Is scientific organization of work only a history?

Extract

[...] We showed that the scientific organization of labor is not only part of history. It did reveal lots of weaknesses mainly a lack of recognition of the psychology of workers and a lack of flexibility that caused difficulty to adapt to the evolutions of society; however, its principles are still used today. Indeed, most of the actual models try to reconcile the basic assumptions brought by Taylor with the new demands of the market and the taking into account of the human factor: only this kind of realism seems to be productive as we see the models that completely refused the scientific approach lacked efficiency. [...]

[...] This is a way to ease the effects of the horizontal division of labor as the worker can execute several tasks; and the vertical division of labor as he is given more responsibility in control tasks. Another way of making people more involved in their jobs is the “group dynamics”. These were founded in 1960 in Japan by Ishikawa and consist for volunteers to get together and make proposals to improve the quality of the product and the future of the company. [...]

[...] Then, a study of the French ministry of Work showed that in 2005 more than one on five workers had his rhythm of work imposed by the automatic displacement of a piece or by the work pace of a machine: work is still divided. Moreover, the motivation of the employees is still mostly encouraged by bonuses depending on productivity and quality of work. Moreover, even if the structures become more flexible, the organizations don't. There are restrictive production deadlines; the reduction of slack periods is still at the foundation of most organizations; and the autonomy stays very restrained (the head office determines very precise ways to proceed in every situation which he then displays in subsidiaries with very little margin of adaptation). [...]

[...] Therefore, the major problem of the scientific organization of work was its dissociation between management and human affairs. Hersey considered it treated “humans as instruments or machines to be manipulated by their leaders”, without any interest in the emotions or mental health of its employees. Taylor did have interest in the workers' goals but considered these goals were simply motivated by maximizing profits. However, J. G. March and H. A. Simon stressed that men are not only homo economicus: they have more diverse and complex motivations than money and their feelings need to be taken into account. [...]

[...] Therefore, workers need more control over what they do: the scientific organization of labor failed because it treated workers as minors instead of trying to understand their psychology and encourage them to give a quality work by giving them responsibilities. On the other hand, the scientific organization failed to take into account the importance of relationships at work. First, there is a huge importance of feeling recognized by superiors and the scientific organization wasn't satisfying as it completely cut the links between conception and application. [...]