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F.W. Taylor - Scientific Management
Frederick Winslow Taylor (1856 - 1915) was famous for applying scientific principles to the world of work. Taylor was interested to see whether a job or work could be designed to increase efficiency. He tried to break down tasks into smaller steps and look at exactly how production actually worked.
Having broken the production process down, he then looked at how workers could be most effectively used to achieve production. One famous example involved observing how workers shovelled coal. Taylor worked out what was the most efficient amount of coal per shovel load and then had a shovel designed to scoop up just that amount of coal.
Taylor believed that getting the best out of workers was a case of both management and worker operating together - each needed the other. His most famous contribution was the so-called 'time and motion study'. Workers would be observed doing their work and that would set the standards for carrying out the job in the future.
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For example, trains have to be cleaned after a journey. Each carriage has to have the litter removed, the tables wiped, toilets cleaned, water tanks for the toilets filled up, floor swept or vacuumed and possibly have the inside windows cleaned as well. Taylor would have suggested observing how long it would take workers to do each of these tasks. Let us assume that 1 worker can clean 2 carriages in 30 minutes. Given a normal 8 hour working day, therefore, a worker could be expected to clean 16 carriages. If the station had 800 carriages a day that needed cleaning, you would therefore need 50 workers to get the job done.
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Taylor's ideas also led to the idea of 'piece rate': this means paying people for what they produce. The motivation for the worker is to work at full capacity (as determined by the observation of how the work is done) all the time to make sure the worker maximises their pay. This idea is based very much on the theory that a worker is motivated by money and pay.
Task:
- Taylor thought that his ideas could be applied across every type of job. Can you think of jobs where it would be difficult to apply Taylor's principles?
- Look again at the example of the time and motion study for workers cleaning railway carriages. Can you spot any possible problems that might occur in planning work processes in this way? (Hint think about the speed with which people might do work if they are being observed and whether the assumption of people working at full capacity all the time is realistic).
- Are people motivated by money alone?
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