Case Study. Human Resources.

Week 4 – HR, Work/Job Design and Employee Motivation: An Historical Perspective

Managing human resources is a challenging and creative facet of a business. It is the department that handles the recruiting, hiring, training, and firing of employees. Because of diligence and detail required in hiring and the sensitivity required in firing, human resource managers have a broad skill set. Similarly, human resources is vital to the overall functioning of the business because without the right staff a firm will not be able to work together and to enhance strengths and downplay weaknesses.

In addition, a good human resource manager can anticipate upcoming needs and changes in the business, hiring in line with the dynamics of the market and organization. Once a good workforce is in place, human resources managers must ensure that employees are properly trained and oriented and that they clearly understand some elements of what the organization expects. Hiring new people is expensive, time consuming, and turbulent; thus, it is imperative that all employees are carefully selected, trained, and motivated so that they will remain committed and loyal to the company. This is not an easy task. Following is an historical overview of some work design theories:

Scientific Management Scientific Management, also called Taylorism, is a theory of management that analyzes and synthesizes workflows. Its main objective is improving economic efficiency, especially labor productivity through the simplification of tasks and division of labor. It was one of the earliest attempts to apply science to the engineering of processes and to management.

Taylorism began in the United States in the 1880s and ’90s within the manufacturing industries. Its peak of influence came in the 1910s; by the 1920s, it was still influential but opposing or complementary ideas/theories were introduced to businesses. Although scientific management as a distinct theory or school of thought was obsolete by the 1930s, most of its themes are still important parts of industrial engineering and management today.

Frederick W. Taylor and Frank and Lillian Gilbreth proposed that money was the sole motivator for workers (the classical theory of motivation). As such, they suggested managers should break down each job into its component tasks (specialization), determine the best way to perform each task, and specify the output to be achieved by a worker performing the task. The three social scientists conducted “time and motion” studies to prove their belief. Taylor also believed that incentives would motivate employees to be more productive. That said, Taylor’s and the Gilbreths’ motivation to provide incentives for employees wasn’t employee-focused. Rather, their motivation was to have the employees be more productive, so companies made more money.

1. Watch the following videos of Gilbreth’s original Time and Motion Studies research. https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=hhvC10kGBu4&list=PLcjaMbVtfVvE04vDv_0lFzDLNAU_t3mHt&index=6 !!

Human Relations

 

 

! On the other hand, Elton Mayo, the father of Human Relations Movement, and his followers really did care about employees and wanted to create work environments and incentives that motivated employees. The Human Relations Theory of Management began in the early 1920s during the industrial revolution. At that time, productivity was the focus of business (Taylorism). Professor Elton Mayo began his experiments (the Hawthorne Studies), to prove the importance of people for productivity – not machines. 
 
 The Human Relations Management Theory is a researched belief that people desire to be part of a supportive team that facilitates development and growth. Therefore, if employees receive special attention and are encouraged to participate, they perceive their work has significance, and they are motivated to be more productive, resulting in high quality work. !

2. Watch the following videos of Elton Mayo’s Hawthorne Studies research.

https://www.youtube.com/watch? v=W7RHjwmVGhs&list=PLcjaMbVtfVvFRtQOsoPQ4OQmAwZIYPRcq&index=1

! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEwCWR5Vkpw

The results of Professor Elton Mayo’s Hawthorne studies proved that the factor most influencing productivity is relationships. The researchers realized productivity increased due to relationships and being part of a supportive group where each employee’s work had a significant effect on the team output. As a side result, the researchers noticed that the increased attention the workers received by the researchers increased motivation and productivity, which resulted in what is the Hawthorne Effect.

After the Hawthorne experiments, Abraham Maslow and Douglas McGregor revealed how their motivational theory complemented theories of human relations. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory (1943, 1954) suggested five basic needs (physiological, safety, love, esteem and self- actualization) were motivating factors when viewing an employee’s work values, because the employee is motivated to ensure the most important of these individual needs are met.

McGregor was a contemporary of Abraham Maslow and also significantly contributed to developing management and motivational theory. He is best known for his Theory X and Theory Y concepts as presented in his book “The Human Side of Enterprise” (1960), which proposed that a manager’s individual assumptions about human nature and behavior determined how an individual would manage his/her employees. The Theory X and Theory Y concept supported motivation beliefs by realizing that employees contribute more to the organization if they feel responsible and valued.

Motivator–Hygiene Theory Psychologist Frederick Herzberg’s Motivator–Hygiene Theory, also known as the Two-factor Theory and began in 1964, also had an influence on Job Characteristics Theory and sought to

 

 

increase motivation and satisfaction through enriching jobs. According to Herzberg, individuals are not content with the satisfaction of lower-order needs at work (those needs associated with minimum salary levels or safe and pleasant working conditions). Rather, individuals look for the gratification of higher-level psychological needs having to do with achievement, recognition, responsibility, advancement, and the nature of the work itself. These ideas parallel Maslow’s hierarchical needs theory.

However, Herzberg added a new dimension to this theory by proposing a two-factor model of motivation. The theory predicts changes in “motivators,” which are intrinsic to the work (such as recognition, advancement, and achievement) will lead to higher levels of employee motivation and satisfaction; while “hygiene factors,” which are extrinsic to the work (such as company policies and salary) can lead to lower levels of dissatisfaction. Thus, satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not on a continuum with one increasing as the other diminishes, but are independent occurrences. This theory suggests that to improve job attitudes and productivity, administrators must recognize and attend to both sets of characteristics and not assume that an increase in satisfaction leads to decrease in dissatisfaction.

Quality Improvement Theory Quality Improvement Theory is based on the idea that jobs can be improved through the analysis and optimizing of work processes. Quality management, a recent occurrence in business, ensures that an organization, product, or service is consistent and has four main components: quality planning, quality assurance, quality control and quality improvement. Quality management is focused not only on product and service quality, but also on the means to achieve it. Therefore, it uses quality assurance and control of processes as well as products to achieve more consistent quality.

Walter A. Shewhart made a major step in the evolution towards quality management in 1924 when he first proposed a method for quality control for production, using statistical methods. This became the foundation for his ongoing work on statistical quality control. W. Edwards Deming later applied statistical process control methods in the United States during World War II, thereby successfully improving quality in the manufacture of munitions and other strategically important products. After WWII, Japan decided to make quality improvement a national imperative as part of rebuilding their economy, and sought the help of Shewhart, Deming and Joseph Juran. W. Edwards Deming championed quality improvement ideas in Japan from 1950 onwards and brought new life to Japanese manufacturing. Deming’s Total Quality Management Theory (and others’ theories) was eventually implemented in U.S. manufacturing companies in the 1970s, as a result of Japanese manufacturing outperforming U.S. companies and achieving very high levels of quality in products they produced.

Current quality management theories include Six Sigma, Kaizen, ISO 15504, ISO 9004, ISO 9001 (for IT, processes, and management), Quality Circles, Taguchi Methods, and Business Process Re- engineering.