Last week, Rob mentioned many famous business theories at Monday's lecture, among all of those theories, I was so interested in a theory called Scientific Management or Taylorism, to get some further understanding of this theory, I did some self-study at the weekend. In this blogger I will examine three principles of this theory.
- Efficiency and productivity based.
which means the main objective of Taylorism is improving economic efficiency ,especially labor productivity.
When Taylor worked in a Steel actory, he noticed the differences in productivity between works. Because of talent,intelligence,and motivations. Therefore, s,he tried to find the way to increase productivity and update efficiency by providing proper tool for different workers. For example, he found that the power of workers are different so he even prepared more than 10 types of different shovels in the factory to meet the needs of workers.
As it is illustrated in the table, we can see obviously that the efficiency of the total output increased substantially by 350% and the wages of workers grew mildly,but the number of workers decreased dramatically. Taylor was also one of the first advocators of regular breaks in the working period. He found that a ten minute break for every hour worked would increase the productivity and efficiency hugely.
- Selected the best person to do the job---others follow.
Taylor said"The workman who is best suited to handling pig iron is unable to understand the real science if doing this class of work." It is so true because people have different skills, nobody can do all the jobs perfectly, but somebody is bad at accounting may be good at advertising. In my opinion, choose the appropriate person for different task is also a way to improve economic efficiency and productivity.
This principle reminds me of the recruitment of Google company, the human resource department of Google is looking for very bright recruits who can think quickly, imaginatively and unconventionally to be the leader of the specific group, and training the rest employees to do their jobs efficiently.So this theory still used in current companies---determine the kind of work for which employee is most suited and to assign workers accordingly.Besides, the managers need to Scientifically select,train and develop employees.
- Financial incentives --- assumption that motivation purely based on reward.
I believed that all employees need to be motivated, especially those who focus on monotonous jobs. Many companies have their own strategic staff reward systems.Because its scaring when people become lazy. For example the employees work in Apple(United States) will be getting pay raise of up to 25% of their previous wages,totally based on performance.And Tim Cook,the current CEO of Apple recently implemented a new discount system that Apple employees receive $ 500 off a Mac or $ 250 off an ipad, which can be used every three years(available to all employees who have worked for the company for at least 90 days)
Buy I do not agree with Taylor that all people are motivated only by money.Nowadays, people also put more emphasis on other aspects than before, such as staff welfare, compensation and appreciation.Besides, I remember Rob have shown a picture about an investigation on why people work out, the first reason is because of challenges. They are motivated by facing the challenges and realizing their self-value. So I think 100 years ago maybe the employees were only motivated by money, but now situations have changed money is just a part of motivation methods.
Reference1:The Principles of Scientific Management (1911)
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