Introduction
The essay presents the principles and influence of scientific management in modern organizations. The writer identifies the five principles of the scientific approach to management as presented by Fredrick Taylor. The first principle requires the use of scientific methods in developing a task completion strategy. The second principle is to assign the task to the most qualified person. The third principle is providing necessary training to improve the worker’s competency in effectively delivering on the job. The fourth principle is about motivating the worker by offering financial incentives. The fifth principle calls for the management of the employee so that they can focus on the task instead of carrying out organization and planning activities. The essay also illustrates how the application of scientific management in various firms has helped define operation procedures, led to waste reduction, and influenced employee motivation strategies. In addition, the essay identifies three weaknesses of scientific management, including workforce under-utilization, alienation of junior employees, and over-emphasis on worker control. Thus, the writer explains defines the scientific management method and its influence on companies.
Essay relevance to the Question
The essay addresses the question provided using illustrations and referenced arguments. The writer was required to analyze how the scientific management approach impacted modern organizations. The response was to have a backup of case studies from a real-world application. While developing the main points, the writer has made illustrations using Toyota, McDonald and several other companies, thus improving the quality of their submissions. However, the paper needs improvement in developing better feedback to the question.
Discussion of the Main Points
Definition Procedures
The essay held that scientific management helps an organization in developing design procedures. The method supplies evidence-based problem-solving methodologies that are reproducible. This means organizations can design quality standards to be followed in processing inputs and running company operations. The design goal is to encourage uniformity and promote quality. The manufacturing and assembling sectors have qualified industrial designs that define their standards. Organizations providing services could also employ scientific management to professionalize their services. Other than creating new procedures, scientific management could influence existing practices by identifying gaps in systems for improvement. Procedures promote efficiency in systems and thus reduce defects and wastage while enhancing profitability. As noted by the writer in their illustration, fast foods such as McDonald’s and KFC use scientific management to create recipes that are replicated throughout their stores. A good example is KFC’s 11 secret herbs used worldwide by franchise stores (Uddin, 2020). Thus, Taylor’s model continues to influence the design of industrial processes and formulas.
Quality Control and Waste Reduction
Scientific management streamlines system operations, enhancing output quality and reducing wastage. Every organization’s management desires to boost efficiency, and scientific principles top the list of remedies. Leading companies worldwide are committed to scientific methodologies in the quest to minimize production costs, reduce defects and promote profit maximization. Toyota is a leading example of a company employing scientific management (Toma & Naruo, 2017). The company’s total quality management focuses on continuous improvement through regular assessments. The assembly line is monitored for defects that are promptly addressed. This has helped the company reduce its defects rate over the years. Total quality management is premised on stakeholder engagement in quality control and assurance. Ford is another company that has embraced scientific management in its operation under the six sigma strategy (Yadav & Sukhwani, 2016). This has helped the company enhance its products’ quality and limit defects in the production line. In addition, the approach has been instrumental in cost reduction and customer satisfaction. Therefore organizations can use scientific management to continuously improve product and process designs to eliminate waste while enhancing quality.
Financial Incentives and Employee Motivation
Scientific management recognizes the role of financial incentives in keeping employees motivated. Taylor’s model submitted that monetary rewards inspire employees and allow them to entirely focus on the set targets (Stojanova et al., 2021). In his argument, Taylor believed that organizations that could design better processes could optimize productivity and thus more profits to pay their workers. Today, almost every organization employs this method alongside other strategies to sustain employee morale. Contemporary monetary motivations manifest in end-year bonuses, commissions on attained targets, and salary rise based on key performance indicators. To maintain top talent, fortune companies such as Apple and Microsoft pay their employees huge salaries. It is a strategy not only to buy employee loyalty but also to ensure that they remain productive. As noted by other studies, monetary incentives should be used alongside intrinsic strategies such as creating conducive workplace environments (Auger & Woodman, 2016). Modern workers, especially millennials, value social space and money, an element that should be incorporated into staff management practices. Therefore, money is still a significant factor in employee motivation in modern organizations but should be used together with other motivation approaches.
Employee Under-utilization and Controlled Creativity
Scientific management supports labor specialization among employees of an organization. It advocates hiring and training workers and believes that laborers lack the skills to plan and organize. The model also submits that workers must be controlled and oversight (Haveman & Wetts, 2019). This approach which might have worked in the past is laden with dehumanizing elements. First, the assumption that people are unskilled and need oversight limits their potential. The approach ignores human experience and intuition as beneficial factors necessary in job delivery. Strict implementation of the scientific model will ultimately kill the creativity required for innovation, thus depriving organizations of new methods and ways of revolutionizing operations. The employees will always wait for directions rather than act proactively. One of the critical competencies of the 21st Century employee is problem-solving, which Taylor’s model does not nurture. When Fuyao opened a plant in Texas, it became difficult for US employees to adapt to the Chinese management style of total control (Ahmed, 2018). While Chinese management focuses on worker control, the US culture encourages autonomy. Therefore, the scientific method limits employee skills and discourages creativity which is vital for innovation.
Transfer of Planning and Organisation
One principle of scientific management proposed by Taylor is taking the planning and organization tasks away from the worker. The theorists believed that the manager should oversee planning (Kitana, 2016). This means an employee should only be hands-on with no organizational skills. The limitation ignores the need for synergy between managers and juniors. Apple’s Steve Jobs is hailed as one of the best chief executive officers with disruptive leadership approaches. One secret Steve Jobs used was to join his teammates at their level and inspire them to achieve their targets. Despite displaying autocratic tendencies, Jobs attained success because he worked with a team. Fragmenting people and directing them is disenfranchising and creates alienating. In addition, locking workers out of planning takes away their knowledge about the project. This contrasts with a situation where they are involved in the planning stage. First, they will have the background information, and second, they will own the project. This is likely to increase productivity. Therefore, there is prudence in empowering workers with planning and organization skills as this would boost their motivation and enhance project outcomes.
