Fredrick Winslow Taylor (1856-1915) was one of the first individuals to analyze human behavior at the workplace and put together a system that could manage the larger number of employees and materials that the Industrial Revolution had brought together. He created the model of "scientific management," and thus began the still on-going fascination of studying employees, managers and environments in the workplace.
Taylor modeled his ideas about how people work after a machine itself, with each person having a responsibility as if he or she were a "part.." But he took the idea even further: just as the machine should have cheap, interchangeable parts, so too should the worker be cheap to hire, be interchangeable with others, and play a passive role in the overall organization.
This description of the model worker met Taylor's goal nicely, which was to reduce any variables that the humanity of the workforce could introduce, and instead focus on speed, cost, capacity and production. Though we are long past the Industrial Revolution, Taylor's ideas have a strong hold on the American business psyche even today.
Talented Employees are Far More than a Job Description
Managers who assume individuals who perform similar functions can be seen as interchangeable in fact perpetuate toxic workplace environments.The belief that when one employee leaves the job, another one could simply step up in replacement stifles a creative and functional workplace.
Why? For the simple reason that people are not machines. They are individual bundles of energy, motivation, compassion and desire for achievement. They are a mix of every experience of their upbringing and education, of their interactions and gene pool. And when one talented worker walks out of the building, whether she is a telephone operator in the call center or an accountant in the finance department, she walks out with much, much more than a job description.
Case Study: Cecilia
Consider for a minute Cecilia, a call center phone operator, who works for company ABC. Cecilia has the most amazing flair for calming down the most irate of customers. Some combination of the quality of her voice--soothing and gentle--along with her vocabulary and accent immediately diffuses situations other operators couldn't handle. Sympathy and compassion for the caller's point of view just flows out of her.
But her real talent is her ability to soothe the customer and convince them at the same time that while she understood their issue, the solution may not be exactly what they wanted. Cecilia has a stellar satisfaction rating among both her callers and her colleagues for customer-centered problem solving that kept the company's objectives intact.
Replacing Cecilia would mean far more than finding another person capable of answering a telephone.
What does Cecilia want? She, like every talented employee, wants to be supported by her boss, believed in by management, and respected in her job. Managers who create an environment that feeds a cycle of employee empowerment and respect within their job scope create healthy environments where employees thrive.
Focus on Talent
Whether or not Fredrick Winslow Taylor's model of employee as machine part worked in the factories and assembly lines of the Industrial Revolution, it certainly won't work today. Employers must focus on what Taylor tried to ignore: the variables of humanity; those affectations, habits and abilities that set us apart from one another. In a word, talent.
Sources:
www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/fwt/taylor.html
www.trustedadvisor.com/trustmatters/management-is-still-fighting-the-industrial-revolution
www.suite101.com/content/frogs-are-like-employees-they-indicate-environmental-health-a383658
www.alliesconsulting.com/resources/articles/retainees.html
