FREE ESSAY ON TAYLORISM AND MANAGEMENT

TAYLORISM AND MANAGEMENT

Many people and companies have rejected the theory of scientific management that Frederic
Taylor developed in the early 1900's because it wasn't working effectively for the
companies. However as Rober Kanigel make clear in his biography of Frederick Taylor One
Best Way the problem wasn't with the theory of scientific management , but with the
Frederic Taylor and his attempts at managing his own theories. Frederic Taylor was an
engineer, a perfectionist; he didn't have personality skills necessary to be an effective
manager or leader. Someone how had these skills could manage a company well with his
theory. What scientific management really is a complete method of creative problem
solving and decision making.
Many of the ideas in scientific management, like setting time goal and streamlining the
workload are good ideas and are used presently in the work force. The primary objectives
of scientific management are to maximize profit for the company, to use the fullest
potential each employee and for prosperity for employees. To accomplish this people must
exert themselves to their maximum potential every minute of the time at work. Still many
of Taylor's ideas did not work out because there he was too much like a robot and treated
others like robots. He was inflexible, and failed to consider human emotions. For example
he timed each person with a stopwatch and forced him or her to meet an inflexible and
extreme time goal everyday no matter what. The job was not adjusted to meet the person
but the person was forced to adjust to the job. 
Frederick Taylor wasn't capable of managing people under the scientific management theory
the way he designed it. His use of the system eliminated the human aspect of the
workplace, by treating people like machines. He described people as in capable of working
in anything but what they were currently doing. 
Furthermore he doubled their work load and made them work at the most efficient pace that
he conceived of and enforced this by timing people with a stop watch. His essential
theory was: management decided what a fair day of work was and made all the decisions.
The employees were only capable of doing manual work and were hired only for their manual
labor. Scientific management the Taylor way was imperfect because he eliminated the human
part. No one can manage other people efficiently if they treat them like machines.
Positive implementation could have occurred if Taylor wasn't implementing and using it.
Taylor did treat people like machines as he worked them as hard as possible, leaving them
with no energy at the end of the day for leisure activities. His stop watch techniques
making sure they met the time goals resulted in the feeling of a large amount of
pressure. 
Taylor's personality was of being a meticulous and Machiavellian, obsessive about details
and overbearing. He was therefore one of the worst types of people to have as a manager
is a very meticulous person as he was be very demanding and never pleased with the work.
Taylor used what many people call a Theory "X" style of management, one that threats
employees poorly and like machines. He assumed that people had of no initiative their own
to work hard and were only capable of what they were during then and nothing else. 
To fully understand how poorly Taylor implemented his theory, one only needs to look at
the companies he worked at; Bethlehem Steel is a prime example under Taylor's
management.
Each task had an instruction card, which laid everything out in black and white and
eliminated the need for the employees to think, and each task was figured out to the
fraction of a second, which wore out employees faster than other systems this is not the
life that people want to work for. While the Taylor system did pay more, employees did
not feel that the money didn't compensated for the other problems that they endured. 
An example at the Link -Belt Foundry of Bethlehem Steel the Taylor system resulted in
long-standing piece rates being totally reconfigured many old timers, people with 20-30
years of tenure at the company, quit because of the strain and the furious pace at which
they were expected to work. (Kanigel 1997)
Bethlehem Steel was just one example of the high increase in turnover that occurred
shortly after Taylor implemented his system at any company. All the problems he created
made employees so unhappy that at Ford motor company the turnover exceeded 900%, which
means no employee on average lasted 3 months, after Taylor implemented Taylorism. Taylor
prescribed employees r eight to ten hours of work were prescribed minute by minute and
were closely scrutinized. He told employees that they must follow the system at all times
and that they were hired for their machine ability and strength, not for their ability to
think. One mechanic said that Taylor mistreated him, that Taylor gave him more abuse he
had before taken and that he would take what he did from Taylor from any other person.
All of Taylor's ideas go against the basic ideas and principles that managers learn in
the classroom and use in the workforce when dealing with employees. He used mean,
overbearing, Theory X ideas, which resulted in all the problems mentioned above. The
principles that Taylor should have used are to treat employees fairly, allow flexibility,
and ask for their input, not to be a micromanager. Basically everything that Taylor
didn't do he should have done. The Taylor system of efficiency can work in the hands of
someone who knew how to manage people, which Taylor did not know how.
Bibliography
References
Kanigel, R. (1997). The One Best Way. New York, New York; Penguin Putnam Group, Inc.
Modern History Sourcebook: Frederick W. Taylor: The Principles of Scientific Management,
1911 . [WWW document]. URL: http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1911taylor.html 
Reshef, Y. Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) Scientific Management [WWW document]
. URL: http://courses.bus.ualberta.ca/orga417~reshef/taylor.html