Manager Focus
Scientific management puts more emphasis on the manager and promotes micromanagement leadership. The management has the monopoly of skills, issuing them inform of instructions to the worker. This arrangement degrades employee competencies besides nurturing the feeling of isolation (Davis, 2017). The involvement of all staff in management is vital for building a thriving workplace punctuated by teamwork. However, this is not the case in an ideal scientific model proposed by Taylor. Scientific management negates this desire of ensuring every worker is heard. Unlike democratically run organizations like Zappos, strict scientific management is bureaucratic and autocratic. Zappos thrives on a culture of involvement and teamwork rather than fragmentation (Madhani, 2020). Such approaches kill channels of accessible communication known for generating innovative ideas. Employees who feel that the management is overbearing will be disengaged from work. Keeping such an unmotivated team will finally affect the productivity of the organization. Thus, the need to level the barriers created by scientific management by involving every staff in the running of the organization.
Comments on the Essay
Structure
The essay includes an introduction, the body, and the conclusion, which are vital elements of academic write-ups. The article addresses the question in all its paragraphs, and each paragraph carries one main idea as expected of academic papers. There is a good use of conjunctions to connect ideas and improve the text’s readability. However, the write-up lacks a strong thesis statement, and most paragraphs do not have topical and concluding sentences. While the essay logically presents ideas, some sentences are incoherent. In addition, the essay cannot be profile to any style of paper structure. Overall, the structure needs improvement to conform to academic writing.
Presentation and Grammar
The essay is presented in simple language that any reader without any technical knowledge could understand. The writer does not include management jargon but instead uses common vocabulary. This is commendable as the paper is open to any interested reader. However, the essay could benefit from proper sentence construction and grammar rules. Avoidable spelling mistakes can be spotted in the document, with an example being “financial” instead of financial. The essay also misses punctuation marks, with an example being “Toyotas” instead of Toyota’s. In addition, the sentences are poorly constructed, and the choice of vocabulary is poor. Therefore, the essay’s quality is primarily compromised by grammatical mistakes.
Academic Convention
While the article does not meet the minimum academic rules for publishing, it obeys literary conventions. First, the essay adheres to the correct pattern of representing numbers and abbreviations. The tone used is also academic so is the language, which remains formal throughout the essay. In addition, the article is written in the third person, as expected of all academic productions. Finally, points are argued out to synthesize information and improve comprehension. Thus, the essay sticks to the provided conventions of academic writing but fails in structure.
Referencing
The essay has a list of references used presented on the last page. It also utilizes corresponding in-text citations as required in the rules of referencing. However, most of the references used are website citations denying the paper credibility that it would have received using peer-reviewed journals. Like in the issue of structure, it is hard to tell the reference style employed by the writer. Therefore, the paper should be revised to conform to one of the acceptable formats.
Suggested Areas of Improvement
While appreciating the efforts made by the writer to address the question, some areas of the essay need improvement to enhance its academic quality. Firstly, the article should adopt a better structure for improved visual presentation. A good piece should use universally accepted formats such as APA, MLA, or Harvard style. These formats will give the article a professional look and boost its general presentation. By extension, the format will influence the appearance of the list of references. Another area that needs thorough improvement is language and grammar. The writer should endear to polish their writing style and eliminate grammatical errors. In the same breath, the essay sentences need urgent improvement to enhance readability. Incoherent ideas can put off readers the same way spelling mistakes does. Other areas of concern are the paragraphs that lack topical and concluding statements. The two ate vital in introducing paragraph ideas and summarizing the main points. Finally, the writer should make strong arguments from the sources identified rather than reporting the contents of references. Therefore, the essay needs a major surgery that would promote its coherence, form, and readability.
Reference List
Ahmed, S. ed., 2018. US Foreign Policy for the Middle Class: Perspectives from Ohio (pp. 3-4). Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Auger, P. and Woodman, R.W., 2016. Creativity and intrinsic motivation: Exploring a complex relationship. The journal of applied behavioural science, 52(3), pp.342-366.
Davis, M., 2017. The stop watch and the wooden shoe: Scientific management and the Industrial Workers of the World. Class: The Anthology, pp.69-77.
Haveman, H.A. and Wetts, R., 2019. Organisational theory: From classical sociology to the 1970s. Sociology Compass, 13(3), p.e12627.
Kitana, A., 2016. Overview of the managerial thoughts and theories from the history: Classical management theory to modern management theory. Indian Journal of Management Science, 6(1), p.16.
Madhani, P.M., 2020. Effective Rewards and Recognition Strategy: Enhancing Employee Engagement, Customer Retention and Company Performance. The Journal of Total Rewards, 29(2), pp.39-48.
Stojanova, R., Sofijanova, E. and Andronikov, D., 2021. Employee motivation-factor for success. Journal of Economics, 6(2), pp.56-63.
Toma, S.G. and Naruo, S., 2017. Total quality management and business excellence: the best practices at Toyota Motor Corporation. Amfiteatru Economic Journal, 19(45), pp.566-580.
Uddin, S.M., 2020. Operational strategies and management of KFC: An enquiry. EPRA International Journal of Research and Development (IJRD), 5(4), pp.172-179.
A. Yadav and V. K. Sukhwani, 2016. “Quality improvement by using six sigma DMAIC in an industry”. Int. J. Curr. Eng. Technol., vol. 6, no. 6, pp. 41–46.