THE BASICS 6: HUMAN RELATIONS MOVEMENT

Due to a heavy study schedule (I passed my exam last week by the way) writing blog posts went on the back-burner for a short period, but I will catch up !! Today the next episode of my series The basics on the Human Relations Movement.

In the last episode I wrote about the Hawthorne studies which made clear that social aspects of work were as important as the “technical” aspects of work for the increase of productivity. Although attention for the social aspects were present in the sidelines even before, the Hawthorne studies was one of the major triggers for a new movement, the Human Relations movement, which appeared in the ’40s.

The relation between the Human Relations Movement and Scientific Management is often seen as a “good cop – bad cop”-relationship, with Human Relations as the good guy, with attention for the quality of work and the social aspects, and Scientific Management as the bad guy, with its attention for productivity, hard work and boring tasks. But this is not completely correct.

The Second World War is of paramount importance for the development of the Human Relations Movement; during this period things like motivation, leadership and cooperation was essential to support the war effort. And, as was noticed in the Hawthorne Studies, it appeared in that period that a more democratic type of leadership was better for the motivation, cooperation and work climate and in the end for productivity than a more authoritarian as we knew from the Scientific management period.

Important in this context was a famous study by the German-American psychologist Kurt Lewin, which he conducted in the period 1939-1947 in the Harwood Manufacturing Corporation, a new plant in Virginia (USA) which manufactured pyjamas. This was a new plant which was set up according the Scientific Management lines; the new staff were enthusiastic to start, but productivity was low and turnover was high. What to do about it ? Lewin suggested some adjustments that proved in hindsight to be typical of the Human Relations Movement:

• give the group the feeling that realistic goals are set and that, with a combined effort, these goals can be met;
• treat employees as part of a small group/team, rather than as an individual;
• stop putting the employees constantly under pressure;

source: meredecoy; youtube.com

It turned out that a group in which all members of the group had a say in the design of the production and the production schedule had a considerable larger output than a group in which a superior instructed the members what to do. The results of research like this were then developed further into the extent and manner in which an individual was aware of social processes within groups and organisations.

Although there were some initiatives which went considerably further along the social lines (f.e. the T-group courses in 1947 which were based on the idea that if you change interpersonal behaviour of members of an organization automatically organizational changes would follow), in essence the Human Relations Movement is not that different from Scientific Management.

In both theories increasing productivity is key as well as control over the work force. Only the means how to achieve the control is different: in Scientific Management it was through optimizing the production process / specialization and in Human Relations by human relationships.

On our journey through times we now have come to the 1950s and another famous study: the research of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in the UK.

THE BASICS 5: THE HAWTHORNE STUDIES

The next episode in most handbooks is then the introduction of work in a social context; slowly moving away from the rational “scientific” approach of Taylorism and towards a more psychological approach: the employee as a social human being.

One of the most influential research projects which lead to this shift were the so-called Hawthorne Studies, named after a large production site of the Western Electric Company in Chicago, and which took place between 1924 and 1932.  The results of the study were not published before 1939 though.

A fascinating video from the AT&T archives (former Western Electric) on youtube.com (copyright by ATTTechChannel)

Originally they were a study in the tradition of the taylorist approach; to examine the effects of the length of working hours, the length and frequency of work breaks and the effects of illumination on the productivity.

Especially the results on the effect of illumination were quite surprising. From the present point of view one would expect a brighter work environment would raise motivation and productivity, but in the Hawthorne studies even less light, even to the level of a moonlit night, raised productivity of the experimental group.  How could that be ?

This was a difficult one to explain. In several follow-up experiments in which a small group of female workers were isolated and were then put under several working conditions different from that of the main body of workers. They experimented with working hours, light and so on; every time the working conditions changed productivity went up – even when working conditions were less positive. Absenteeism and sickness were also considerable lower in the experimental group.

Researchers concluded that the manipulated conditions could not be responsible for the increase of productivity. It had to be something else. Actually it proved to be the special attention the members of the experimental group received as a group; they felt special and researchers were paying attention to what they were doing. A new experience for them.

Later this effect became known as the Hawthorne-effect: the behaviour of people is influenced by the fact that they know that they are being researched and their interpretation of what is happening around them.

Another Hawthorne study researched the effect of economic rewards on productivity; this took place by observing a group of men which produced a telephone apparatus. This study showed that there are social norms within the group, especially on what is a fair level of production of the group. Employees that did more or less than what they were “supposed” to do, were forced to comply with these social norms. It also showed that there were informal groups within the group.

