Human resources

Human resources

Indeed human resource remains the most important resource in an organization that needs to be well managed. The engine of the organization solely rests in the people. Without people, the organization cannot thrive and achieve its objectives. Various theories have been developed concerning the relationship between employees in an organization. Some of these studies are important in understanding why human resource is important in promoting productivity in an organization. The paper focuses on Taylorism and human relations school of thought in creating understanding of why human resource is one of the most important fundamental pillars in the organization.  It provides tangible evidence to the Mullins (2007), assertions that “human resources are clearly the most important asset of any organization and a resource that needs to be managed” (483).

Taylorism is a system of scientific management advocated by Fred W. Taylor. In view of the Taylorism system, management of a company has the responsibility of determining the best ways that their workers can execute their tasks. They achieve this by providing the employees with sufficient tools; training and all other incentives for them to perform better at their work place.  To enhance his views, he broke every job into individual motions and analyzed them to determine which were the most important. He achieved this by timing every worker with a stopwatch, and this allowed him to eliminate unnecessary motion leading to workers becoming more productive.

The principles of Taylorism operates on the premise that organizations have to motivate and equip employees with the right instruments to enable them achieve their goals. It recognizes that an organization cannot progress without human resource (De Montmollin 1975, p. 4). Employees must be trained to equip them with relevant skills to perform tasks well. Training should not be left to the employees alone because, it is the organization that will benefit from the services rendered by the workers.

Employees are social animals and therefore they should be treated well. Managers need to cooperate with their workers to ensure that all scientifically developed methods are being adhered to the latter. Employees will be able to work hard and remain committed if there is cooperation between them and their managers (Lawrence 2010, p. 412). In a real life scenario, most companies have come up with programs that ensure that there is close working relationships between their employers and employees. Such changes include changes in the administration structure.  Most organizations are changing from bureaucratic leadership structure to horizontal. This has ensured that cooperation among employees and their managers is achieved.

Furthermore, Taylorism required that work is equally divided among managers and workers. Managers were to apply scientific management principles to plan the job for their workers who were required to perform the actual job.  This was to ensure that tasks were well handled and that every person in the organization was to carry out their duties diligently without any feeling of inequality.   It recognized the need that all employees are essential in ensuring that tasks in the organization are well performed. Most of the organizations currently apply this principle in their functioning.  Managers who possess managerial skills are employed at the top ranks to provide leadership and direction for workers that handle the real tasks. This has ensured success in most of the organizations. Success cannot be achieved without the support and efforts of both workers and managers hence the relevant and the need for the staffs to be well managed.

According to Taylorism, it is the responsibility of managers to establish work targets for their workers, to pay them for the goals and targets meet and always provides regular feedback.    Workers can only be motivated if their demands and efforts are well addressed. This is the work of managers to always establish or create a conducive environment for employees to enable them work hard and attain their goals. If achievable targets are not set, then employees will not have a direction on how they can achieve their targets. They also require being paid salaries that reciprocate with their input. Furthermore, employees require frequent feedback on how they are performing and the plans and mission of the organization. This makes them feel part of the organization and therefore, they feel motivated and become committed to working hard towards achievement of the organizational goals. This is part of managing employee well and putting in mind that they are the biggest asset in the organization.

Selection of workers is a science according to Taylorism. Recruiting a person that has skills and knowledge to handle a certain task is key in ensuring the success of the organization,   this duty is vested to the management as it is requires that people suited for the job are selected.  This implies that, the achievement of the organizational goals is solely vested in the human resource (Evangelopoulos 2011, p. 57). If the selection process is not carried out competently, then it implies that the organization will not achieve its set objectives because the people hired will not be able to carry out their duties better. Most organizations, have realized the truth in the Taylorism idea and they are using competent recruitment methods to ensure that they capture   people with specific skills suited for specific jobs. The idea behind these strategies is to ensure that they achieve their objectives. Management is always the one blamed if they do not recruit people with high skills to perform jobs well. Some of the companies use aptitude or psychometric tests to recruit their employees. Others employ head hunting strategy to attract people with specific skills and competencies to carry out certain duties. Head hunting is where; managers with track records are approached by recruitment personnel or agents of a company with appealing allowances to woo them to their companies. This strategy is expensive but it allows people with certain skills to be recruited to a company and this benefits the recruiting company.

Taylorism scientific management therefore concentrates on four principles which were to replace rule of thumb work methods with the scientific management of tasks, selection, training and developing of employees scientifically, providing of instruction and direction to employees for them to execute their tasks and division of work between employees and managers. These principles were implemented in companies during their time and they increased their productivity three times more.   His framework was clear in the sense that there was delineation of tasks and responsibility that aimed at ensuring that every person in the organization performs their part for the achievement of the larger organization success (Evangelopoulos 2011, p. 57). The major idea about the theory is that it focuses on the human resource in an organization. The success and increased productivity is also achieved with the participation of human resource with every person knowing or understanding their responsibilities.

