>> MIM Speaks
MANAGING HUMAN RESOURCES MORE IMPORTANT TODAY
JAN 5, 1997 -
NEW STRAITS TIMES
MODERN management, as we know of it today, has a history of
about 150 years, with most of the more important management
thoughts taking place in the early 20th century.
Take for instance the five essential managerial functions of
planning, organising, directing (or leading) staffing and
controlling. It was the work of an illustrious French
industrialist.
Dubbed the father of modern operational management theory,
Henri Fayol immortalised his principles of general management
in his landmark book 'General and Industrial Administration'
in 1916 in French.
At about the same time, Frederick Taylor's. 'The Principles of
Scientific Management' was published in 1911. Taylor laid the
first foundation stone of modern production management.
It is mainly because of engineer Taylor that we have today a
production system based on a very methodical and systematic
approach. He replaced rules of thumb with science or organised
knowledge.
Over the years, zealots of scientific management stressed more
and more on scientific tools and techniques to increase
output. Technical skills over shadowed the human or people
skills needed to carry out effectively the managerial
functions of leading and staffing.
About 20 years later, another very important episode in the
historical development of modern management took place.
In the Hawthorne plant of the Western Electric Company, USA,
Professor Elton Mayo of Harvard and his researchers discovered
that scientific management alone is not able to guarantee high
productivity at the workplace.
The `Hawthorne effect' established beyond any daubt that
higher human produs tivity calls for a kind of leae ershlp
based upon an under standing of human behaviour (particularly
group behaviour), and the adroit applications of inter
personal skills, namely lead motivating, communicating and
counselling.
Recent surveys and re searches carried out in insti tutions
such as Harvard and M.l.T., confirmed the fact that successful
CEOs, general managers and managers need to be both skillful
in the scientific managerial areas of planning, organising and
controlling, as well as in the human areas of leadmg and
staffing.
Examples of such CEOs are Bill Gates of Microsoft Herb
Kellerher of Southwest Airlines and the late Sam Walton of
Wal-Mart.
They were able to apply both the hard and solf skills of
management and achieve levels of productive outputs many times
higher than their rivals thereby outperforming them and
staying well ahead of the pack.
In Asia, Toyota Motors Corporation some years ago discovered
that there is a limit to the amount of robotics that can be
used in the making of automobiles before the operations become
uneconomical.
In short, there is no way the human element can be totally
taken out of the equation.
MAN VERSUS MACHINES.
FROM the days of Taylor up to the 1960s, the workforce in the
US, Europe and Japan belonged to an era that appreciates the
opportunity to work.
In America, most of them is still remember poverty following
the stock market crash of 1929, and in Europe and Japan, they
likewise experienced poverty as well as the ravages of the
Second World War.
As the world grows in affluence, it would be naive on the part
of top management to assume that the human resources in
organisations could be treated as they had been in the past,
that is, leaving them neglected or demotivated.
Looking at the management of man and machines in
organisations, one would tend to think that man is treated
less well by top management than machines.
The following may be some assumptions why that is so:
* Organisations pay wages or salaries and other benefits such
as medical meals and so on, and therefore employees owe the
paymasters an obligation and the least they (employees) should
do is to work hard for their employees.
* Employees are thinking individuals and they must learn to do
their jobs on their own initiative and do whatever tasks
management schedule for them to do.
* Top managements don't want to deal with the human side of
their employees, that is, employees feelings and industrial
psychological needs or group needs. In this respect, machines
are cared for more than the workers.
Technicians, supervisors and managers in the manu facturing
environment know much more about the behavioural
characteristics of machines than man.
* Top management or managers are afraid to recognise
individual employ ee's contributions or praise the individual
when he has done a good job.
Machines that are not handled with proper care break down.
Likewise, employees in highly stressed organisations burn
themselves out totally, or operate at rates way below their
optimal capabilities.
When this happen, all top management do is ask the burnt out
employees to take costs, pressures on workers to up
productivity are increasing.
Most of the claims by CEOs during the annual company dinners
or in the annual reports, that the human resource in the
company is the most valuable resources, are meaningless as
their actions do not live up to their words.
THE following is a real case anecdote (from one of our readers
who prefers to stay anonymous) concerning the lack of
leadership of his immediate superior.
Ernie Soon, 31, a QC manager in a medium sized plastics
factory in Perak, is very unhappy lately. Only two months ago
in November he had successfully solved a quality control
problem by bringing the reject rates down to 0.5 per cent from
the previous high of 4 per cent.
In the quiet of his office at 6pm about two weeks ago, Ernie's
thoughts went back to the time he first joined this factory,
about one year ago. He was full of zeal and enthusiasm as the
new QC manager, after four years as QC engineer in a different
plastic factory.
He recalled vividly the installation of a new high speed
machinery from Japan in March 1996. Ever since then, the
production line was faced with much teething problems.
But the problems were resolved one by one and five months
after installation the only remaining problem was the high
reject rates of the finished product.
Being a very conscientious individual, Ernie took upon himself
the challenge of overcoming the problem. He took great efforts
to study the problem from various angles.
He looked into the raw materials used, the temperature setting
and speed of the machinery, etc. He talked to the shopfloor
workers and the supervisors of different workshifts.
Slowly and systematically, Ernie collected the production data
and in October 1996 discovered that most of the rejects
happened to come from the nightshifts.
Further checks and talking to nightshift workers finally
enabled Ernie to suspects that the problem could be coming
from a not-sohomogeneous mix of the plastic raw materials with
other plastic additives such as pigments, lubricants,
ultra-violet stabilisers and so on.
His suspicion was proven right when the batching and mixing
process was given a more thorough blending. With a more
homogeneous mix, the reject rates was lowered dramatically and
the problem solved.
Then in early November, byduring a management meet al ing, the
Managing Direct of the plastic factory praised Ernie for his
efforts in over coming the QC problem.
Little did Ernie relise as that this commendation up aroused
the displeasure of the factory manager, Raymond Gunn.
From that day on, Raymond, 43, who rose from the yranks after
25 years in the plastic manufacturing line acted negatively
toward Ernie. He even tried to make life miserable for Ernie
by picking on him and ridiculing him in front of other
colleagues and subordinates.
But that was not all. In] { late November, after the 3
performance appraisal was over, Ernie found that his 1997
increment was 3 cent lower than the fac ttory's average for
manag ers.
When he spoke to Raymond about it, he was shocked to hear that
a fixed salary and company increments cannot make him rich.
Raymond even sug gested that if Ernie wants a quality life, he
should try making money from other sources, such as the Kuala
Lumpur Stock Exchange, or the race course.
A couple of days later, Er nie happened to be summoned by the
MD to see him over some other quality issues. Before leaving
the room, Ernie plugged up enough courage and brought up his
dis-satisfaction about his below average increment.
The MD's response was one of disinterest. His mind was too
preoccupied with other investment opportunities. He coolly
told Ernie to settle the problem him self, and talk to his
immedi ate superior.
Ernie walked away feelling demoralised.
Ernie's predicament may sound like an isolated case.
Unfortunately, insensitive managers devoid totally of
leaderships skills in the like of Raymond are legion in
Malaysian organisations.
Should this observation surprise us? If so, just try recalling
how many executives or supervisors are sent for the type of
training and development that will help them acquire the basic
understanding of human be haviour and the interpersonal skills
such as motivating and coaching, so as to achieve high produc
tive out puts consistently?
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