Employee Relations and Motivation

1
Employee Relations and Motivation

• The Machine Metaphor of Organization Scientific
  Management and Bureaucracy

2
Employee Relations and Motivation

• Integrative Framework I Two Models of
  Organization and their Implications for Theory
  and Practice

3
The Machine Metaphor of Organization

• Efficient organizations operate like clockwork
• Pervasive Philosophy
• Routinized, efficient, reliable machines
• Humans must be made to fit the machine
• Characterised by 2 main types of organization
• Bureaucracies
• Organizations based on Taylors Scientific
  Management (often but not always manufacturing
  industry)

4
The Machine Metaphor of Organization

• Dominant View of Human Nature Theory X
  (McGregor, 1960) Ordinary people are inherently
• Lazy, self-centred, lacking in ambition/willingnes
  s to take responsibility, passive and conformist,
  resistant to change, gullible and not very
  bright, motivated by sticks and carrots
• Managers must therefore
• Organize, direct, persuade, punish, reward and
  control workers to meet the needs of the
  organization
• Consequence or cause of industrial practices???

5
Some History

• Nothing new?
• Use of machines to make labour easier ancient
  Egyptians, Roman engineers
• Organizing large workforces ditto Egyptians,
  ancient Chinese, Stonehenge!
• Bureaucracies Romans armies and civil
  administration, Medieval Church
• Factories/Mass Production Romans again eg
  pottery works
• But...
• Before Industrial Revolution most manufacturing
  activity was Home based, involved family groups,
  often self-employed, small scale, highly skilled,
  often part-time/intermittent

6
Industrial Revolution

• Large expensive machinery and plant Return on
  investment
• Water/Steam power/mass production methods
  concentrated work in factories, required large
  labour force close to plant
• Work involved long hours, repetitive jobs,
  division of labour (much use women and children)
• But...
• Before 20th Century many jobs were still highly
  skilled and craftsmen worked at own pace
• Problems for employers how was labour to be
  organized and controlled?
• All change Taylorism and Scientific Management
  (time and motion studies) Fordism (moving
  assembly line)

7
Bureaucracy

• Original idea philanthropic means to regulate
  arbitrary power of owners over the workforce
• Weber Definition
• A form of organization which emphasizes
  precision, speed, clarity, regularity,
  reliability efficiency achieved through the
  creation of a fixed division of tasks,
  hierarchical supervision and detailed rules and
  regulations
• Hallmarks
• rational and quasi-legal system
• people derive authority from fixed roles in
  hierarchy
• roles and procedures clear what to do and how
• regulations curbed arbitrary exercise of power

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Bureaucracy

• Weber Criticisms
• Bureaucracy had the potential to routinize and
  mechanize every aspect of human life, eroding
  human spirit, capacity for creativity,
  flexibility and human action
• Leads to alienation and not my jobs worth
  attitudes
• Still a major problem! Public services
  accountability, bean counting, paperwork
  police spending 50 of time form filling!
• Does it stifle creativity and innovation?

9
Principles of Classical Management Theory (from
Morgan)

• Unity of command orders from 1 superior only
• Scalar chain line of authority from top to
  bottom, channel for communication and decision
  making
• Span of control not too large to hinder
  communication etc
• Staff line staff can advise but not violate
  line authority
• Initiative encouraged at all levels
• Division of work specialization to achieve goals
  efficiently
• Authority and responsibility power to give
  orders exact obedience
• Centralization (of authority) top-down varies
• Discipline obedience, application etc adherence
  to rules
• Subordination of individual to general interest
• Equity fair treatment
• Stability of tenure of personnel
• Esprit de corps harmony as basis of strength

10
Scientific Management

• Grew out of Classical Management Theory (dating
  back to Frederick the Greats Prussian army)
• Still permeates management practices eg
  Management by Objectives has strong element of
  mechanistic management
• Top Management controls organization by setting
  goals those lower down achieve performance
  targets
• (Depends on degree of control at each tier of the
  hierarchy and discretion to achieve goals)
• Compare eg. targets in NHS, national literacy
  standards, participation in HE control begets
  more!
• Stipulating goals but not means US Space
  programme

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Taylors Five Principles of Scientific Management

• 1. Shift all responsibility for the organization
  of work from the worker to the manager managers
  should do all the thinking relating to the
  planning and design of work, leaving workers with
  the task of implementation
• 2. Use scientific methods to determine the most
  efficient way of doing work design the workers
  task accordingly specify the precise way in
  which work is to be done
• 3. Select the best person to do work thus
  designed
• 4. Train worker to do it efficiently
• 5. Monitor worker performance to ensure
  procedures are followed and targets are met

