D1 Taylor’s Scientific Theory
Frederick Taylor (1856 - 1915) was a key motivational theorist who developed Taylor’s scientific management theory. He believed that people are only motivated by money and in order to motivate employees to boost productivity, financial incentives must be used.
Taylor proposed that there is a set way to do each job. It is the role of managers to decide how each job should be conducted, recruit appropriate staff and use financial rewards to incentivise them. He believed that workers needed to be closely supervised to improve efficiency in production and that unsupervised workers were less productive.
Piece-Rate Pay
| Worker Name | Bricks Made in a Week | Piece Rate Per Brick (£) | Week's Wage (£) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bowser | 5000 | 0.05 | 250 |
| Tanooki | 6000 | 0.05 | 300 |
| Yoshi | 7000 | 0.05 | 350 |
| King Boo | 8000 | 0.05 | 400 |
| Birdo | 9000 | 0.05 | 450 |
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. Each employees wage is calculated using the formula;
Piece rate pay = units produced x rate per unit
For example, Barry’s Bricks make bricks to sell to building contractors. Barry pays each of his 5 workers £0.05 per brick they produce. See the table for the impact this makes on each worker’s pay.
Applications of Piece Rate Pay
Piece-rate pay can be used in industries where worker effort can be quantified. This may mean counting the number of tasks or units of work. Piece rate is normally used in situations where the work is repetitive in nature. Examples include fruit picking, garment making, smartphone construction or miles driven.
The benefits of piece rate are considered to be improvements to efficiency, increases to production, worker’s feeling compensated fairly for their work and easy for managers to calculate.
Criticisms of Taylor
Not all work can be broken down into ‘pieces’. In many careers, it is difficult to measure effort through a tangible output. Occupations, where the valued contributions of a worker involve knowledge or creativity, may not be measured in units. For example, a scientist may spend their entire career working on a solution to a problem before a measurable output is produced.
Quality of output may diminish in the attempt to produce more. Employees may rush their work to produce more. At Barry’s Bricks, Birdie produced 9000 bricks to Bowser’s 5000. However, he may have rushed the process leading to poor quality bricks.
He ignored non-financial methods of motivation. Subsequent studies into motivation have found that people are not just motivated by money and factors in the working environment or the job itself have a more significant impact on motivation.
Workers in developing countries can be exploited. Firms operating in countries where employment rights are less regulated have been found to offer piece rates that require people to work unhealthy hours to make a liveable wage.
Child labour may be encouraged as low-income families are pressured to produce more units of output. Parents may be forced to ask their children to support in producing more units of output.
Conflict may occur between members of staff where there are shared responsibilities that do not directly lead to output. An example at Barry’s Bricks may be Bowser cleaning up the storeroom. This may be one of the causes of him making fewer bricks.
It may discourage collaboration. In industries where workers are tasked with finding solutions to problems, discussion and collaboration can lead to faster and more effective decisions. Paying individuals for output may reduce their incentive to work with others.
