Scientific management and Taylorism

Who was Fredrick Taylor?

An American engineer and inventor

What are the solutions to industrial inefficiency?

Atomisation of tasks, fragmentation, design and organise processes

What were the criticisms of scientific management?

money isn't the only motivator (Maslows theory), increasing efficiency meant less workers needed and therefore increases unemployment

3 problems of scientific management from manager perspective?

Expensive- standardisation and training is difficult Deterioration of Quality - reliance on inspection of output not quality of process Time Consuming - Scientific management requires mental revision and complete reorganizing

Where do we find Taylorism today?

Resident Doctors in Hospitals General Practitioner Practice Management Testing Laboratories Fast food Call Centres Consumer Banking

What was the philosophy for Fredrick Taylor?

That you had to find 'one best way' to do a job including: Plan worker movements Routinize tasks - atomised labour Increase efficiency Educate management Train workers

What is soldiering and why was it made an assumption of Taylorism?

The natural instinct of workers is to 'take it easy'. if everyone is paid a uniform pay then people will skim work and the bets people will slow their work to the level of the slow and inefficient.

What is systematic soldiering?

Where workers conspire to reduce productivity. An inefficient evil

What are the key features of Scientific Management?

Importance of reducing cost Labour - the largest cost for organizations Rational work design - applied to the labour process to make workers more cost-effective Not just about costs and efficiency - also control of the labour process through rational work design

5 problems from the workers perspective?

Monotomy- jobs boring Exploitation- As production increases, wages don't so creates a bigger divide between workers and management Unemployment- productivity increases so less workers needed Deskilling- smart people being made to do repetitive boring tasks Weakens trade union- Everything standardised so creates a rift between efficient and inefficeint workers wages

What are the key principles of Taylorism? (5)

1.Division of labour - manual and mental 2.Emphasis on control - quantitative methods 3.Planning - objective, goal orientated decisions 4.Surveillance - workers monitored, division of management and hierarchy 5.Performance-based pay - instrumentality of labour, piece-rate pay

What happened in 1915 in the Government congress?

Banned Taylor stopwatches from government congress factories until 1945.