His method proved to be successful. It helped to develop concept of work design, production, work measurement, and other functions that helps to change and transform the nature of industries and issues of human management. Before this concept of scientific management was conceived, departments like personnel, work-study, maintenance were non-existence. Therefore, Taylorism concepts have been of great assistance in releasing the need to treat employees in an organization better. However, it is also in order to state that Taylorism concept created or resulted to unscrupulous practices such as rate cutting. Employers were required to work as machines stopwatches were used. This was inhumane to most employees as they were overworked.

Human relations school of thought

This human relations school of thought movement is associated with Elton Mayo (1880-1949) and is borrowed from the concept of Taylorism scientific management study.  Elton was a psychopathology from the school of Harvard and he is associated with Hawthorne studies. These studies consisted of a series of 20 experiments at the western electric plant in Illinois that began in 1927. He sort to understand the human behaviors or rather how employees behaved and what really motivated them as they performed their duties (O’Connor 1999, p. 117).  The three major experiments that he conducted and which he used to prove his assumptions were the illumination experiments, the relay assembly room study and the bank wiring room.

In the illumination experiments, the interest was to find out how various ways of lighting in the factory could impact on the employee productivity.  Employees were grouped in various categories and subjected to different lighting. Results of the experiments were surprising in that regardless of the level of illumination, the level of productivity increased among the whole groups.  This was then called the Hawthorne effect because the level of productivity or rather out put increased to 112% among workers that perceived to be under observation in the study (Mayo 1923, p. 117).  Even after the salaries were decreased, lighting levels decreased and even after ignoring the workers complaints, the output still increased.  This was so because the workers in the study were being observed and therefore they had to perform the way they did.   Hawthorne effects have been applicable by many managers in organization. They have used this concept for their own gains in productivity through various approaches. Some have implemented study committees; some announce surprises audits, keeping the workers with the busy work establishment of task forces to ensure that employees work hard to benefit them (O’Connor 1999, p. 118).

In the relay assembly from study, employees were separated and taken in an isolate room. These employees under study were subjected to different treatment. They were given offs and allowed to live early. They were also given lunch. The ideas behind the study were to investigate whether change in environment could impact on the employee level of productivity. As the study progressed, the researchers expected to see a reduction in productivity. However, they were surprised to find out that employee increased their productivity. The rate of absenteeism also decreased. This study further proved the Hawthorne effects   findings. Employees were able to work and increase their level of production.

The last experiment, banking wiring room study, researchers intended to learn about social nature of work groups.  In this study, a group of fourteen employee that wired telephone switchboards were studied. The researcher observed the way they performed their tasks. Most of them wired closely the same number of switchboards every day (Mayo 1923, para. 7).  It was observed that colleagues’ informal pressure restrained many of them from performing more tasks. Therefore it was concluded that informal relationship among employees were more important that money. The reasons to why employees are more motivated by the informal things are because they have deep psychological need to believe that the organizations they work for cares about their welfare as employees.  Most workers want to believe that their organization is open to them, concerned about the things they go through and that they are willing to listen to them.

When employees complain about an issue that they are going through, they are only seeking for a validation from the management. They believe they have a right to be answered or attended to because they are part of the organization and contribute to the success of the organization.  Employees’ social behaviors override organizational norms and individual self interests and therefore employees require to be well managed and treated well to ensure that they support and work hard towards achievement of the organizations objectives (Islam 2012, p. 37).    This concept led to the establishment of management retreat where managers and administrators had to retrain and direct supervisors to engage in sensitivity training and any other form of trainings that would enable them to be more employee centered.  Recognition that employees are essential in the organization, allows the management to have an easy way of attaining or achieving their objectives.

Therefore human relations school of thought is concerned with understanding the way human beings behave and using this information to provide them with an environment that is conducive to achieve their objectives. Realizing that employees are important and instrumental in the organization is important.  All human resources in an organization are required to work well in the organization with one another in ensuring that they all strived to achieve a common goal.

Supervisors should not act like supervisors. These are people like any other employees only that they have been given authority to direct and ensure that the systems work, as they are required.  They are required to be friends and counselors to the workers (Mayo 1924, p. 249). This will help to create a positive working relationship between them and this is going to help achievement of the organization objectives.  Many organizations have been trying to ensure that supervisors are friendly to the junior employees. This has been achieved by training them and informing them that every input of every employee is importantly. Employees that are well treated are motivated. Money is not the only source of employee motivator.

