Taylor’s Scientific Management: Turning Men into Machines or an Innovation to Improve Life?

Industrialization and Taylor’s scientific management are often criticized for mechanizing workers, but in fact, Taylor’s theory aimed to improve the quality of life for workers by increasing labor efficiency. In this article, we’ll revisit how his principles can be applied in the modern world and suggest a more human-centered approach to management.

 

When asked what they think of industrialization, many people think of the relationship between machines and humans in the movie Modern Times. Charlie Chaplin’s 1936 film is a brilliant satire of industrialization, and there’s a memorable scene in which Chaplin works on a production line. He holds a tool in each hand as he tightens the bolts of an accessory on a conveyor. As the conveyor speeds up, Chaplin tries to keep up with it with all his might, but ends up getting stuck in the cogs, which makes for a comical scene. In this way, many believe that workers have been victimized by technological advances, and Taylor’s scientific management theory is at the heart of this criticism. Taylor’s view of workers as machines who would work until they were exhausted if they were paid well enough is said to have led to workers becoming machines instead of enjoying their lives.
However, this criticism is based on a partial understanding of Taylor’s scientific management theory. In fact, Taylor’s theory is not about treating workers like machines, but rather about maximizing the efficiency of labor to improve the quality of their lives. Taylor studied various ways to reduce worker fatigue and make their working environment more comfortable. In this sense, his scientific management theory was not just about productivity, but about finding a win-win situation for both workers and management.
Taylor’s theory of scientific management is a new rational and streamlined management technique that criticized the old, fist-in-the-air way of managing companies, and four principles are at the core of scientific management.
First, they develop a science for each element of a worker’s work, replacing the old manual methods.
Second, they select and train workers scientifically, developing each worker to the highest level in his or her field of work.
Third, they sincerely cooperate with the workers to ensure that all work is done in accordance with the principles of the “science” they have developed.
Fourth, there is a nearly equal distribution of work and responsibility between labor and management.
As anyone who has looked closely at the above four principles will have noticed, the first “they” to uphold his four principles is management, not labor. In the past, work performance and responsibility was largely left to the workers, with management simply using a carrot-and-stick approach to encourage them. Taylor, on the other hand, calls for management to work toward the goal of getting workers to perform at their best and get maximum satisfaction with minimum time and effort. By determining what workload is fair to both management and workers, taking into account fatigue, and systematically training workers in efficient movements and tools, their performance will improve and the company will be more productive. Of course, it is a prerequisite that workers are guaranteed a wage increase when they become more productive. This is in line with the third principle.
In this context, the claim that Taylor’s theory is about treating people like machines may be too harsh a criticism. Rather, his theory should be seen as an effort to make human labor more efficient and more human. His goal was to maximize human capabilities while eliminating unnecessary waste and inefficiency in the process. This was not simply about increasing the intensity of labor, but about making it less tiring and safer for workers to work.
Still, some people might ask, “How is quantifying work any different than viewing humans as machines?” In the principles of scientific management, it is not the mechanism itself that is important, but the philosophy of scientific management. This philosophy is about finding ways to make workers, managers, and society as a whole happy. According to the four principles, the creation of institutions such as time studies, work orders, and bonus programs is only a means to an end. If you rush to change to a better way of doing things because you think it’s better, you’re likely to be resented by your workers and end up doing more harm than good. If you gradually train them to change their work and lead them to better ways of doing things, taking into account their perceptions, you will be able to improve their work and make them sincerely cooperate with management.
Taylor’s scientific management theory is not a universal solution that can be applied to all situations. In the modern world, the forms of labor are diversifying, and Taylor’s principles need to be reinterpreted in a modern way. Especially in areas where knowledge labor or creativity is important, his management principles may have limited application. Therefore, rather than blindly following Taylor’s theory, it is important to adapt it to modern conditions.
One problem with Taylor’s scientific management theory is that it is too individualized. In his book, he argues that “group work de-motivates individuals,” and advocates for working as privately as possible. But humans are social animals, and working in teams can create synergies. And since most social systems, including today’s factories, involve teams rather than individuals, scientific management can be applied to group work.
When working in groups, scientific methods can suggest creating systems for teamwork and creating learning organizations to manage teams. This is especially necessary in safety-critical areas, for example, imagine an operating room with doctors from different disciplines working to save a patient. Each of them will try to save the patient with the best manual they have been given. If an accident occurs due to a lack of communication, even though each of them has the best skills, this will lead to a decrease in ‘productivity’. Therefore, according to the principles of scientific management, the entire team can work together to create scientific alternatives to deal with emergencies in the form of multiple studies and simulations.
Secondly, we need a system that can manage the created organization well. We only need to look at the Sewol ferry sinking in South Korea a few years ago to see the need for an overarching management system. Design a learning organization to remember what went wrong and organize it precisely by someone who knows the technology so that teams can share information and pursue the same goals, and ensure that security is maintained and discipline is not imposed for collaboration between the organization’s leaders and team members, and you will have a great organization.
In this article, we’ve discussed Taylor’s theory of scientific management and proposed a collective scientific management method that is not described in his theory. If we understand what Taylor was trying to say, engineering is never about mechanizing humans to their detriment. In order to be “warm” engineering in the future, it will need to study how to make work that humans can do for a better and safer society. In this process, it will be important to find new scientific management methods that respect the rights and humanity of workers.
Today, we are in the midst of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which presents challenges and opportunities that are very different from those of Taylor’s time. In the midst of these changes, we need to consider how to reinterpret and apply Taylor’s scientific management theory. With the introduction of automation and artificial intelligence, the forms of labor are becoming more diverse and the roles of humans are shifting to more creative and complex areas. We will need to adapt Taylor’s principles to the modern context and develop new ways of managing that are more human-centered.