Approaches Of Management

Scientific Management

Question:

Discuss about the Scientific Management for Planning and Organizing.

Management is the activity of managing the things or activities conducted in an organization. Management is the act of supervision and includes planning, organizing, staffing, direction & control in a business in order to achieve goals (Morden, 2017). BOD (Board of Directors) have important role in the management. In this assignment we are going to discuss four approaches of management. First is scientific management. This method focuses on using scientific approach in each and every activity of organization that how work should be done, also match work according to the special skill of workers. Second is job enrichment, in this responsibility of employees is increased by assigning them some work of higher authority, which improves their position & gives employee a greater satisfaction. In the third approach that is Japanese management concentrates on team work or collectivism. Finally in the fourth approach re-engineering, process of business is redesigned.

The idea of scientific management was given by Frederick Winslow Taylor. He was the first to bring in notice to work scientifically and defined the way work should be done. He suggested that managers should measure productivity scientifically and set high level of records for workers to achieve (Cohen, 2013). Managers should cooperate with workers. Scientific managers focused supervisors to walk around with stop watches and note pads carrying out time & motion studies on workers in various department of the organization (Trujillo, 2014). It is the piece rate system in which workers are paid for the work done not for their time. It simplifies the job and increases efficiency & productivity. Selection of the people who are right and efficient can be done by following this process and such people should be hired in future. It focuses on the lower level of management and the relationship among nature of work and workers (Jeacle & Parker, 2013). Scientific Management leads to specialization, technical competence & organizational efficiency.

Principles of scientific management:

1. Replace rule of thumb by scientific approach to get efficient management: Rule of thumb is basically guideline that is given on a particular subject or topic to accomplish a task. It develops by practice and experience by an employee whereas scientific management is knowing already what to do exactly and knowing this goals can be achieved easily.
2. Assign work to the workers in which they have specialized skills: Scientific management focuses on the specialization. The persons who are specialized in a particular process brings more efficiency to the organization.
3. Monitor task of workers, check the way they perform the activity and supervise them: Managers assign the task to employees & check the way they perform initially and according to that they assign the work further and supervise them (Waring, 2016).
4. Divide work between top level and low level of management so that managers can plan work to be done scientifically: Managers divide the task between top and low level management as managers are already known to scientific management which can bring specialization to lower level (Vance, et. al.,2014).

Job enrichment is the common motivational technique in which management motivates employees by giving them some extra work which was reserved for managers (Adeyemo, Sehoole & Cueno, 2015). Job enrichment makes work more interesting and challenging. It reduces repetition of work. It provides opportunity for employees’ growth, achievement, advancement and recognition of employees. It gives satisfaction to employees and satisfied employees are more productive & loyal towards organization (Saleem, 2012). Employees found themselves a level higher, also it reduces boredom. It is a medium through which employees learn new things and creates a better work for environment.

Job Enrichment

Components of job enrichment:

1. Social needs: Social needs can be appreciation, intimacy, acceptance, love, friendship, relationship, companionship and belonging. Social needs are essential for growth & development. If a person’s social needs are fulfilled then that person can save himself from depression, anxiety and loneliness (Dastranj & Helali, 2016). A person feels encouraged when he or she is in good relationship with friends & relatives. Problems of employees can be solved by interacting and supporting them, which helps them to contribute their efforts towards growth of organization.
2. Achievement: Achievement is a motivator that an employee develops. Achievement can be something such as completing a project, reaching goal, achieving targets. It improves performance and increases productivity. Achievement leads to employee recognition. Once a person gets desired results then he is more focused on the work from which he achieves something. Achievement gives financial reward to employees in the form of bonus, incentive and gifts.
3. Recognition: Recognition is the acknowledgement of an individual’s efforts towards the growth of an organization. Employee recognition is important as it enhances employees’ loyalty, builds up morale, increases motivation & let them know that their work is valued and they are important to organization. Some activities can be conducted for employees recognition such as leadership rewards, personal note to the employees, praise by top level management for the contribution of employees, gift them as a sign of appreciation, mention their achievements at notice board.
4. Responsibility: When employees understand what other members of the organization expect of them, then it is much easy to understand their rights & responsibilities towards organization. Responsibilities of an employee towards organization are to be punctual, loyal, treat customers as he is the owner of business, ensure safety and security of clients, and follow instructions of employer carefully. Employer’s responsibility is reporting to employees, ensure employees health and safety at work place, welfare of employees, guidelines, training and supervision and provide them instructions.

