It is over 100 years since The Principles of Scientific Management was Essay

It is over 100 years since The Principles of Scientific Management was first published. How relevant are Taylor's ideas for un - Essay Example This paper will look at the scientific management theory 100 year later and the influence that it has on understanding work organizations in the present day. Scientific management theory is part of the wider aspect of economic efficiency that was recurring theme in the late 19th century and early 20th century aimed at increasing efficiency in the way humanity carried out its activities, decreasing waste from processes and using empirical methods to make decisions rather than accepting pre existing ways of doing things (Rowlinson, 1988, p378). In political and sociological terms, scientific management can be seen as division of labour that has been done logically with its consequences being deskilling of the worker and dehumanisation of the workers and the workplace (Peci, 2009, p294). In his work, Taylor noted that some workers were more talented than others and even the best of the workers in most cases remained unmotivated, he also noted that most of the workers who were coerced to perform repetitive tasks usually worked at a slow rate, he called this behaviour ‘soldering (Jones, 2000, p640). When given a similar pay, Taylor found out that the employees were likely to do the equal quantity of work as the laziest of them all. This behaviour showed that all workers were interested in their own self benefit and they were not willing to work harder if they were not guaranteed of an additional income. Taylor concluded that they way organizations had been set in relation to work ethics was such that it encouraged inefficiency among the workers. From this observation, Taylor posited that time and motion studies combined with rational analysis and synthesis could provide one of the nest methods to perform any particular task, which could not be done by the methods that were present during that particular time. Taylor argued that the amount of compensation that was given to the employees would only equal the amount of work that the employee was willing to perfor m. The scientific management theory started at a time when automation and mechanisation existed but they were not fully applied in the production process. This is was attributable to the fact that in those days’ people did not have any idea that the scientific management process was the required ingredient that would see the shift of production as being done only by humans to production that would be supported by machines. In his scientific management theory, Taylor had a complicated view on workers. At one time, he addressed some of their concerns in terms of the remuneration that they got as a result of their works, while at another time, he compared them, especially the less intelligent ones with draft animals (Ackroyd & Bolton, 1999, 372). However, with in relation to workers, Taylor’s scientific management theory had a few shortcomings. One is that the theory did not acknowledge individual differences among the workers in the sense that the most efficient way of w orking for one worker, may be the most inefficient for another worker. Secondly, the financial interests between the workers and the management are different therefore, the measurement process and the retraining of workers did not usually get support from the workers. Taylor argued that all tasks that an employee was assigned could be organised in such a way that the productivity of the worker would increase and that his scientific theory of management was more effective than the usual ‘