of expectations. When this happens, the accomplishment of work is guided and directed towards the goals of the firm. Second is the selection of workers having the appropriate abilities for every job. Since there are already identified set of skills for the different jobs, this can be used as basis in matching workers with available positions. Third is the setting of standards in performing the various jobs. Standards are important to ensure that guidance is accorded to workers so that they are able to practice these guidelines. Fourth is the provision of training for the standard tasks so that business firms are able to accrue the basic skills they need in completing their tasks and deriving output. Fifth is the detailed and organised planning of all work that needs to be done in order to eliminate delays and interruptions. Part of planning is the consideration of expected issues and problems as well as the provision of alternative solutions so that managers have ready solutions for application depending upon the context of emerging work-related situations. Sixth is the utilisation of wage as incentives for enhanced output. Wage is the basic incentive for employment so that providing acceptable wages would encourage greater outputs. ( 2003; 2005)
Apart from these basic principles, there are also elements inherent in the practice of scientific management. First element is the definition and delineation of labour and authority together with the corresponding responsibilities and legitimisation of official authority. Second element is the placement of workers and managers in a hierarchy where levels of authority and management relations are clearly defined to clarify the flow of communications and directives. Third element is the selection of workers based on their competence, experience and training in technical fields. Fourth element is the recording or reporting of all actions done and decisions made to derive continuity of effective actions and decisions to become best practices. Fifth element is the recognition of the delineation between the owners of the business firm and the managers. Although in small companies, owners could also play the role of managers, in large business firms management is distinguished from owners in terms of interests and roles. The distinction is necessary to define the responsibilities and roles of management in relation to the accomplishment of tasks. Sixth element is the compliance of managers with various rules and procedures that enables the reliable prediction of behaviour. Workers pattern the accomplishment of tasks with the actions and decision of managers so that predictability according to commonly established standards is necessary for the continuity of tasks. (2003; 2005)
Through these principles, general approaches and elements, scientific management has made significant contributions including rational business management, raising the importance of compensation, thorough understanding of task requirements, and salience of organised selection and development of workers.
Applications of Scientific Management
Scientific management involves an ideal system because it ensures the fulfilment of objectives of the company while at the same time advocating for the wage interests of workers by considering competitive wage as the primary incentive for the cooperation and enhanced performance of workers. The scientific approach also enables business firms to gain control over the production and fulfilment of orders through clearly communicated guidelines and standards. However, in practice, application is varied largely because of the differences in the contexts of different business firms, even companies belonging to the same industry such as the production industries. As such, scientific management has no single application or results when applied by actual business firms in the US or in other regions. There are business firms that adopted only aspects of scientific management while others merged scientific management with other strategies. Regardless of the means of utilising scientific management, the important thing is for business firms to determine the effective ways of applying this strategy to meet their needs and objectives and achieve the desired results. Moreover, companies implementing scientific management experienced successes and problems alike. The cases discussed below express the application of scientific management in actual business settings.
Scientific management developed as an alternative system for large manufacturing companies so that best studies on the application of scientific management include Ford and Toyota, with Ford as the earlier model for the application of scientific management. Ford applied scientific management in its mass production plants through division of labour and specialisation of tasks. In the completion of tasks, Ford applied strong hierarchical control so that workers performing tasks in the production line were assigned to a single repetitive task. Scientific management had a number of manifestations in Ford’s employment policies. First is the mechanisation of its mass production processes so that management is highly technical and separated from humanistic consideration. In a way, scientific management propounded the view that workers constitute instruments or tools of production subject to allocation, control or direction. Second is the fragmentation of work into clear stages and the assignment of people to these stages to complete the tasks. Since the assembly line constitutes a single process divided into phases, there is need to ensure that the people assigned in each phase are able to complete their work efficiently in order to prevent delays in the production process. Third is the specialisation of tasks in order to provide unskilled workers with the experience they need to be able to accomplish their work efficiently. (2003)
Ford applied scientific management by establishing a strong management group and providing guidelines and standards for its workers so that there is a defined authority and task requirements forming part of the management plan of the company. Moreover, Ford provided basic technical training to its workers based on their specialisations. However, there are also deviations in Ford’s application of scientific management including the dehumanisation of the workforce so that the focus is only on the interests of the firm. This is different from scientific management because this process provides that through cooperative employment relations, both the interests of the company and the workers can be achieved through detailed plans. This means that workers cannot be treated merely as tools for production. Nevertheless, Ford’s management strategy applied the general approaches of scientific management to achieve positive results such as the speeding up of the production process to allow the company to gain higher revenue.