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Time and Motion Studies

• Standardize work activities to achieve maximum
  efficiency, effort and time
• Eg. Schmidt (pig iron handler) see video
• Production increased 280 (12.5 to 47.5 tons per
  day)
• Time and motion observing analysing tasks
  into simplest components and working out most
  efficient way to perform them
• So worker forced to behave like a machine in very
  precise and regular ways
• Tasks split to simplest components become
  deskilled, routinized and monotonous
• People thought to be motivated by extrinsic
  rewards pay and fear of sack

13
Fordism Completed Mass Production Revolution

• Henry Ford huge boost by invention of moving
  assembly line
• Complete control of organization and pace of work
• Control over workforce achieved by
• Management setting speed of line
• Stick and carrot motivators no Trades Unions
  so threat of job loss high wages perks eg buy
  your own car schemes Easy to replace unskilled
  workers
• Huge increase in productivity achieved at human
  cost
• But.. Created affluent Western consumer
  societies great increases in standards of living
• See video On the Line

14
Resistance to Extinction (Taylor, 1998 Wall
Martin, 1994 Wright Lund, 1996)

• Strengths reliable consistent products at low
  cost high productivity and profitability
• Despite worker empowerment, smarter automation
  and autonomous work groups principles remain
  (increasingly overseas)
• Wright Lund (1996) Computerised Taylorism)
  introduction of new engineering standard systems
• Adler colleagues (1993, 1998) Democratic
  Taylorism worker participation in job analysis
  for new systems of performance measurement
• More subtle control hearts and minds of HRM
  but also coercive control eg call centres fast
  food
• Warhurst Thompson (1998) Mabey et al (1998)
  Herriot (2001) for references

15
Management Strategies Based on Machine Metaphor

• Motivators salary and perks the privilege of
  having a job performance related pay
  reinforcement theories but extrinsic reward
  systems often backfire because they reward the
  wrong things and punish the right things
• See Kerr (1974) The folly of rewarding A whilst
  hoping for B Komaki et al in Steers, Porter
  Bigley (1996)
• Leadership Style Transactional (traditional
  management
• Dealing with the given planning, organizing,
  staffing, budgeting, problem solving, creating
  procedures and systems for maintaining order and
  predictability Doing things right (Guest 1996)

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Management Strategies Based on Machine Metaphor

• Alimo-Metcalfe (1997) Transactional Leadership
  limited to managers ability to provide a quid
  pro quo reward or negative feedback to a follower
  who responds to his or her instructions or agreed
  objectives
• Design of Work machine minders (increasing
  automation) deskilling (eg. call centres)
  increasing use of shiftwork Total Quality
  Management targets, audits, governance
• All strategies have at their core
• People can be shaped to become part of the
  machinery of the organization
• Is this a bad thing???

17
Employee Relations and Motivation

• The Organic Metaphor of Organization Open
  Systems Theory

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The Organic Metaphor of Organization

• Origins Von Bertalanffy (1950) a biologist
• Living organisms are seen as a collection of
  parts interacting and functioning as a harmonious
  whole in a continuous process of exchange and
  interaction with the environment
• Living organisms are thus complex open systems
• Ideas explicitly applied to organizations by Katz
  Khan (1978)
• But ideas had been developing throughout 1950s,
  60s 70s

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The Organic Metaphor of Organization

• Organizations as Complex Open Systems
• Organizations can be thought of as being complex
  systems like
• biological organisms such as the human body,
  made up of
• thousands of interacting parts which take
  inputs from the
• environment, transform them in some way and
  produce outputs
• back into the environment. Since the parts are
  interdependent,
• changes in one part can have profound and
  unpredictable effects
• on the other parts of the network.The system
  must adapt to the
• demands of its external environment but at the
  same time it must
• preserve its internal stability whilst engaging
  in constant change.
• Complex systems can be analysed at many levels
  from the total
• organism within its environment to the workings
  of an individual
• cell. Similarly, understanding a work
  organization and peoples
• behaviour within it can range from the analysis
  of the historical,
• political, economic and cultural environment in
  which it operates,
• through the social interactions within work
  groups to the goals,
• aspirations and abilities of individual workers.

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Dominant Philosophy of Human Nature

• Theory Y (McGregor, 1960)
• People are not by nature passive, lazy etc but
  they become so because of experience of
  organizational life
• People naturally want
• Challenge, development, achievement and
  recognition and will work hard to get these in
  the right conditions
• People can learn to want
• Responsibility self direction commitment to
  organizational goals
• People are
• Naturally motivated to work for goals that they
  value (including organizational goals)
  intelligent and capable of imagination and
  innovation in solving organizational problems
• Management must align individual and
  organizational goals

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Sources of Organizational Complexity (Schein,
1988)

• Boundaries
• Where does a large company end and its community
  begin?
• What is the relevant environment Society in
  general, all companies in the same market,
  economic and political system, global economy???
• Need to specify environmental origin of forces
  which act on organizations
• Stakeholders suppliers, customers, publics,
  shareholders

22
Sources of Organizational Complexity (Schein,
1988)

• Multiple Purposes and Functions
• Primary product or service for profit public
  service
• Secondary eg security and meaning for a
  community via jobs consumers for local
  businesses
• Equals conflicting demands Eg. HE manifest
  functions such as teaching and research vs latent
  functions eg. sorting talent for society,
  promoting social cohesion and inclusiveness,
  providing local employment, contributing to local
  national economy, what else???

