Management appeared with people, with the formation of human society. In the new conditions, experience and intuition were not enough, management required special knowledge, like any professional activity. This was the reason for the birth of the science of management. The goal of the new science was to develop the skills of managers based on knowledge, not just experience, to solve managerial problems in the new conditions created by the industrial revolution.
The creation of new models for organizing the work of enterprises was based on already acquired information from various fields, including business. The founder of scientific management is considered to be Frederick Winslow Taylor. The knowledge in scientific management (Taylorism) might have never appeared to the public if its author had not conducted multiple observational tests. The primary aim was to establish a quantitative relationship between performance and the workforce spent on it. The outcome of the tests was the obtaining of information necessary for the development of methods for performing various tasks that arose in the process of work.
The essence of Taylorism is that organizations need to recruit workers on the basis of standardized, precise procedures and criteria. In addition, it proved that standardization is also needed in the workplace. That is, a person who has learned to work in a certain specialty, working on specific equipment, should not experience problems when applying for employment in another company, since everywhere jobs are standardized. Accordingly, it is easier for employers to select employees since they know exactly what a person should be able to do.
Instead of the vague and contradictory principles of management proposed by his predecessors, Taylor formulated a rigorous scientific system of knowledge based on four principles, which were called the laws of management:
- The distribution of tasks should take place at the basic level and cover the management layers. This also led to the demand for a specific area of work: the employees and managers must perform the function entrusted to them.
- Functional management, which relies on the achievement of the goals dedicated to the worker, must be done at each step of manufacturing. Rather than one master, the company must employ more and each would advise and help the workers in a specific field of work.
- Details of manufacturing goals, including the enumeration of demands for the employee and useful advice for their execution.
- Stimulating the motivation of the worker to inform everybody that the output affects the payments.
- Individualism, is understood as limiting the influence of the environment on the performance of an employee and considering the personal capacity of every person.
Thus, it can be said that Taylor’s main idea was that management should become a system based on certain scientific principles. It should be carried out by specially developed methods and measures, that is, it is necessary to design and standardize not only the production technique but also labor, its organization, and management. The practical application of these ideas has proved its importance, providing a significant increase in labor productivity.
Experts also emphasized some adverse tendencies in the creations of Taylorism. For example, one of the downsides of Taylorism for employees was that “for increasing productivity man were replaced by the machine. Therefore, it may be an unemployment tool.” Furthermore, planning and vigilant monitoring of the person at every stage of the work did not contribute to a good-hearted relationship between workers and superiors. A strong link to a reduction in the time required to perform the operation leads to an increase in the stress load on the individual employee, which does not contribute to improving the quality of work.