Taylorism Approach To Job Design

In his work, Taylor sought to explain some of the principles that should be used by organizations to affect job design and improve productivity. The Taylorism approach was embraced towards the last years of the last millennium. Today, many organizations have moved away from Taylor’s approach to scientific management to using different models to achieve the intended results. Taylor’s first principle of achieving job design is to use the scientific method instead of the traditional approach of using common sense (Buder, 1981). This is what he refers to as the rule of the thumb. This approach entails an organization determining the most efficient approach that special tasks can be undertaken to improve productivity. In the early years of this

The first one is job enlargement. This is a technique where the tasks related to a job are increased. For instance, an employee’s responsibility is increased so that they have a variety of tasks to perform. It is a form of horizontal restructuring method. The importance of this approach is that it helps reduce monotony in the work place. As already highlighted, Taylorism seeks to increase specialization of employees, with employees playing certain roles in an extended period. Job enlargement is opposite to this. Job enlargement is more rewarding and advantageous as opposed to specialization as advocated for by

The importance of this is that it exposes an employee to different situations where their decision-making is tested. The net effect of this is that they get to gain valuable experience, which is helpful to the company at large.

Job rotation as another modern approach entails moving employees from one job to the other, with the objective of helping them diversify their experiences and gather a variety of skills to bring about job satisfaction. Job rotation has its advantages and disadvantages. Whereas it minimizes monotony and boredom, it denies the employees an opportunity to master one aspect and specialize in it. This means that employees who are regularly subjected to job rotation might not get an opportunity to command a specific position in an organization.

The Taylorism principles are increasingly being ignored in favor of modern approaches to management. Once revered, the scientific method has proved to be an inefficient tool for organizations in the modern era. As such, managers ought to be careful to ensure they use fair practices that will spur organizations to