What we know about work, working and workers

7/30/2019 What we know about work, working and workers

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WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT

WORK, WORKING, ANDWORKER


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Man is not truly

defined as the

toolmaker, but

making tools, thesystematic,

purposeful, and

organized approach

to work, is specific

and unique in

human activity.


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The worker has

been given less

attention.

And the knowledge

worker has receivedso far almost none


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FREDRICK W. TAYLOR

Was the first person

in recorded history

who deemed work

deserving ofsystematic

observation and study

Taylors scientificmanagement has

lifted the working

masses in the

developed countries


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DURING WORLD WAR I

He studied aptitudes, that is, the relationship

between the demands of specific

Manualwork

Motor

coordination

PhysicalSkill

Reactions

of individualworker


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ELTON MAYO

Developed

human

relations,that is, the

study of the

relationship

between

people

workingtogether.


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THE TOTALITY OF

Worker and Working

Task and Job

Perception and Personality

Work community, Rewards and Power

Relations.

HAS RECEIVED PRACTICALLY NO

ATTENTION


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The Manager cannot wait till the scientists and

scholars have done their work.

The Manager has to try to make work

productive and the worker achieving.

It might, therefore be appropriate to put down

what we know about work and working.


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ANALYSIS, SYNTHESIS, AND

CONTROL

The most important thing we know is that work

and working are fundamentally different

phenomena.


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But what is needed to makework productive is quitedifferent from what is needed

to make the worker achieving.

The worker must, therefore,be managed according toboth the logic of the work andthe dynamics of working.

Personal satisfaction of theworker without productivework is failure.


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WHAT IS WORK

Work is impersonaland objective.

Work is a task.

It is a something.

Work has logic.

It requires analysis,synthesis, andcontrol.


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The first step toward understanding work is to

analyze it.

Taylor realised a century ago, means

identifying the basic operations, analyzing

each of them, and arranging them in logical,

balanced, and rational sequence.


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PRINCIPLES OF

PRODUCTION

Put together

individual operations

into individual jobs,

and individual jobs

into production.


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GANTT CHART (1861-1919)

Gantt Chart tells us very little about the logic

that is appropriate to given kinds of processes.

The output of the knowledge worker always

becomes somebody elses input


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Working has at least

five dimensions.

In all of them the

worker has to be

achieving in order tobe productive.


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Physiological Dimension

The human being is not a machine and does

not work like a machine.

Machines work best if they do only one task.

Complex tasks are done best as a step-by-

step series of simple tasks in which the workshifts from machine to machine


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The human being isengineered quitedifferently.

They lack strength.

They lack stamina

Altogether the humanbeing is a very poorlydesigned machinetool.


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Machines work best if run at the same speed,

the same rhythm, and with a minimum of

moving parts

There is no one right speed and n one right

rhythm for human beings.

Speed, rhythm, and attention span vary greatly

among individuals


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Psychological Dimension

Work is both a burden and a

need, both a curse and ablessing.

Work is an extension ofpersonality.

It is one of the ways in whicha person defines himself orherself, measures his or herworth and humanity.

Work as Curse and Blessing


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Psychological Dimension

It largely determines status.

Work has been the means to satisfy our need

for belonging to a group and for a meaningful

relationship to others.

Work as Social and Community Bond


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Work is for most people the onebond outside

of their own narrow family.

The work place becomes their community,their social club, their means of escaping

loneliness, with their husbands at their own

jobs and the children gone.


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Economic Dimension

The moment people cease to be self-sufficient

and begin to exchange the fruits of their

labour,

Work creates an economic bond that connectsthem, but also an economic conflict


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There is no resolution tothis conflict.

One has to live with it.

The workers needs morethan anyone else, to beprotected against the riskof uncertainty.

The worker, more thananyone else, needs thejobs of tomorrow.


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WORK AS LIVING AND WORK AS

WAGE

There is even more fundamental conflict

between wage as living and wage as cost.

As living, wage needs to be predictable,

continuous, and adequate to the expenditures

of a family, its aspirations, and its position insociety and community..


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As costs, wage needs to be appropriate to

the productivity of a given employment or

industry.

America has socialized ownership without

nationalizing it.

This has by no means resolved or even

lessened the conflict between wage fund and

capital fund & between wage as living andwa e as cost.


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Power Dimension of Working &

Economics

People are promotedor not promoted.

Authority is anessential dimensionof work.

Power relationshipswhich may affecteverybody directly &in his or her capacityas a worker

A need for authoritywith respect toeconomic shares.

There has to be aredistribution and anauthority to make theredistribution

decisions.


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THE FALLACY OF THE

DOMINANT DIMENSION

Each dimension of working are separate.

Each should be analyzed separately and

independently.

But they always exist together in the workers

relationship to work and job, fellow workersand management.


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Marx and most other economists saw the

economic dimension as dominating everything

else.

Elton Mayo to give other radically different

example, saw the dominant dimension as the

interpersonal relations within the work groupi.e in psychological & social aspects


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Abraham H. Maslow

Showed the humanwants in a form of ahierarchy.

Maslow put economicwant at the bottom andthe need for self-fulfillment at the top.

What Maslow did notsee is that a wantchanges in the act ofbeing satisfied.

HERZBERGS 2 FACTOR


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HERZBERGS 2 FACTOR

THEORY

In Herzbergs words,economic rewards

cease to be incentivesand become hygienefactors.

If not properly takencare of i.e, if there isdissatisfaction with theeconomic rewards, theybecome deterrents.


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Nevertheless, managers have to manage now.

They have to understand what the demands

are.

They will have to develop new approaches,new principles, and new methods and fast.


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MEGHA

THAKKAR

Documents

What we know about work, working and workers