Frederick Taylor | Scientific Management Explained

in this video i'll explain the key points of taylor's theory the advantages and disadvantages and how these principles are still used today at one of the world's most successful businesses mcdonald's [Music] first we will start with a quick overview of taylor and his theory frederick winslow taylor was an american engineer and management consultant and unsurprisingly he was the man that started the scientific management theory also known as taylorism taylor's theory is based on a couple of simple concepts one is that the main motivator for employees is pay another was that science could be used to

increase efficiency and productivity we'll look at this in more detail in a sec he believed that workers should be given one task and should learn to master that task taylor's approach can be summed up by one of his famous quotes in the past the man has been first in the future the system must be first he truly believed that the systems were the most important aspect of a productive workforce and that people who didn't want to be productive could easily be replaced he thought that businesses need to use science to find the one best way

of performing a task so let's have a look at the theory in more detail and the principles he set out scientific management these are the key concepts of taylor's scientific management theory the basis of the theory is that you can use science to simplify job roles and in turn increase productivity it was about taking a standard approach to optimizing the work for a more efficient workplace to do this taylor introduced the idea of a time and motion study it basically meant that managers would analyze employees jobs by breaking down the tasks and timing how long

each task would take it was all about identifying the quickest way of completing a task and then replicating that across the whole workforce once the time and motion studies had been completed it led to managers breaking down each employee's job into more manageable bite-sized tasks this meant that an employee would not see a project through from start to finish as they would have one clearly defined role such as fitting the wheels on a car then another employee would just fit the steering wheel and so on until the full car was built this meant that workers

did not have to be skilled in manufacturing cars they just had to do one job really really efficiently however after finding the one best way employees needed to then be motivated to work productively in that one best way taylor believed that there was only one real way to motivate employees to be the most efficient and productive as possible and that was through pay he believed that employees should be rewarded according to their productivity via pay the more productive you were the more pay you received and this led to piece rate pay which is basically payment

per item produced he also believed that the ones that were not productive should be fired if they did not meet this new higher standard or at very least they should be paid a very measly wage that would be hard to live off and effectively forcing them to leave the job he essentially thought this would create a win-win situation workers would be incentivized to work hard to earn more and therefore production will be higher and in turn maximize profits for the business owners taylor's methods were widely adopted as businesses saw the benefits of increased productivity levels

and lower unit costs this method is easy to see in factories however let's have a look at how mcdonald's implemented the scientific model from its inception right up until today scientific management at mcdonald's richard and maurice mcdonald took on the scientific management approach when they redesigned mcdonald's from a driving diner to what was to become the world's largest fast food franchise the brothers conducted studies and even did their own small time and motion study to adapt their kitchen and workspace they named this system the speedy system it comprised of them meticulously designing the kitchens and

workspace to be as efficient as possible in order to increase productivity and also make the food faster cheaper and easier to make tasks were broken down into small individual jobs so rather than making a burger from start to finish one worker would fry the burgers another would prepare the buns and another would add pickles and sauce again this was a clear influence of taylorism and taking a scientific management approach as you know this approach was successful and has helped mcdonald's become what it is today you can still see the scientific management approach across the mcdonald's

franchise today in the following ways the first is standardization when you walk into a mcdonald's you know it's a mcdonald's even if there was no branding you would know straight away that you're in a mcdonald's every franchise has a very similar look layout and signage this gives the brand an identity franchise owners are not allowed to make their own decisions they must take this standardized approach set out by the mcdonald's corporation and just like taylorism it doesn't allow for them to take their own initiative when it comes to the mcdonald's brand the second place you

can see the influence of taylorism is in mcdonald's consistency in any mcdonald's in the world you expect the same level of consistency especially in terms of the quality of their food whether you order a big mac in london or la you expect the product to be of the same quality this consistency again is down to meticulous obsession with having set procedures for making their food as big macs are made following the same approach in every mcdonald's store this has been accomplished via another principle of taylorism finding the one best way of doing things and then

replicating that across the whole of the business is one of the founding principles of taylorism this is exactly what mcdonald's has done from making their burgers to cleaning the counters and mopping the floors mcdonald's has training and instruction on how to do all these in the most efficient way possible they have found the one best way and replicated that across the franchise the final impact of taylorism can be seen by mcdonald's taking a job such as a chef which requires some skills in cooking and turning that into a lower skill process where one individual cooks

a burger one builds it another employee cooks a fries and then another makes the drinks again this has created efficiency and also broke down a complex task into simple effective processes advantages and disadvantages of scientific management the scientific management approach has had years to be tried and tested so let's have a look at the pros and cons of taking this approach to management and motivation it's safe to say the opinions on taylorism are mixed with supporters of the theory suggesting it has paved the way for modern day working methods along with many advantages however there

are many criticisms of taylor's theory one advantage of taylorism is increased productivity there's little argument over this advantage as taylorism is designed to increase productivity across the whole of the business by finding the one best way of working on the other side of this though that despite an increase in productivity it created very monotonous jobs containing no autonomy and very little meaning for employees they were not fulfilled by the work they were doing another advantage of this increased productivity for the business is that they get more output and therefore need fewer employees maximizing their profits

however again due to increased productivity firms could also afford to lay off workers as productivity levels were increased this led to an increase in unemployment and strikes as the benefits to the business far outweighed the benefits to the worker as discussed in the mcdonald's example a pro of this approach is that it creates consistent products of very similar quality but such a rigid standardization approach has meant that workers could no longer use their initiative and take pride in the work that they were doing or the ideas they had for improving the business a further advantage

was because jobs were broken down into small repetitive tasks then businesses didn't need to pay a premium the highly skilled workers but again the critics suggest that this dehumanized workers is that he was simply trained to follow a few simple instructions as quickly as possible in almost a robotic fashion the final the most obvious advantage is that if employees worked hard and were productive then they would receive increased pay this is what taylor identified as the key motivator to any worker and was the biggest benefit to employees of this theory whether rightly or wrongly this

created a survival of the fittest environment which meant if you couldn't keep up you were pressured to leave or fired and your worth as an employee was solely based on your productivity so that's it for taylorism and the scientific management approach we really do appreciate you watching this video to the end and if you found it useful don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe for more weekly business [Music] videos [Music] you