Old thumb rule is the process which was developed by trial and error methods which don’t have any scientific base. These methods don’t have any scientific base. Also these processes were not transferrable to any new worker. Taylor’s scientific and rational attitude challenged the conventional processes (Oberoi, p.3). Soldering of work was there because of no standard of work were followed aand it results into restricted output (Gull, 2017,p.68).
According to Gull (2017,p.68) often workmen don’t used to have proper clarity on of responsibilities because there was no any division of work. Workmen/ workwomen were given tasks without considering their skills, expertise. That’s why in second principle of Taylorism the role of managers come into picture. They should identify the strengths/ weaknesses of each worker and identify at which element he/she is good at. After that they should be given training of the scientifically developed method from the first stage of Taylorism.
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Taylor observed that “unless the science of work and scientifically selected men is brought together all work will be lost”. The trained workers should be given the work at what they are best at and they should follow the standard method. According to Taylor it is extremely important that managers to observe as well as work in coherence with employee.
Turan (2015) argued that management should take over all the work in which they are good at. Worker should to do specific work which has been assigned by their managers. In earlier time workmen were expected to major work. There was no equal share of work. Management should take responsibility of developing, designing the processes, technology. Supervising is also an important duty of the management. On the other hand, workmen/employees should focus on their specific duties and they should follow standardised process (Oberoi, p.5). Equal division of work was highlighted in the fourth stage of Taylorism(Huang et al., 2013).
Challenges in Implementing Taylorism
According to (Jorge & Santos, 2015) challenges in implementing the Scientific management theory:
- The lank of education workers makes them unaware of benefits of scintific management. To tackle this issue taylor proposed ‘seperation of powers’ i.e. according ones educational level different powers are allocated to them. Ultimately it leads into two part process which planning and execution.
- Task allocation is one of the stages of taylorism. To run the whole process according to scientific management principles, it created some extra positions like supervisors, line leader. Which ultimately makes the scientific management costly? Also it is not at all flexible for each age group of workers because of systems are standardised and time allocated is fixed.
- Dehuminitization of workers. One of the demotivating assumptions of Taylorism for workmen is that workers can’t think on their own. According to (Huang et al., 2013) Taylorism motivates the workforce by giving extra money/ incentives. And it is assumed that this is the only way to motivate a worker.
In Pennsylvania, Taylor showed example of Schmidt. Normally, workmen used to 12.5 tons of pig iron per day. Taylor observed that maybe there is soldering of work due to that they will be redundancy of work by workmen. So he decided to apply scientific management to this industry. He studied all the processes. He then implemented taylorism. He gave proper rest periods to Schmidt and also he increased his wages to 1.85$/day which was 60% more than what average men used to get. Then there was significant increase in the output of the workmen, it increased to 47.5 Tons/day. Hence, Taylor successfully demonstrated his theory (Bell & Martin, 2012).
Criticism
Taylor believed that Taylorism will be successful only if worker gets advantages. Two obstacles were there according to Oberoi:
- He considered every individual is exactly same in nature; he completely ignored individual attitude towards work.
- Also economic interest of every workmen can be different.
On these points this theory was criticized many times. Huang, Tung, Lo and Chou (2013, p.79) criticized that, “Taylorism includes division of labour at extremes.where task is evaluated in seconds. It widens and promotes low trust relationship between employee and employer”.
Conclusion
Taylorism consists of mainly four principles. But some organization changed these in compliance with their set of process. Till now Taylorism is valid in many organizations/ industries (Huang et al., 2013). Also Taylor’s scientific management faces many criticism. And Taylor tried to overcome upon them but these were can not be completely removed. Challenges in the implementing this theory were also rise (Jorge & Santos, 2015).
In my opinon, Taylorism was a big success in the world of management, which completely revolutionised the modern management world. It also gave birth to many modern concepts like Time and Motion study, Operation excellence etc. Although it faced some challenges, issues and criticism, it is still valid in many organization by one way or another.
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