23
Sources of Organizational Complexity (Schein,
1988)

• Representatives of External Environment
• Employees are members of society, community,
  other groups eg. professional bodies, unions,
  consumer, religious and family groups
• Multiple roles
• Bring demands, expectations, cultural norms etc
  that can conflict with organizational norms
• Partial involvement of workforce
• Coalitions, factions, interest groups,
  sub-cultures within organizations

24
Sources of Organizational Complexity (Schein,
1988)

• Rapid Environmental Change
• Technology
• Economic sector
• Socio-political
• Cultural values
• Turbulent
• Requires different capacity to respond need to
  be proactive not reactive
• Result mechanistic organization ordered
  hierarchy of roles etc seen as too simplistic
• More complex theories of organization needed to
  explain what researchers and practitioners
  actually find in organizations

25
Characteristics of Open Systems (Katz Khan,
1978)

• Importation of energy, throughput and output
  (often involves knowledge in contemporary work)
• Negative entropy constant change to avoid
• Negative feedback correcting for errors
• Dynamic equilibrium adaptation and stability
• Differentiation enough internal complexity to
  cope with external complexity
• Integration and Co-ordination harmoniously
  functioning whole
• Equifinality no-one can predict the final
  outcome(s)

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Open Systems Theory Applied to Work
Organizations History

• Von Betalanffy (1950)
• Homans (1950) organizations exist in a 3 part
  mutually dependent environment
• Physical
• Cultural
• Technological
• Environment specifies activities interactions
  that engender feelings and sentiments. Changes
  in any one of these produces changes in the other
  two
• New sentiments, norms and activities, not
  necessarily specified by external environment,
  leads to development of an informal system within
  the official, formal system

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Open Systems Theory Applied to Work
Organizations History

• Talcott Parsons (1960s)
• Social systems have 4 basic needs
• Adaptation, Goal Attainment, Integration, Pattern
  Maintenance
• Khan et al (1964)
• Organizations composed of overlapping role sets
• Role overload, role ambiguity, role conflict
  related to stress and job dissatisfaction
• Cyert March (1963)
• Organizations composed of coalitions
  organizational life a process of negotiation,
  bargaining power play between shifting
  coalitions in accordance with environmental
  demands

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Open Systems Theory Applied to Work
Organizations History

• Scott (1987)
• Defines an open system organization as
• a coalition of shifting interest groups which
  develop goals through negotiation. The structure
  of coalitions, their activities and outcomes are
  strongly influenced by environmental factors
• Openness is not an absolute value but is
  determined by the extent of its transactions with
  the environment

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Open Systems Theory Applied to Work
Organizations History
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Open Systems Theory Applied to Work
Organizations History

• Tavistock Institute (Rice, 1963 Trist, 1963)
• Socio-technical systems
• All organizations are composed of a social system
  the people and a technical system machines
  etc
• These 2 systems need to be in harmony and the
  technical system must meet the needs of people
• Important ideas
• system imports information from the environment
• Partial involvement of the workforce emphasized
• Led to shop floor democracy autonomous work
  groups

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Management Strategies Based on Organic Metaphor

• Motivators
• social factors, needs satisfaction, self
  actualization
• Work as its own reward
• People want challenge, autonomy, interest
  recognition in their work
• Leadership Style Transformational Leadership
• Creating the conditions for adaptive change to
  meet the demands of an uncertain and turbulent
  environment doing the right things (Guest,
  1996)
• Manager as female??? Connectedness, co-operation,
  teamwork, mutual support Manager as facilitator
  and servant!

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Management Strategies Based on Organic Metaphor

• Design of Work Job enrichment, autonomy and
  responsibility, Self-directed (autonomous teams),
  worker participation and control, socio-technical
  systems harmony
• Dominant Theme
• People work best when their physical,
  psychological and social needs are met work and
  work organizations must be designed to fit people
  rather than vice versa

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But...

• Have these 2 traditions merged? Do employers
  want it all compliant, obedient workforces
  plus intelligent, innovative, committed,
  self-starters?
• Hard HRM treats the workforce like the plant
  and machinery commodities to be deployed
  efficiently
• Soft HRM employees deserve respect, care and
  development
• What about hearts and minds so workers control
  themselves? (Thought police attempts to
  control attitudes as well as behaviour?)
• Does rhetoric of empowerment job satisfaction
  really mean more work, more responsibility and
  more stress for no more reward?