It proved to be possible to raise production by giving employees a voice to air their complaints on the working conditions and by giving them the impression that they were taken seriously.

And  a new movement was born: Human Relations. Also the start of personnel work. In the next version of the Basics: the Human Relations movement.

M

THE BASICS 4: FORDISM

In every handbook on work psychology or organisational psychology you examine you get first Taylor with his scientific management (see the basics 3: https://em2psychoatwork.wordpress.com/2013/05/05/the-basics-3-scientific-management-taylorism-what-does-it-teach-us/) and then immediately after that Henry Ford with his addition to Taylor’s theory. Although I am far from pretending to write a handbook, I  can only but follow.

For a lot of people it might be surprising that Henry Ford, the famous American entrepreneur and pioneer in the car industry, is mentioned as one of the pioneers of organisational psychology. At least for me it was. And he owes it to the invention of the assembly line, which changed the organisation of the work processes completely.

Now the workers did not have to move around anymore to assemble a product, like a car, but they could remain on the same spot. No valuable time was lost and they could speed up production. Workers were reduced to mere little machines who were turned on and off by switching the conveyor belt. The workers did not have any discretionary power left; beautifully illustrated by the video clip of the Lucy Show in The Basics 3.

Although from an economic point of view the assembly line was hugely successful – production skyrocketed; a car became a familiar sight on the roads and was affordable for a considerable part of the population. But the economic drawback came when people started to ask for more diversity. The T-Ford was available only in black. That triggered further technological developments.

I found this video on youtube which illustrates the production line of T-ford; youtube.com by autotuningnews

But from a psychological point of view Fordism taught us that workers wanted and needed more from work than just doing the same movements over and over, without any intellectual challenge and without any decision-making rights, even on the tiniest part of their daily activities.

Even although Ford paid very well, money would prove not to be the only motivator. People needed more. The developments lead to widespread opposition from workers and a downturn in the work morale, not surprising if you have to do the same boring activities all day. And, although there was a financial crisis in full swing in the ’20s and ’30s a part of the workforce could simply not cope with the pressure and dullness of assembly line and comparable production work.

For comparison the modern-day manufacturing of Renault Megane; youtube.com by renault (I hope they don’t mind me using this video; it is extra exposure though!)

But like all major developments in this field, also Fordism has had a lasting influence on the organisation of work and work processes. The assembly line is still the leading production process in the car manufacturing industry, but now in a more humanized form and with robots replacing human workers. And that expresses exactly the feeling the workers in the heyday of Fordism in the ’20s and ’30s (and also in later years) might have had.

In the next episode of the Basics I turn towards a study that, although not intentionally, contributed to the development of the more people centred factors in work: the Hawthorne Studies.

M

THE BASICS 3: SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT / TAYLORISM – WHAT DOES IT TEACH US ?

You can start an overview of the history of the organisation of work any time in history you like; it would not surprise me if the Neanderthals had some kind of division of tasks between members of a community. But let us not go back that far (I would like to have some readers left for my next blog posts);  in general, the start of people management is placed in the late-nineteenth century when there was a first reaction on the industrialisation and the exploitation of workers.

Of course you have the political works of Marx and Engels around that period, but I refer now to the social reformers in mainly the UK and the US who wanted to address the problem of exploitation, long working hours and horrendous working conditions the lion’s share of the workers was subjected to. These initiatives to provide the work force with housing, better working conditions and education, reflected a paternalistic approach of the industrialists towards ‘their’ workers; efforts to educate the workforce and their families in line with the principles of religious morality. Strict moral control of the workers on the work site, but also in their private lives, was the consequence. For example workers were not allowed to drink alcohol or had to go to church on Sundays.

Although their initiatives were an important signal that something had to change, the ‘paternalistic’ attitude of the social reformers towards the workforce was economically not advantageous and lead to less competitiveness for the company. So scientists were looking for new ways how to increase production and increase control and motivation of the workers (exploitation and bad working conditions were, like you can imagine, devastating for motivation – it led to drinking, illnesses, injuries etcetera).

In the meantime the factories grew and grew, employing often several tens of thousands of workers, and the distance between superior management and the level of the individual worker was enormous. Superior management was no longer the director who knew all workers and their family situation; it became a body which took rational and “objective” decisions.

All these developments lead to the development of the so-called scientific management by Frederick Taylor (1856-1915); a new scientific approach which is based on several principles:

• application of principles of ratio on how to organize work;
• strict separation of tasks between management and workers;
• detailed scientific analysis on how to perform the tasks;
• training of the worker on how he/she can do their tasks most efficient;
• recruitment & selection of workers on a scientific basis;

Scientific management was mainly introduced to let management control how the work is done and the individual workers each has a very specific task in the process. Due to the specificity and the simplicity of the task every meaning was taken out of it. Money was seen as the only motivator: so if you increase the wages, the harder they work. The workers were controlled directly by supervisors and indirectly by controlling their output.

