Traditional work design

Job Design : The need to harness human resources in innovatory ways

to give organizations a competitive advantage has focused attention on the question of job design. This is defined as The process of combining tasks and responsibilities to form complete jobs and the relationships of jobs in the organization.

Rationalism : theory that reason is the foundation of certainty in

knowledge

Scientific Management : Referred to as Taylorism, this approach to

job design was based on five main principles. Maximum job fragmentation The divorce of planning and executing The divorce of direct and indirect labour The minimization of skill requirements and job-learning time The reduction of material handling to a minimum.

Traditional work design

Taylor s objectives : efficiency , predictability of job performance ( by dividing tasks , into small , standardized specified subtasks ) , control ( establish discipline and authority ) Systematic soldiering : where the working group controls output , people would pressure rate busters (those that speed up productivity and decreased pay rate) to slow down their productivity so the rate would stay up and the productivity would stay down or manageable by the masses. The functional foremaship : is an approach devised by Frederick Taylor in which the job of the general foreman was to be divided and distributed among eight separate individuals , each of these would oversee a particular function of the work Initiative and incentive system : a form of job design which leaves the task of producing entirely up to the workers and provide them with a financial incentive .

Development of taylorism : the Gilbreths and Gantt

Henry Gantt father of the Gantt chart : Worked with Taylor from 18871893 at Midvale Steel and Bethlehem Steel Believed that industrial efficiency could only be achieved by the application of scientific analysis to work. He tried to humanize the scientific management to make it more acceptable Advised that managers bonuses should be tied to increases in the workers productivity Motion study by Frank Gilbreth : his main contribution was to refine the techniques for measuring work , Gilbreth developed motion study , in including job simplification . He developed a standard time for each job element combining time study with motion study . Time and motion studies : measurement and recording techniques which attempt to make operations more efficient

Traditional work design

Criticisms of Gilbreths Work : Not necessarily good to standardize everything Consider human element in work Motion study can be frustrating Skill is required for some therblig movements Too many variables to establish one best way Fordism : is an approach Named after the us automobile pioneer Henry Ford , where he States that production efficiency is dependent on successful assembly-line methods and breaking the work into small de-skilled tasks. Whereas Taylorism seeks machine and worker efficiency, Fordism seeks to combine them as one unit, and emphasizes minimization of costs instead of maximization of profit Deskilling is the process by which skilled labor within an industry or economy is eliminated by the introduction of technologies operated by semiskilled or unskilled workers

Deskilling debate
Deskilling debate : Has generated the greatest amount of research and literature , it has created its own sub-field in sociology , and the debate has mostly occurred between the deskilling agnostics and sympathizers McDonaldization : is a term used by sociologist George Ritzer in his book The McDonaldization of Society (1993). He explains it as the method in which a culture takes on the characteristics of a fast-food facility. McDonaldization is a reconceptualization of rationalization
Ritzer highlighted four primary components of McDonaldization: Efficiency ( high speed of manufacturing and service) Calculability (high value and minimum waste) Predictability ( of product or service irrespective of time or location) Control ( staff perform a limited range of tasks)