Frederick Taylor's Scientific Management: Benefits and Flaws

Introduction: The Complexity of Scientific Management

Most things in life resist simple categorization as purely good or purely bad. Would it not be easy if life were so straightforward? Such is the case with the theory of Scientific Management developed and implemented by Frederick Taylor at the turn of the 20th century. Although his approach to industrial engineering significantly increased productivity, it had its definite flaws — and those flaws deserve as much attention as his achievements.

American Industry After the Civil War

After the Civil War, American industry began to undergo considerable change. Instead of small factories and single proprietorships, large U.S. industries developed plants from local trades such as textiles, steel, glass, and clothing. Owners wanted to find ways of motivating their employees to enhance their companies' output. In most cases, the incentive bonuses they were using for this purpose proved ineffective.

Workers were normally paid by piece rates rather than daily or hourly wages, and those rates were based on expectations. If an owner found that certain work could be done better or faster by machine, piece rates were reduced — giving workers no reason to improve their performance. Taylor foresaw a future in which managers would acquire production knowledge and the resulting gains would be shared. In fact, productivity did soar and significant gains were made.

Taylor's Five Principles of Scientific Management

Taylor argued that incentive wages could not change the situation unless they were combined with employee responsibilities that were thoroughly planned and taught. He suggested that management should work cooperatively with workers (Freedman 26–38) in order to bring about organizational change (Wrege and Greenwood 270–272). He also contended that such cooperation would make trade unions unnecessary — a very radical notion for the time. He defined five specific goals:

1) Scientifically study every aspect of a task and determine the one best way of performing it; 2) Choose the best person to do the job; 3) Train, instruct, and develop the worker; 4) Provide financial incentives for following the prescribed methods; and 5) Divide roles and objectives so that managers are responsible for planning the work methods while workers are responsible for carrying them out.

The overarching goal, Taylor argued, was to find the right challenge for each employee and provide monetary rewards for improved productivity. For example, he introduced time studies to set daily production quotas: workers who reached their daily goal received incentives, while those who fell short received pay commensurate with the work actually completed — a substantially lower wage. With this and similar approaches, Taylor reportedly doubled productivity. In short, he paid the person, not the job. If a person did not perform accordingly, he lost his position.

Productivity Gains and Worker Resistance

Taylor may have increased productivity considerably, but many people — both at the management level and among workers — disagreed with his approach. Looking back today, it is possible to see that there were no clear-cut rights or wrongs. Factories at that time were completely different from what they are today. Work was completed according to the craft system, where trades were passed from master to apprentice (hence the term trade secret). Business owners often did not know how the work was done, and workers guarded that knowledge carefully.

The piece-rate system that preceded Taylor created a perverse incentive: any worker who found a faster method risked having his rate cut, so efficiency improvements were actively suppressed. Taylor's system was designed to break that cycle by promising workers a share of the gains from improved methods.

Conclusion: Finding a Better Balance

As noted above, very few things are completely right or completely wrong. It does not appear that Taylor was deliberately trying to harm workers — in fact, he reportedly stopped his work in this area when the reviews became so mixed. There were, and still are, genuine benefits to Taylor's Scientific Management: it can be applied to work of all levels of complexity, and when implemented properly it can help employees reach peak performance without physical or mental harm. Financial incentives are certainly preferable to an authoritarian approach and do lead to improved productivity when workers are performing tasks at a rate best suited to maximum output.

However, a company cannot perform to its best ability unless everyone — from the top down and the bottom up — works to their best ability and shares similar goals, namely the success of the organization. When the organization succeeds, everyone reaps the benefits. Similarly, education must find a middle ground that does not put the system before the individual.

As John Taylor Gatto writes in The Underground History of American Education: "School deprives us of language and metaphor needed… It curtails the raw experience out of which our natures concoct private recipes to endure." Gatto concludes with a challenge: the country can follow the lead of General Braddock toward "a regression to a royal destiny we escaped three lifetimes ago" by rejecting freedom and embracing authoritarian state control — or it can follow the example of George Washington, who rejected the lure of empire and chose freedom and self-responsibility. Both industry and education face the same fundamental choice.

References Cited

Freedman, David H. "Is Management Still a Science?" Harvard Business Review November–December 1992: 26–38.

Gatto, John Taylor. The Underground History of American Education. Oxford: Oxford Village Press, 2003.

Wrege, Charles D., and Ronald G. Greenwood. "Organization Theory and Frederick Taylor." Public Administration Review May/June 1993: 270–272.