A1 Principles of Management
Taylor’s Scientific Theory - Taylor believed that people intrinsically avoid work and are only motivated by pay. He suggested that managers must closely supervise the work of employees. Taylor devised a payment system called piece-rate pay where workers are paid per ‘piece’ that they produce. Managers must work out what constitutes a piece and how they will measure individual output. Taylor believed that this will motivate employees to produce more output.
Arguments against Taylor are that not all work can be broken down into ‘pieces’ and in the attempt to produce more, the quality of output may be compromised.
Henri Fayol
Henri Fayol set out five key skills that good managers perform on a daily basis to get the most out of their teams. These are planning, organising, coordinating, commanding and controlling.
Planning involves setting goals for the future and deciding on the most appropriate course of action in order for those goals to be achieved. This may involve setting team and individual objectives, planning tasks to be completed and ensuring resources are in place for goals to be achieved.
Organising involves arranging staff, physical and financial resources in a way that most effectively achieves the team goals. This may involve developing strong worker relationships in under to understand the skills and competencies of individuals in a team in order to assign tasks.
Coordinating involves getting different functions of an organisation to work together to achieve common goals. The CEO of an organisation may oversee all departments of an organisation as they have a whole firm perspective but managers of individual functions also need to coordinate with other functions. For example, the marketing manager will need to ensure they have the financial resources for a marketing campaign or the operations manager will need to work with HR to recruit staff.
Controlling involves being aware of all of the tasks that need to be completed, the expected standards to which they are to be completed and how long each task should take. The controlling function requires managers to be aware of the activities of staff and who is underperforming and ensuring that they complete their part of the team responsibilities to ensure overall objectives are met.
Commanding involves setting individual tasks for employees to meet the overall team goals and ensuring they are able to perform their role. This may include demonstrating tasks and setting a good example.