Fritz Lang – Metropolis (1927) – a groundbreaking and very impressive movie by the German expressionist filmmaker Fritz Lang

The ideas of Taylor were received with enthusiasm by the industry, because it increased productivity and efficiency, but with hostility by the unions and the workers, because workers had less influence and freedom on how they perform and a lot of work was monotonous and mind-killing.

On the basis of the description above you might think that we have left these practices far behind us, but that is not entirely true. Just imagine the fast food industry, in which one cuts the roll, another butters it, the third puts the meat on it, the fourth puts some lettuce on it (and so on, and so on). Usually it is associated with low-pay, down-to-earth processing. Not very popular.

So, what has scientific management taught us ? First, that monotonous labour is mind-killing and in the end leads to stress, illness, alcoholism and what have you. Second, that people demand some say in how they perform their tasks. Third, that workers need some kind of social interaction with others to make work worthwhile. Fourth, that people can not be controlled totally – that makes them different from machines.

To end this post on a happy note, an infamous scene from the Lucy show and an anticipation on The Basics 4 on Fordism;

M

THE BASICS 2: WHAT IS WORK ?

I can hear you think: Marc, come on, we know what work is. That is what we did each day for the last two, five, ten, twenty years or as long as we can remember ! It might not be as simple as that. Everyone has his or her own views of what should be brought under the definition of ‘work’.

You can use the notion of ‘work’ or ‘labour’ in a narrow sense or in a broad sense. If you use a narrow interpretation ‘work’ is the same as paid labour. I give you my time and my capacity for work and you give me monetary payment and/or other benefits. But is it fair to limit work / labour to paid labour. For example if I bake a cake for my neighbours at home it is not seen as work, but if I am a baker and I bake a cake and sell it to my neighbours in my shop it is seen as work. Or another example: if a grandmother looks after her grandchildren while their parents are at work it is not seen as work, but if the children are left at a childcare center for the day it is seen as work. Is that fair or is the line rather arbitrarily drawn ?

You can also use a broad sense of the notion of ‘work’ or ‘labour’. Payment in any form is no longer at the center of the discussion, but whether a specific mental or physical activity fulfils a personal need. This very broad definition can lead to bizarre results: almost all human activities fulfil a need, for example also robbing a bank, playing tennis or sex. By the way, in some cases sex can legitimately be seen as ‘labour’ though, but that is a whole different story.

So maybe you should end up somewhere in the middle: it might be helpful to stretch the personal need by adding that the mental or physical activity should not only fulfil a personal need but also be of value for others and/or the society in general. This definition will not lead to perfect clarity (how many others for example ?) but in general would exclude some activities, like robbing a bank, playing tennis or sex. And value has to be interpreted broader as including services, goods etc.

So like with anything that seems simple, if you think about it, you have several questions, categories, definitions. In the case of ‘work’ you can make a distinction between paid and non-paid activities, formal and informal types of work (informal being the “black economy”), activities only for yourself or for others/ the society as a whole. How to make life complicated !

Stay tuned for part 3 of The Basics next week: scientific management / Taylorism (we dive into history);

M

THE BASICS 1: WORK PSYCHOLOGY AS APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY

In this series, which starts today, I will go into the basics of the study of the area of psychology, which deals with behaviour, experiences, thoughts, feelings of individuals or groups at work: industrial/organisational psychology or work psychology. There you have your first problem: how to call this form of applied psychology ? As I understood they use in the USA “industrial/organisational psychology”, in the UK “work psychology” and in Europe “work psychology” (translated from the different languages). It is more or less the same.

Also important to note that work psychology is not a form of basic psychology, as there are physiological psychology, social psychology, personality psychology, cognitive psychology and developmental psychology. Work psychology uses theories and concepts from all these areas and applies it to work settings. And this leads to even more specific theories, concepts, practices, processes, instruments and what have you. These can then be directly applied to practical problems in work situations.

There always has been a tension between applied psychology and areas of basic psychology: in general it boils down to basic psychology is “too theoretical” and applied psychology is “too practical”. But it is important to keep communication open to ensure that valuable information on the application of for example social psychology theories gets back to the drawing board and may lead to support or adjustments of existing theories or the development of new theories.  Both sides have their own role to play.

next week the basics 2: What is work ?

M