Managers use
various techniques, methods and principles to manage the human resources in
organization. The important management theories can be classified as:
- Scientific school of management- Taylor, Gantt, Gilbreth
- Classical school of management- Weber, Fayol, Follett, Barnard
Scientific
school of management
This approach scientifically determines the best ways
to manage human resources and productivity of individuals in an organization.
Basic ideas in scientific management are:
- Developing new procedures to execute the tasks
- Creating co-ordination between management and employees
- Dividing the work in equal shares to each team
- Using a universal selecting, training and developing programs throughout the organization.
Frederick Taylor’s-
Taylor is the
father of scientific management, he proposed management theory based on
personal experience at steel plant. The important aspects in Taylor’s theory are:
- More productivity- By using appropriate methods and tools, the task can be executed at less time with less number of workers.
- Incentive system- Employees who meet the goals effectively must be awarded with good amount of incentives.
- User-friendly relation- Management and labour must be communicated well to execute the tasks so a user-friendly environment must be created.
Henry Lawrence
Gantt - In support to Taylor’s
theory, Gantt developed a chart to plan or schedule day to day work. How much
of work is done at each stage of production can be determined very easily
through this graph. This chart was named as Gantt and it is being used by
various organizations in scheduling the tasks and projects.
Frank and Lillian
Gilbreth- A time-and-motion study was introduced by Gilbreth based on working
speeds of employees. Frank observed that while performing a task in teams, some
employees are productive where as some employees are inefficient and very slow
at work. Based on this, he removed useless motions to improve performance. This
study promotes the individual workers in an organization. Social and psychological problems of workers were also considered in
Gilbreth’s management theory.
Classical School of management
The
flow of information in an organization can be understood from these classical
management theories.
Max Weber- According
to Weber’s theory an organization should not be managed by a single personal,
particular organizational structure and rules must be used to manage an
organization effectively. Weber called the ideal organizations as bureaucracy;
some of the characteristics of it are well-defined hierarchy, division of
labour based on skills, maintaining complete records and specifying rules and
regulations.
Henri Fayol- Fayol
proposed 14 different management principles; those can be used as guidelines
for organizing and managing human resources. These principles are widely used
by modern-day managers.
Mary Parker
Follett- Setting common goals and objective for all the employees is the main
aspect in Follett’s theory. Today most of the managers are using the concepts specified
in Follett’s theory, for example, employee opinions and views must be
considered while making important decisions.
Chester Barnard-
The idea of ‘informal organization’ was first introduced by Barnard; this idea
helps in creating effective communication all over the organization and
improves the coordination among employees. According to
him success of any organization depends on cooperation of its employees.
Thus both classical and scientific
management theories help today’s managers in handling human resources or
workforce in their own way. Scientific and classical management theories differ
from each other in some aspects; all the scientific management theories concentrate
on productivity of individuals where as classical management theories focuses
on the total organization.
