Opravy

Frederic Taylor’s scientific method to management in its original form is hard to implement in nowadays work environment.

But in some areas, it still can be applied to increase the output of workforce effort.

For example, producing hand-made pottery, hairdressing, or cooking in the restaurant are mostly manual jobs.

Hence, their outcome can be measured, analyzed, and improved by changing the equipment, setting better lighting in the workplace, or cooking on the most optimal sequence.

Taylorism is difficult to apply in job positions like a software developer, social media marketing manager, designer, or sales representative where the end result of work is depended on task difficulty, creativity, other people, specific skills, and knowledge required for the job and experience.

The most common measurements used to manage a process that I’ve seen is time limitations or the number of clients or the amount of money that a worker should earn for the company in a certain amount of time.

From my own working experience when I worked for a short period of time as a sales representative, managers usually established a personal plan for each employee based on their previous work performance and hypotheses based on the analysis of data ( for example, annual increase and decrease of demand for their services).

Most of the time those measurements lead to the result especially in countries with low institutional collectivism and in companies when measured personal achievements instead of achievements of a group or team.

This measurement is motivational for the employee since everyone tries to overfulfill the plan and get an extra payment and easy to use for managers to determine the output and reach the company’s goals.

Sometimes the system might be not optimal.

For example, when managers underestimate the amount of work to be done and set unrealistic deadlines.

Or when managers set idealistic plans that could not be fulfilled and employee understands it from the very beginning.

In those cases, it’s only overwhelming employees and makes them less motivated.