Another large manufacturing company that patterned its management strategy from scientific management is Toyota. The company established Toyota Production System, which finds basis on the idea that plans and organises not only the manufacturing process but also dual relationships with its suppliers and end consumers. The purpose of the production system is to address the overburdening of aspects of production and relationships, the prevention of inconsistencies in the work or phase alignments, and the elimination of wastes or delays. As such, the production system was intended to address a number of objectives including: 1) the continuity of motion of workers and machine; 2) minimisation of the waiting period of workers and machine; 3) conveyance or logistics to transport raw materials to the plant and finished products to distribution channels; 4) processing of orders and keeping schedules; 5) organising inventory of raw materials to ensure that resources are available to meet sudden surges in demand without resulting to waste in case of decreases in demand; and 6) making efficient the correction of errors through the reworking and scrapping of resources to prevent wastage by recycling parts. (2004)
Toyota applied scientific management with managers taking charge of the processes and workers through thoroughly applied standards and guidelines in order to ensure that whenever the products are sold there are always new products as replacement in order to always have products that meet demand. As such, through strong leadership and direction, Toyota was able to minimise lead-time as well as reduce cost while at the same time enhancing product quality. The scientific aspect of Toyota’s production system involves the correlations arising between certain events and processes that enable the company to take charge of present production as well as derive expectations of future levels of production. As such, other companies have used Toyota’s production system as a model, although no other company has achieved the greatest results more than Toyota.
It is the early experiences and successes of Ford and Toyota that urged Jim Beam to adopt scientific management. Jim Beam is a bourbon whiskey brand produced in Kentucky established in 1795. The company addresses international demand so that the bulk of production needed required the company to consider management strategies that enabled the company to meet international demand. As such, the firm applied work standards that allowed workers three bathroom breaks, including one before lunch, one during lunch, and the last one after lunch. Workers are also given one bathroom break that is unscheduled. The failure of workers to meet with these limits is subject to warnings, fines and even dismissal in case of frequent infractions. These guidelines were implemented as part of the organisation of the production process intended to meet scheduled demand. As such, scheduled and limited bathroom breaks was necessary to ensure control of production process and ensure that workers are able to effectively meet the targeted quota. ( 2002)
Jim Beam applied scientific management system that adhered to Ford’s application of scientific management by having a planned production process that includes the expected actions of workers so that even bathroom breaks are regulated. By controlling processes, Jim Beam ensured the achievement of its goals. However, similar to the other companies, Jim Beam applied scientific management without its humanistic factors.
Issues of Scientific Management
Issues or criticisms of scientific management came about because of a number of reasons. First, is the difficulty in applying the scientific system in its entirety because of the difficulty in accommodating the interests of both employers and workers. The manager takes the role of balancing this interest in order to achieve intended results with both the employer and workers satisfied with the results. However, in practice, the manager usually favours the interest of the employers such as the reduction of costs to the extent that this adversely affects the workers. This is expressed in the case of Jim Beam. Even if Jim Beam achieved their expected levels of production and accomplished its lead-time reduction goal, workers had complaints resulting to high turnover rates. Issues raised by workers included low wages when the work is heavy as well as stringent regulations considered to be unreasonable especially the controlled bathroom breaks in Jim Beam. In the case of wages, many labour-based business firms consider the provision of higher wages as unreasonable cost so that depending upon the abundance of labour and the market price of labour; companies are usually unwilling to offer wages higher than the market price to encourage their workers to continuously and diligently contribute to output. These also represent the common practices in the many production companies. As such, the objective of scientific management of selecting and matching workers to tasks and providing basic training to employees cannot be achieved in a work environment with high turnover rates.
