Question

1. During Covid-19 crises, companies have to take many precautions affecting the whole management system in their organizations. If a) Frederick Taylor, b) Elton Mayo, c) System Approach Specialist, d) Contingency Approach Specialist witnessed Covid-19 crises, what would each of them suggest to today’s managers?

Answer 1

Management system in organizations

1)Frederick Taylor:- Known as developer of scientific management, focus on improving labour productivity by analysing and optimizing workflows in an organization. He strongly believed that the decisions based on culture and tradition should be replaced by precise procedures after the analyis of individual at work. The principles of F W Taylor are cooperation, replacing rule of thumb with science, harmony in group action, maximum output and development of workers. The elements of scientific managementt are mental revolution, economy, financial incentives, scientific selection and training of workers, standardization, job analysis functional foremanship, and seperation of planning and control.

In the current pandemic, he would have used these tools to increase the productivity of workers in the workplace. Financial incentives would be provided to encourage them to contribute more. The main factor that arises confusions will be job insecurity. He would have assured the workers with full security of their jobs even after the crisis. The workers would be forced to work wth complete cooperation so that if one worker is available the other will work and provide complete support without critisizing them. Maximum output would be expected from the workers with shifts provided for them whenever they could.. The training of workers would be provided in a scientific manner rather than traditional techniques to ensure complete efficiency. The techniques that could aid th current situation would have been selected and provided by the managemnt to support them. The wages will be assured along with compensation incase of difficulties in working conditions. The work will be planned and practised in a way that it could eliminate the interupptions to the workers. Division of labour will be done accordng to the ability to work with current situation along with increased incentives for better output.

2) Elton Mayo:- Known as the one who provided management with modern human relations techniques. His Hawthrone experiment proved that the output of the labours will increase with the increase in facilities of working condition. He proved that the workers will be motivated by relational factors like appreciation, attention rather than environment, and monetary factors. He developed a matrix that could determine whether a team would work as succesful or not. His major contribution was Human relations approach, non economic rewards, being a social man and organization as a social system.

He would have given importance to the feeling and situation of human beings in the current pandemic as he considers human beings as complex and important part of an organization. So he could provide the workers with whatever necessary in the crisis. If the management needs maximum productivity the psychologicial conditons of workers should be considered than satisfied. He would consider providing the workers with snecse of particioation, morale and appreciation in realation to their service towards the organization even in this situation rather than monetary incentives. He would have also considered the social nature of workers towards their relationships. The managment should consider the realationships of workers as theire own and help them with required supports.

3)System approach specialist:- A system specialist is the person who would be responsible for findimg the ways and analysying the oppurtunities to increase the efficiency and outfut of the organization. I t could be a person or a team that is responsible for the same at minimum cost. The elements of system approach can be classical systems theory, computerization, set theory, graph theory, cybernetics etc.The syste approach make the labours to work across the boundaries of the organization with clear focus of objective. The methodologies used are hard system, soft system and computer system methodologies. The system specialists will anlayse the entire process and provide a way to undergo the process in an efefctive way. The techniques are used to analyse the entire proess and find the most likely time, critical time and least time to accomplish a process. The required combination of employees for carrying out the process is estimates along with their wages to find whethe it aids to low cost production. If it doesnot provide the same, the constraints will be adjusted to match the output.

In this pandemic, the workers and the machines are facing a slow down due to the lack of transport and downfall of economy and hence the demand. The machines if remain unoperatd for a while, it will lead to the degradation of parts and then a breakdown. Hence it is necessary to operate the machines everydayy eventhough there is less sales. The workers in match to the production and operation are estimated and their wages will be compiled to find the optimum combination of man machine and production.

4) Contigency approach:- Suggests that the most appropriate management is that in relation to the situation and not a rigid one. The one which is flexible with context will be more profitable than the other in a long run.This is helpful to the managers to learn a particular situation and act wise in the future one in relation t the experience gained form it. It makes the management more adaptive and reactive to the situation.It moulds the managers with skills in different situations so they could adopt to the external pressures eventhough it reaches the peak. The management will eventually become proactive rather than reactive to the situation. This approach suggest that everyone couldnot fit in a frame and modern situations need modern solutions.It depends on size of organization, environment, strategies, technologies.

In this crisis, the workers are concerned of their families and acquaintances for their basic needs to be satisfied. At this time making them work at site is unethical and is the one which requires consideration. Work at home is not practical for job in all sectors and is permissible only to IT firms and other computer network based jobs.Here the contigency to be met is the working time and effiecinecy of workers that could affect the quality of output. Rather than making them work in this pandemic should be considered and will have given allowances and provided them with payment. Social distancing and lock down are prevailing and the measure and management decisions should be in alignment to the situation.