The Japanese management approach was derived in japan in 1988. To see the success of companies in japan, many other countries also have opted this concept. This method is based on living style & working conditions of japan. This concept stresses on improvement in quality and reduction of waste. The Japanese companies provide the best working conditions with best salary packages (Danford, 2013). But the job in these Japanese companies is a dream which is limited to the men and women who are graduated from top thirty colleges & universities in japan. The students who don’t get admission in these colleges and universities have no chance to work in these companies. So they have to work in small and medium size enterprises.  The key features of Japanese management are:

1. Practice of permanent employment: Employees are hired on the basis of their intelligence and educational background not on the basis on their specialization & skills (Wakabayashi & Yamada, 2017). These employees are hired directly from colleges and trained for six months to one year. After a few years of practicing in an organization, employees know each and every aspect of the company. If the employees survive for initial six months then they are expected to survive for their whole life in that organization only. This is productive to an organization.
2. System of promotion and reward: Seniors have the better condition in the organization compared to the younger ones. Youngers accept this fact because they know that their condition will also be better in the future once they are experienced (Fried, et. al., 2014). So, seniority is given more importance in the organization and they will have more rewards and better promotions. Rewards are given in the form of tangible and intangible benefits such as low cost of loans, vacations and more.
3. Decision making process: Employees have fully involvement in decision making process. Top level management has important role in the decision making process.  Seniors understand each and every facet of organization, so they can take decisions appropriately. Youngers are kept away in decision making process.
4. High salary packages: Companies who are following Japanese management are in better working conditions. Japanese management companies provide excellent salaries and permanent employment. These companies provide all the elite facilities, which increase their contribution towards the company. It is the dream of everyone to work in such company. Once the employees are satisfied towards company it will impart to company’s progress.
5. Employment welfare: Employment welfare is the main element of Japanese management. It is done by providing health care facilities, low rent homes, vacations, low cost of loans, medical facilities, holidays and more (Haghirian, 2016). Increment in salary and promotions are given every year based on their work. Welfare’s main purpose is to bring change and remove stress in the organization.
6. Training: Training is given on time to ensure an employee meets the requirement of job easily. Management trainees who are recruited directly from colleges & universities have to complete a six month probation period and are trained in the company way. Research & Development activities are also conducted for the improvement of organization.

Re-engineering approach also known as Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) is re-design of business processes to achieve improvements in productivity and quality. The concept of BPR was first introduced in 1990.BPR is the activity to rethink and redesign the processes that how work should be done which helps to reduce costs and achieve organizational goals (Abu Naser & Al Shobaki, 2016). By concentrating on the ground up design of the business process BPR can restructure the organization & for concentrating on the design we are supposed to follow some principles of re-engineering:

1. Build-up leadership: Leadership is the most important principle of Business process re-engineering. A leader always lead and is followed by his followers. Qualities of a leader are honesty, confidence, creativity, positive attitude, responsible, sense of humor, ability to inspire and managing failure.
2. Process orientation: Identify all the processes of organization and prioritize them according to urgency. Organize around outcomes, users of output must perform the task. Those who perform the process must use the output.
3. Define customer needs: BPR is used mainly to increase customers. This is the reason a business keep on redefining the process to meet customer requirements.
4. Capture information: Information and knowledge are the sources that are aimed to achieve competitive advantage. Capture information once and at the source (Matthews, et. al., 2015).
5. Goal-oriented: A business should focus on the goals not on the task. If a business is not able to achieve the goals then the process is redesigned to achieve the goals.
6. Stress on value added activities: This principle states that value added activities should be identified and focus should be on these activities as it adds something to organization. Non value added activities should be eliminated as it is time wastage plus resource wastage to an organization. Techniques such as ABC Analysis realizes the value focus principle.

After knowing the principles of BPR, it is easy to attempt the process. Business process re-engineering is also called business process redesign, business process transformation. Steps involved in re-engineering process are:

1. Refocus on customer needs.
2. Put together a team of experts.
3. Recognize all processes in an organization and redesign them if needed.
4. Use information technology to improve performance and cut cost (Doumeingts & Browne, 2016).
5. Recognize issues related with organization.
6. Improve business process of whole organization. 