Second is the appropriateness of scientific management in contemporary contexts. Human rights received popular support among the ranks of workers by constituting criticisms to existing business strategies or employment relations. In the case of Jim Beam, workers protested the limitation to the bathroom breaks of employees so that it the company has been given a citation for not providing bathroom facilities to employees that the company protested. Although the company was not fined, this represented problems that business firms applying scientific management can expect to experience. (2002) The emergence of labour laws and labour conflict resolution channels has provided workers with the means of challenging one-sided policies and firm-oriented guidelines.
Third is the rationality of strictly scientific management approach without considering humanistic factors. At a time when human relations has become an important factor in competitiveness and competitive advantage, business firms cannot deny the importance of considering the interests of employees and workers to ensure satisfaction expected to influence customer service and eventually customer satisfaction. Moreover, people management has also provided important aspects such as open communications between top management and front line employees to ensure that the policies applied by the company fit with the guidance needed by workers and employees especially those that directly service employees. The practice of taking bottom-up feedbacks instead of relying only on feedbacks coming from the top management has received acceptance by many production and service companies. (2005) These developments indicate that the human side of employment relations has become an important aspect of business management. As such, scientific management has received criticism as limited only to an aspect of human resource management, non-encompassing of the various issues actually faced by business firms, and insufficient to meet the contingencies faced by contemporary business firms.
These issues indicate that although the idea of scientific management envisioned the success of business firms with both owners and workers satisfied, this is not easily achievable in actual business operations. This has dual divergent implications. On one hand, this could mean that scientific management has lost its importance to contemporary business firms because of the incompatibilities between the tenets of scientific management and the needs and objectives of business firms. As new management approaches emerged that focused on the human side of employment relations and production processes, these have been adopted by many companies especially those involved in the services and knowledge-based sectors that operate in a labour market with limited skilled workers. On the other hand, scientific management remains an important management approach even in present settings because of the integration of its approaches and elements in emerging management strategies. Even if scientific management emerged as a system governing production companies, its tenets still apply to service and knowledge-based companies. The reason for the difficulties or issues in applying scientific management is that its core principles are highly misconstrued in actual application. Although scientific management is aligned with scientific reasoning, this does not exclude the human aspects as applied by production companies. Although companies require control and planning of processes, this does not deny the importance of humanism.
Conclusion
Scientific management remains an important management approach because of its valuable contributions to strategic management but its application should match the context of firms. One important contribution of Taylor is the recognition of money as the most basic motivation strategy. This is because money constitutes the initial purpose of employment, which is to provide income to employed individuals. This means that income constitutes the initial consideration of workers in making employment and work-related decisions. Moreover, Taylor also provides the importance of incentive-based people management. This means that managers should establish performance measurement systems and use this system in assessing the performance of employees together with the provision of incentives, recognition and rewards to employees to support their development of high esteem for their contribution to the company. This then results to enhanced performance, job satisfaction, and even firm loyalty.
Another important contribution of scientific management is the organised and future or long-term oriented approach. Since scientific management governs present as well as future management decisions, this constitutes an important management perspective for companies seeking long-term viability and continuous enhanced performance and productivity. Long-term goals are achieved through various practices such as the development of cooperative atmosphere for business firms as well as the utilisation of commonly known standards. Regardless of whether the application is in production or service delivery, these general approaches covered by scientific management remain important. Even if contemporary issues require flexibility, there is still need for scientific reasoning and analysis in management-level decision-making.
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