Topic 2: Describe and critique the Scientific Management approach pioneered by Frederick Taylor

Introduction
Frederick Winslow Taylor joined Midvale Steel Works in Pennsylvania, USA, and that’s when he noticed many employees were either working inefficiently, or at a slow rate on purpose as they were paid the same regardless the level of productivity. The employees were deliberately working at a slow rate so as to prevent their employers from how fast work can actually be done. Taylor regarded this as ‘soldiering’ and wanted to remove it (Pettinger 2012). He claims that by eliminating ‘soldiering’, and other bad practices, it will reduce the cost of production (Taylor, FW 1911).

Scientific Management
Frederick W. Taylor pioneered scientific management, which was scientific approach to managerial decisions, and he introduced it to organisations (Locke 1982; Pettinger 2012). It emphasised on increasing productivity from the workers, by designing methods to for maximum prosperity for both the organisation and the employees, and also maximum efficiency of the employees (Taylor, FW 1991). Taylor developed four main principles to increase efficiency; to replace rule-of-thumb methods; develop and train the best worker; promote cooperation among superiors and subordinates and lastly division of labour

Taylor deemed the rule-of-thumb method that was practiced by the workers inefficient. He decided to study and understand how the employees work, and develop scientific methods to determine best practices; thus increase productivity. Time and motion studies were a major part of scientific management. A stopwatch was used to time the worker’s sequence of motions, to determine the best way to perform a particular task. Instead of timing the entire job, he broke down the job into simple tasks and timed them individually.

Taylor introduced and applied scientific management to Bethlehem Steel Company, and the experiment was to determine how many pounds of a pig-iron handler should be handling on average per day. After a couple of days of watching and studying of the 75 men working, four men were chosen. They were selected not just based on their physical size but also the characteristics and habits. After the experiment, 12 and half tons was the amount handled by a pig-iron handler on average. The amount was far fetched from 47 to 48 tons, the amount which Taylor expected.

One of the men involved in the experiment was Dutchman named Schmidt. He was offered a significantly higher pay with the condition that he will listen to instructions given to him, and he was not supposed to talk back to his manager. Schmidt reported to work the next day and listened to instructions given. He was tasked to work and rest at regular intervals, and he managed to hit Taylor’s target of 47 and half tons. Other handlers were trained also to perform the task, as the new method of working and resting at regular intervals proved successful. This experiment is an example of one of Taylor’s principles; to carefully select workers and to train them to perform the task. Other experiments such as Bricklaying, and The Science of Shoveling were also conducted. These two experiments were also conducted to find out scientifically the best practice to complete the required task.

Division of labour meant that a job is broken down into small and repetitive actions. With that the workers do not have to be high skilled as they are usually very simple to execute as well; thus less training required. With this, it also allows the worker to be specialised at a particular task, which increases productivity too.

Critiques of Scientific Management
I feel that Taylor’s scientific management did help management making workers work more efficiently, however, the workers did not accept it. It also caused more conflicts than before. ‘This immediately started a war; in most cases a friendly war, because the men who were under him were his personal friends, but none the less a war, which as time went on grew more and more bitter.’ (Taylor 1911, p.17). Taylor himself was aware that workers did not accept his methods readily.

Taylor did not factor in the human element. Workers of organisations under the new scientific management felt that they were merely just robots. They complained their job as monotonous as the organisation practiced excessive specialisation of workers, and they were doing the same action everyday, and were not able to take their own initiative.

Taylor believed that finding a common goal will reduce the conflict between the organisation and workers, however the mistake he made was to belief that there would be no conflict on dividing the share of the pie. (Taylor, cited in Locke 1982).

Taylor’s techniques should be used to transfer the unskilled into the skilled, and not to de-skill the workers. Henry Ford’s refusal to undertake the program of training and skills upgrading by Taylor is a good example of this misapplication (Nyland 1996).

Conclusion
Despite it’s relevance to today’s society, Taylorism has a limitation, which will cause a irrelevance to the society today. It can also affect the organisation negatively or positively; depending on how it is applied. The impact of scientific management was highly influential and represented the start of managerial era and ended the craft era in United States (Sullivan, cited in Backer 1998).

Scientific management might also pose a problem for large organisations as the process of standardisation reduces flexibility level (Caldari 2007). For organisations that require adapting to change frequently, it is not ideal to adopt scientific management.

In my opinion, Taylorism is still practiced in organisations today, however it is enhanced and designed to fit the current society and economy. For example, organisations are divided into different departments namely; Marketing, Design & others. Marketing and designing are two completely entities and a designer might not how to market his designed products and vice versa.

Reference List:
- Backer, PR 1998, Scientific Management, San Jose State University, viewed on 01 March 2013, .

- Caldari, K 2007, Alfred Marshall’s critical analysis of scientific management, History of Economic Thought, vol. 14, issue 1, pp. 55-78, viewed 01 March 2013, Oregon State University

- Nyland, C 1996, Taylorism, John R. Commons, and the hoxie report, Journal of Economic Issues, vol. 30, issue 4, pp. 985-1016, viewed 01 March 2013, JSTOR.

- Library of Congress, Taylorism and Economic Efficiency in the 1920s, Library of Congress, USA, viewed 01 March 2013, .

- Locke, A 1982, ‘The ideas of Frederick W. Taylor: An evaluation’, Academy of Management Review, vol. 7, issue 1, pp. 14-24, viewed 01 March 2013, JSTOR.

- Pettinger, R 2012, Introduction to Management, Palgrave Macmillan, United Kingdom.

- Taylor, FW 1911, The Principles of Scientific Management, Harper & Brothers, New York, USA.