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There are also serious drawbacks to highly divided jobs:
Chapter 9 People, jobs and organization 243
Monotony. The shorter the task, the more often operators will need to repeat it. Repeating
the same task, for example every 30 seconds, eight hours a day and five days a week, can
hardly be called a fulfilling job. As well as any ethical objections, there are other, more
obviously practical objections to jobs which induce such boredom. These include the
increased likelihood of absenteeism and staff turnover, the increased likelihood of error
and even the deliberate sabotage of the job.
Physical injury. The continued repetition of a very narrow range of movements can, in
extreme cases, lead to physical injury. The over-use of some parts of the body (especially
the arms, hands and wrists) can result in pain and a reduction in physical capability. This
is sometimes called repetitive strain injury (RSI).
Low flexibility. Dividing a task up into many small parts often gives the job design a
rigidity which is difficult to change under changing circumstances. For example, if an
assembly line has been designed to make one particular product but then has to change to
manufacture a quite different product, the whole line will need redesigning. This will
probably involve changing every operator’s set of tasks, which can be a long and difficult
procedure.
Poor robustness. Highly divided jobs imply materials (or information) passing between
several stages. If one of these stages is not working correctly, for example because some
equipment is faulty, the whole operation is affected. On the other hand, if each person is
performing the whole of the job, any problems will only affect that one person’s output.
Scientific management
Taylorism
Method study
Work measurement
Work study
Designing job methods – scientific management
The term scientific management became established in 1911 with the publication of the
book of the same name by Fredrick Taylor (this whole approach to job design is sometimes
referred to, pejoratively, as Taylorism). In this work he identified what he saw as the basic
tenets of scientific management: 6
● All aspects of work should be investigated on a scientific basis to establish the laws, rules
and formulae governing the best methods of working.
● Such an investigative approach to the study of work is necessary to establish what constitutes
a ‘fair day’s work’.
● Workers should be selected, trained and developed methodically to perform their tasks.
● Managers should act as the planners of the work (analysing jobs and standardizing the
best method of doing the job) while workers should be responsible for carrying out the
jobs to the standards laid down.
● Cooperation should be achieved between management and workers based on the
‘maximum prosperity’ of both.
The important thing to remember about scientific management is that it is not particularly
‘scientific’ as such, although it certainly does take an ‘investigative’ approach to improving
operations. Perhaps a better term for it would be ‘systematic management’. It gave birth to
two separate, but related, fields of study, method study, which determines the methods and
activities to be included in jobs, and work measurement, which is concerned with measuring
the time that should be taken for performing jobs. Together, these two fields are often
referred to as work study and are explained in detail in the supplement to this chapter.
Critical commentary
Even in 1915, criticisms of the scientific management approach were being voiced. 8 In a
submission to the United States Commission on Industrial Relations, scientific management
is described as:
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