Taylorism free essay sample

Taylorism Scientific management, also known as Taylorism, was an innovative theory that maximized production efficiency within the manufacturing industries in the late 19th century. The main goal of this management theory was to improve economic efficiency, especially labor productivity. The way it worked was that scientific management removed autonomy of skilled workers, but rather it simplified Job tasks so that Job could be performed even by unskilled workers who could be easily trained. Before scientific management, workers had to learn necessary skills in a long ime period until they become skilled enough. However, all these started when Fredrick Taylor, the person who invented this theory, noticed inefficiency or soldiering in the steel industries. Although scientific management seems to have succeeded in transforming inefficiency into efficiency and only have good sides due to its effects, it was a highly controversial subject in many areas. In the steel industry, Taylor observed inefficiency among workers where they worked far below their capacity. We will write a custom essay sample on Taylorism or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page It did not matter if the workers were smart, because ven smart workers tended to work far below their capacity and did not put enough effort for several reasons. They were basically unmotivated. He later found out that employees that are forced to work meaningless and repetitive tasks usually perform at the slowest rate. There were some reasons behind its slowness. One of the main reasons would be workers tend to think that if they work at their best abilities and become more productive, fewer of them will be needed thus Jobs will be eliminated. One another reason was non-incentive wage system back in the 19th century. This non-incentive wage system ultimately discouraged workers to work with their full potential, because they get paid the same amount whether they work fast or slow. Also, through the non-incentive wage system, workers tried to convince their employers that slow paced work is better, because they thought if they start working fast, they feared that would become a new standard of employers. In order to resolve problems arisen from soldiering and improve efficiency, Taylor constructed experiments to determine the best level of tasks for each Job and what is necessary o perform the tasks. Fredrick Taylor strongly believed that scientific methods will minimize these problems above and increase efficiency more than the initiative and incentive method would work. Although the initiative and incentive method offered incentives to good workers so that work efficiency increases, but responsibility of how to figure out things was still placed on workers. To prove his methods work, he firstly performed an experiment called time studies (time and motion studies) in order to determine the best way to perform Jobs. It used stopwatches to time workers sequence of motions. Basically he proved through the experiment that even though workers are incentivized to do extra works, lets say extra move of more tons per day, they would become exhausted after a few hours, because of the physical capability. extra amounts, workers are able to work extra without being tired and exhausted. Also it suggested that employees should be selected according to how well they are suited for a particular Job. After Fredrick Taylor experimented for a long time with his scientific management, e finally concluded some principles in order to achieve his original goal: to improve productivity in labor. One of them would be replace rule-of-thumb work methods with methods based on a scientific study of the tasks. Second thing would be scientifically select, train, and develop each workers rather than Just leaving them to train themselves. Again, each worker has to do what they are good at in order to maximize its productivity and efficiency in labor. He also thought not only implement scientific method is important, but he thought cooperating with the workers to nsure that the scientifically developed methods are being followed is also important. Obviously, scientific management is considered to be the reason why industries were able to improve themselves along with improving efficiency. And it is obvious to say that the scientific management has affected the societys work environment positively. For instance, this principle was implemented in many factories, often increasing labor productivity. Its success even affected a known man Henry Ford and his automobile factories. Even average families in households egan to do household tasks based on the principles of time and motion studies. However, although scientific management is known to improve labor efficiency, it added monotony to workers. Although many of workers accepted the management theory, many denied because of the use of stopwatch. Some workers thought the use of stopwatch is inhumane and they started to protest on it. Despite its controversy, the scientific management method definitely changed the way of the work environment and the way workers work into a positive way, and its form continues to be used even today. Taylorism free essay sample Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by UNIVERSITY OF SURREY For Authors: If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service. Information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www. emeraldinsight. com/authors for more information. About Emerald www. emeraldinsight. com That aspect of the factory’s activities on which Thompson’s report focused is the inspection department described by Taylor[4,5]. He notes that in this department the women inspectors were employed at the task of inspecting ball-bearings for defects. This was work that required great skill and very close attention. When Taylor began work at the plant the women were employed ten-and-a-half hours per day. On Saturdays, a half holiday was allowed, so the women worked a 58-hour week which was the full limit allowed by law. We will write a custom essay sample on Taylorism or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page For the first two months after piecework was introduced, the women continued to labour ten-and-a-half hours per day. It was found, however, that they had difficulty maintaining the degree of concentration required. On both day work and piecework, the inspectors became tired before the day was done. Accordingly, in August of 1897 the hours of labour were shortened from tenand-a-half to nine-and-a-half per day and a recess of five minutes was allowed in the middle of the morning and the middle of the afternoon. Notwithstanding this shortening of hours, both the quality and the quantity of output improved. Overall, the workers produced 33 per cent more work than they had the previous month. As the inspectors were still adjusting to piecework, Taylor decided it was not possible to determine to what extent the increased output was a result of the shorter hours. However, the next increase in hourly productivity he perceived as being solely the product of the reduction of worktime. Once convinced â€Å"things were working very smoothly† in the inspection department, Taylor reduced the workday to eight-and-a-half hours and increased the morning and afternoon breaks to ten minutes[8, p. ]. This hour’s reduction again had a positive effect on hourly output. The increase in productivity, however, was only sufficient to balance the reduction in hours. In other words, although overall output was maintained, it did not increase as it had in July. As output had only been maintained with the second reduction it was assumed the most efficient balance of worktime and work intensity had probably been achieved. Given this situation it was decided to leave the working day at eight-and-a-half hours and no further reductions in hours were introduced. In concluding the report, Thompson observed that it should not be believed that the eight-and-a-half hour day was an optimum that ought to be adopted in all situations. Different types of work would almost certainly require a different balance of working hours and work intensity. Knowledge of the optimum time schedule in any given case should not be presumed but should be based on careful, empirical testing. If this form of testing was undertaken, he concluded, a very substantial case could be developed for extending the reduction of working hours throughout industry: Taylorism and hours of work 11 JMH 1,2 2 It is not too much to claim †¦ that in a vast number of cases, especially in industrial establishments, the length of day might be shortened to the advantage of both the workman and the capitalist, provided that some incentive be given to the worker, such as the promise, if he is a piece-worker, that his rate per piece will not be cut if he exerts himself[8, p. 9]. A second most important observation regarding the limits of worktime reductions was also advanced. Thompson noted that logically there must be a limit to the extent to which the shortening of hours, in itself, has a positive effect on output.