å Sunday, October 2nd, 2016

In Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management, he explains the fundamentals of Scientific Management. In an obvious view of an example of a successful business, you would believe that the employer and employee work together to produce whatever the object is to make the business successful. This would make both the employer and employee happy. The worker would work quickly and to the best of their ability in order to increase productivity and in return the employer can sell more units of the commodity. The employer would get the best profit and also pay the worker a decent wage. The employer and employee should both be happy with this outcome and therefore should be working together.

Instead of working together to prosper the business, employees are working slower in order to stretch out the work over time. Taylor believes that the only way to reach maximum prosperity is for the employee and employer to recognize that they have the same goal and must work quickly to keep high wages for they worker and better profit for the employee.

Taylor mentions that even if an employee is a quick worker, he will decrease his speed when he realizes that other workers are not working as quickly and still earning the same pay. This is called “soldiering”. Other employees may become upset if one worker is showing more enthusiasm and working much quicker and are able to produce double or triple the amount of work than the rest of the workers. If they work too quickly, this can also show the employer that they may possibly not need as many workmen. This happens when the relationship between employees and employers is poor and both are just doing what they have been told or taught by elders. Soldiering has been hindering the success of many industries

But the employees are not the only ones creating a challenge for reaching prosperity. The methods of the employers have also been to work people as much as they can for the least bit of money in order for them to gain a bigger profit.

By properly managing these workers by getting rid of employee “soldiering” and the employers “sweat-shop” like ideals of management. Taylor believes that it would be possible to be competitive, and lower production cost. There are many more people who are spreading the soldiering way to work. The employers also must be educated properly on management to create proper leaders in many industries.

Taylor’s “The Principles of Scientific Management” begins to explore the methods used in creating an industry of workers that are used to build efficiency in the workforce. Taylor’s argument states that the nation’s industry has been inefficient due to the lack of management and growth of the worker. He expresses that a worker’s daily acts when not properly managed wastes the materials (and production) that create a strong industry. He believes that “systemic management” alleviates the lack of efficient industries and builds a strong workforce. In other words, this style of management should result in employer’s maximizing profitability and employee’s increasing their prosperity in all aspects, not just in monies.

Taylor mentions that the difficulties in achieving these goals for both employer and employee is the perception that each side does not believe that they can mutually attain their perspective goals. “Scientific Management” addresses this conflict and argues that both sides are actually one in the same. The main idea of scientific management is that the employer cannot see true success unless the employee prospers through the rewards of his labor, and vice versa. Both employer and employee through scientific management can prosper if they choose to mutually agree to benefit from each other. It is only then when both agree that you will see the highest grade of efficiency in labor and product.

Taylor mentions that one of the problems with achieving maximum efficiency in the workplace is defined in the term “Underworking” or “soldering”. He defines “soldiering” as minimum work effort produced or the smallest amount of effort in work by employee or employer which causes the lack of production. He attributes this to be common in the workforce due to three causes. One, if a man is able to be highly productive in his work, that he would eliminate others from obtaining work. Two, Bad management. And three, using the “rule of thumb” to maximize work effort. The combination of both “soldiering” and its’ three causes are what Taylor argues why maximum efficiency cannot be achieved. The elimination of “soldiering” and its’ causes according to Taylor should double production from both employer and employee. It is only until when it is eliminated that the theory of scientific management can be successful and both worker and employer can achieve mutual gains in the workforce.

I believe that the mutual agreement of both worker and employer sounds great and beneficial. In theory, it does sound perfect but I do not think that it would be able to co-exist in a capitalistic society. As long as the threat of competition exists and the gain of capital is the primary function of either the worker or the employer, the two forces cannot coexist. In the case of the market in this country, the top 1% would have to be willing to sacrifice its’ profits in order to balance the equation in Taylor’s theory. I hate to be the pessimist, but it sounds like a wonderful dream that cannot be turned into a reality during our life time.

In this article “The Principles of Scientific Management,1911” Frederick w. Taylor describes the how “soldiering” directly affects workers lives, their wages and how they prosper. The causes and conditions, which he divided into three areas in (p.5) The first one he called the “fallacy” stage which consisted in trading man with machines and that would result in many men out jobs. The second stage The “defective” in which the manager would have to “soldier” it’s workers in order to protect their interest. And the third the “inefficient” stage and the most universal were the workers performs slow work and waste a lot of effort and time in.

In the fallacy stage Taylor mentions that no matter if we increased productive capacity or invent a new machine to increase production this would make the product less expensive because work that was formally done by hands was more costly to make. As a result of machines instead of people doing the labor, the product would be more accessible to the people and would become cheaper to make.

In (p.7) Taylor believed that the caused of soldering was because many workers have the natural instinct to not work as hard as they have to. This tendency increases when men of similar background start working in similar conditions and with the same pay day. All because men start believing that they shouldn’t work had if other workers doing the same work are not working hard and are getting the same pay as they are. In (p.8) Taylor explains a little more on how systematic soldering works he mentions is done by men with an intentional goal to keep their employers ignorant of how much faster the work can be done.

Taylor’s response was that implementing the rule of thumb instead of science as a rule was the way to do things more efficiently. In (p.10) Taylor describes how the worker and management should more have equal responsibilities and the management should also help in guiding the worker with the scientific laws. He believed that the method of rule of thumb eliminates the need of soldering and it increases the need for men in the work force instead of throwing men out of work and eliminating the fallacy stage. Taylor also believed that workers that are not under the watchful eye of management are more productive and happier at their jobs. Because they are under less stressful conditions.