An organization opts for re-engineering when it needs to be fast. After knowing the process of re-engineering, we need to concentrate mainly on these two points:

Focus on leadership: An organization functions more effectively when the leaders are appointed. Characteristics of leadership include hardworking, competence, patience, involvement & goal oriented. Leaders motivate employees to redesign the organization by using information technology. Leaders bring realization to employees that their efforts can contribute to organizational goals and can manage performance. Persons who are leading involve in the process of redesigning the process conducted in an organization. Successful and unsuccessful BPR depends on the competitive advantage of leadership. Successful BPR leaders use leadership style that fits into the type of task to be performed. This is the reason leadership is the reason for the high rate of success and failure of BPR projects.

Focus on customer: BPR activities ultimately lead to increasing the number of customers and users. Customer satisfaction is the ultimately aim of BPR. Process is redesigned to response customer needs. The process of re-engineering is to make organizations more effective, flexible and efficient for their customers. Value added systems are also recognized to satisfy and prioritize them. Value added systems are used to generate valuable output of value to the customer. It directly increases the profitability and efficiency of the organization.

Japanese Management

Conclusion

From this report, it has been concluded that organizations have become more efficient and productive after applying scientific techniques because scientific management leads to specialization. Employees become more responsible and loyal to the organization after applying job enrichment because repetition of work is reduced and position of employees is improved. After adopting Japanese management, companies started providing better work conditions with good salary packages and employee welfare is also given more importance. So, as a result employees started giving more contribution to the organization. Companies whose performance is not good have started re-designing the process of organization and as a result company gained competitive advantage. Information technology is also applied in the process. This shows that scientific management principles are important to the organization.

References

Abu Naser, S.S. and Al Shobaki, M.J., 2016. Enhancing the use of decision support systems for re-engineering of operations and business-applied study on the Palestinian universities.

Adeyemo, K.S., Sehoole, C. and Cueno, C.G., 2015. The use of the job enrichment technique for decision-making in higher education: The case of the Philippines. SA Journal of Human Resource Management, 13(1), pp.9-pages.

Cohen, Y., 2013. Scientific management and the production process. Science in the twentieth century (Amsterdam, 1997), pp.111-24.

Danford, A., 2013. Japanese management techniques and British workers. Routledge.

Dastranj, F. and Helali, F., 2016. Implementing" Job Enrichment" with using Ergonomic Checkpoints in an'Appreciative Way'at a Manufacturing Company in an Industrially Developing Country and its Meta-reflection. Journal of Ergonomics, 6(4).

Doumeingts, G. and Browne, J. eds., 2016. Modelling techniques for business process re-engineering and benchmarking. Springer.

Fried, Y., Laurence, G.I., Shirom, A., Melamed, S., Toker, S., Berliner, S. and Shapira, I., 2014. The Relationship Between Job Enrichment And Abdominal Obesity: A Longitudinal Field Study Of Apparently Healthy Individuals. Cardiology, 128, p.70.

Haghirian, P. ed., 2016. Routledge Handbook of Japanese Business and Management. Routledge.

Jeacle, I. and Parker, L., 2013. The ‘problem’of the office: Scientific management, governmentality and the strategy of efficiency. Business History, 55(7), pp.1074-1099.

Matthews, J., Love, P.E., Heinemann, S., Chandler, R., Rumsey, C. and Olatunj, O., 2015. Real time progress management: Re-engineering processes for cloud-based BIM in construction. Automation in Construction, 58, pp.38-47.

Morden, T., 2017. Principles of management. Routledge.

Saleem, S, 2012, “The Impact of Job Enrichment and Job Enlargement on Employee Satisfaction Keeping Employee Performance as Intervening Variable” , Kuwait Chapter of Arabian Journal of Business and Management Review.- 2012, Vol. 1, No.9, Pages 145-165.

Vance, E.D., Loehle, C., Wigley, T.B. and Weatherford, P., 2014. Scientific basis for sustainable management of Eucalyptus and Populus as short-rotation woody crops in the US. Forests, 5(5), pp.901-918.

Trujillo, T., 2014. The modern cult of efficiency: Intermediary organizations and the new scientific management. Educational Policy, 28(2), pp.207-232.

Wakabayashi, N. and Yamada, J.I., 2017. 8 Networks and management in the Japanese creative. Japanese Management in Evolution: New Directions, Breaks, and Emerging Practices, p.157.

Waring, S.P., 2016. Taylorism transformed: Scientific management theory since 1945. UNC Press Books.