To ensure that employees or rather human resource is well taken care human relations school of thought requires that management remains close to the workers. People in an organization should be periodically asked how they feel about their supervisors and work. This is aimed at determining whether, employees are happy with their work and whether their supervisors are treating them better. Many capable employees may feel less cared if they are not asked for their feedback at their work place. This leads to various problems such as increased rate of absenteeism, and turnover. Organization may lose its skilled employs if it does not take a stride in determining how the employees are fairing on. Productivity alone cannot be enough reason to make employees happy.

Supervision should be humane. They should not mistreat employees by insulting and accusing them for small mistakes that can easily be rectified. It is also advisable that employees’ morale is uplifted in order to ensure that they gain high level of productivity (John 2012, para. 4).  Employees that are motivated will perform their tasks well and this will improve the level of productivity in the organization. Various motivation theories such as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs that categorized needs into five levels can be applied to ensure that employees are satisfied. Other motivation aspects that should be given to employees include, promotions based on competence, recognition especially after performing tasks better, personal development through training among other motivation strategies. Such employees will be motivated and this will enable them to remain committed to the organization.

Employees are also human animals and they feel better when they are given time to socialize and relax with other.  Humor and sarcasm are good things in a working environment. Employees should be allowed to have free time to interact and exchange humors. It adds spice to their work and eliminated boredom. It is often said that work without play makes jack a dull boy. The organizations need to come up with strategies that would allow employees time to explore and have wonderful time with their fellow colleagues (Islam 2012, p. 37).  It is true that most organizations have identified the importance of providing employees with incentives to engage in their own social activities. Some organizations have set up incentives where employees competed for awards in various games. Such things allow them to feel motivated at their work place.

Consultation of workers when making an important decision is also vital in an organization as it is part of good employees’ management.  Decisions that would affect employers such as changes in the working hours, mergers among others should be clearly communicated to employees to allow them to feel part of the organization (Webb 1897, p. 12). When their management respects employees, they remain loyal and committed towards organizations activities.

Even though, the human school of thought has been instrumental in changing the way organization functions, it has been criticized as subverting and de-emphasizing worker legitimate economic interests it also did not address the issue of conflict between management and the employees and that the roles of managers were elitism.  It is thought to increase productivity of workers as opposed to improving the workers relationships. Furthermore, there seems to be no relationship between workers satisfaction and their productivity, leadership style and productivity.

Nevertheless, even though, Taylorism and human relations school of thought have been criticized, they have played a fundamental role in changing and shaping the human resource management.  Currently, organizations understand the potential of its employees and they are trying their best to ensure that employees remain loyal and committed. The organization cannot    exist without human resource.  It can basically be said that an organization is the human resource because without people there is not organization.   In an organization, it is important for the manager and the employees to work together and to cooperate with one another to ensure that they achieve their objectives. It is not healthy for mangers and employees to work in isolation as they depend on one another. Therefore, it is indeed true that Human resource is clearly the most important asset of any organization and a resource that needs to be managed.

 

Reference Lists

De Montmollin, M 1975, ‘Taylorism and anti-Taylorism,’  International Studies of Management    & Organization, Vol. 5 no. 3, pp. 4-15.

Evangelopoulos, N 2011, ‘Citing Taylor: Tracing Taylorism’s Technical and Sociotechnical            Duality through Latent Semantic Analysis,’ Journal of Business & Management, Vol. 17      no. 1, pp. 57-74.

Islam, G 2012, ‘Recognition, Reification, and Practices of Forgetting: Ethical Implications of       Human Resource Management,’ Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 111 no. 1, pp. 37-48.

Lawrence, P 2010, ‘The key job design problem is still Taylorism,’ Journal of Organizational        Behavior, Vol. 31 no. 2/3, pp. 412-421.

Mayo, E 2012, Mayo and the Human Relations School. Retrieved from:             http://faculty.babson.edu/krollag/org_site/encyclop/human_relations.html

John, L 2012, Human relations management: To make others happier and better is the highest       ambition Retrieved from: http://drtomoconnor.com/4000/4000lect02a.htm

Mayo, E 1923, The irrational factor in human behavior: The ‘night-mind’ in industry. Annals of      the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 110: 117-130.

Mayo, E 1924, The basis of industrial psychology. Bulletin of the Taylor Society. 9: 249-259.

Mullins, L 2007, Management and organizational behavior, Harlow; Financial Time Prentice         Hall.

O’Connor, E 1999, ‘The politics of management thought: a case study of the Harvard business     school and the human relations school,’ Academy of Management Review, Vol. 24 no. 1,   pp. 117-131.

Webb, S 1897, Industrial democracy. London: Longmans, Green.

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