TAYLORISM AND THE “HRM”

Taylorism and the “HRM”

Taylorism and the “HRM” approach

Introduction

Human resource management (HRM) has been one of the most popular management concepts of the 1990s; evidenced now by the proliferation of texts bearing the title and the number of university and management training courses on the subject. However, equality and diversity issues are often absent from the debate, where the theory, policy and practice of HRM tend to assume the 'generic' universal employee (Osterman, 2006). This gap is significant because, first, the human resource function is most likely to hold the main responsibility for the people planning within an organization and thus for policies and procedures concerning equality and diversity issues. There are interesting debates about the extent to which the human resource function can be the main driver of progressive change regarding equality issues (Clarke, 2002).

Discussion

Since the end of the 19th century, when factory manufacturing became widespread and the size of organisations increased, people have been looking for ways to motivate employees and improve productivity. Classical schools of management thought was built up at that time by Frederick.W.Taylor. After that, management became a ture science. However, in 1930s, pactical problems caused by Taylorism led to its replacement by the human relations school of thought. In this stage, theory built up with the diffusing of labour movement in capitalism countries.

This essay will focus on two of the earliest management approaches of Taylorism (scientific management ) and the HRM. First the writer would like to compare and contrast of the two theories. This is followed by the central tenets of both models and finally giving examples of how they are still applied in contemporary societyCompare and Contrast Management articles usually consider Mayo as the founder of the Haman Relations Movement. It is true, but is kind of thought looks like human relations and Taylorism are opposed. In writers opinion, human relations did not replace Taylorism but that both approaches are rather complementary: Taylorism determining the actual organisation of the work process and human relations helping to adapt the workers to the new procedures.(Osterman, 2006)

Compare And Contrast

Now we compare and contrast this two apporaches in several different angles.Comparison:First of all, Taylorism and HRM had similar goal. They looking for ways to motivate workers to increase efficiency. In order to achieve this goal they try to identify workers needs, which would then allow managers to "manipulate or influence these needs, making it easier for employees to improve their performance" .(Taylor.1997)Basically, two apporaches are try to use diffierent methods to achieve the same thing.

Besides, this two theories are similar in its transactional approach to motivate workers with an incentive, but not through the actual tasks on the job. Each model focuses on one type of human needs, either economic or social ones, and its satisfaction. However, the implementation of financial incentives emphasized by Taylor does not contradict the satisfaction of employee's social needs highlighted by the Human Relations School. Both models therefore rather complement one another than compete against each ...