Text 1 – the manager’s role
Our society is made up of all kinds of organizations, such as companies, government department, unions, hospitals, schools and etc. In all these organizations, there are people carrying out the work of a manager. They all have responsibilities to use resources of their organization effectively and economically to achieve its targets.
Henri Fayol wrote a classic definition of a manager’s role – Manage is to forecast and plan, to organize, to command, to coordinate and to control. To motivate and lead workers also.
Strategic decisions are part of the planning function. As an example, top managers, such as the chairman and directors, they will be making decisions on the future company, the sort of products lines it should develop and etc.
Middle managers and supervisors play an important role in building the company. They making the day-to-day decisions which help an organization to run efficiently and smoothly (dealing with unhappy customers, chasing up supplies and etc.).
Five basic operations of manager:
1 – managers set objective 2 – mangers organize 3 – motivate and communicate effectively 4 – measurement – set targets and standards 5 - managers develop people, including themselves .
Peter Drucker – successful managers are not who are liked or get on well with others, they are people who command the respect of workers and who set high standards.
Text 2 – Frederick w. Taylor: scientific management
Frederick Winslow Taylor devised a system he called scientific management, a form of industrial engineering that established the organization of work as in Ford's assembly line. His innovations in industrial engineering, particularly in time and motion studies, paid off in dramatic improvements in productivity.
He studied how to improve the efficiency of workers on the shop floor, how to improve their productivity. Solutions were based on his own experience.
While he was with Bethlehem Steel, he criticized management and workers (managers were not using the right methods and workers are didn’t put much effort into their job). The new ways to adopt a new approach to their work, which would change their thinking:
1 – Each operation was studied and analyzed 2 – Management worked out the time and method for each job 3- Work was organized 4 – Men with the right physical skills were selected and trained
This approach produced results. Taylor and his colleagues greatly increase productivity. His main insight, that work can be systematically studied in order to improve working methods and productivity, was revolutionary.
The weakness of his approach was that it focused on the system of work rather than on the worker. Another criticism is that it leads to de-skilling-reducing the skills of workers. Finally, some people think that it is wrong to separate doing from planning. The two tasks can and should be done by the same person.
Text 3 – The quality of working life
The way to increase workers efficiency is to improve their job satisfaction and motivation. QWL movement has been trying out various methods of making work more interesting. These include job enlargement, enrichment and new forms of group work.
Enlargement – the worker is given additional tasks to perform. Enrichment – involves giving extra responsibilities to workers such as production planning, quality control and technical development. Types of work groups – formed where workers share responsibility for certain task. The basic idea of QWL is that a worker should have an interesting, even challenging job.
Professor Elton Mayo directed a series of experiments on how working conditions affected output. Such things as lighting, lunch timed, rest periods, wall colors and etc. were varied to see how they affected productivity. The productivity is increasing.
The researchers began looking for other factors which would explain the increased productivity. Girls had developed a high morale during the experiment and had been motivated to work hard. This high morale put down several factors. 1st, the girls enjoy feeling they were especially selected. 2nd, they had develop good relationships with each other. Lastly, good relations and social contacts had made their work more enjoyable.
The researcher came to the conclusion that social relations affect output, the quality of work and motivation. Another important finding was that workers need more than money and good working conditions to be productive.