Time studies

Examples of Time studies in the following topics:

• Scientific Management: Taylor and the Gilbreths

  • A significant part of Taylorism was time studies.
  • Taylor was concerned with reducing process time and worked with factory managers on scientific time studies.
  • At its most basic level, time studies involve breaking down each job into component parts, timing each element, and rearranging the parts into the most efficient method of working.
  • While Taylor was conducting his time studies, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth were completing their own work in motion studies to further scientific management.
  • Time and motion studies are used together to achieve rational and reasonable results and find the best practice for implementing new work methods.

• Leadership Model: University of Michigan

  • The Michigan behavioral studies are an important link in the ongoing development of behavioral theory in a leadership framework.
  • This theoretical evolution has progressed over time, from identifying individual personalities or characteristics to formal studies related to what constitutes leadership and why leadership is or is not successful.
  • Some of these studies and observations have been informal, while others have included empirical research and data.
  • Studies dating back to the 1950s identified two broad leadership styles: an employee orientation and a production orientation.
  • The Michigan leadership studies, along with the Ohio State University studies that took place in the 1940s, are two of the best-known behavioral leadership studies and continue to be cited to this day.

• Setting the Right Goals

  • Locke and Latham note that goal-setting theory lacks "the issue of time perspective."
  • The idea of time perspective is simpler than it sounds.
  • Take an example of a university student who has 30 days to study for a final exam.
  • They are much more likely to choose an activity that is more enjoyable than studying.
  • However, as the test approaches, the student will increasingly tend to choose studying due to the time perspective.

• The Human Side: Hawthorne

  • The Hawthorne studies found that workers were more responsive to group involvement and managerial attention than to financial incentives.
  • It started two weeks before moving the women to an experiment room and continued throughout the study.
  • In the experiment room, they had a supervisor who discussed changes with them and, at times, used their suggestions.
  • Some of the variables included giving two five-minute breaks (after a discussion with the group on the best length of time), and then changing to two 10-minute breaks (not the preference of the group).
  • This is where the studies where conducted—a factory outside of Chicago.

• Learning to Communicate Nonverbally

  • However, much of the study of nonverbal communication has focused on face-to-face interaction, in which nonverbal cues are classified into three principal areas: environmental conditions, where communication takes place; physical characteristics of the communicators; and behaviors of communicators during interaction.
  • The study of clothing and other objects as a means of nonverbal communication is known as artifact or object.
  • These studies indicate that the types of clothing an individual wears convey nonverbal clues about personality, background and financial status, and how others will respond.
  • When two people look at each other's eyes at the same time, they are making eye contact.
  • Studies have found that people use their eyes to indicate interest.

• Monetary Employee Compensation

  • Bonuses represent another type of variable pay, one based on an employee's performance during a certain period of time.
  • From a behavioral perspective, bonuses have been studied to ascertain their effectiveness as an employee incentive to improve performance.
  • Skinner, a behavioral psychologist, studied behavioral reactions to extrinsic environmental consequences such as reinforcement or punishment.
  • The results of these studies show that employees who feel that they are underpaid relative to their skill levels will not perform as well as they would if they felt that they were appropriately compensated.
  • The effect of compensation on employee job satisfaction has also been studied.

• Reducing Workplace Stress

  • Consider flexible schedules—many organizations allow telecommuting to reduce the pressure of being a certain place at a certain time (which enables people to better balance their personal lives).
  • Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company conducted several studies on the effects of stress prevention programs in a hospital setting.
  • In one study, the frequency of medication errors declined by 50% after prevention activities were implemented in a 700-bed hospital.
  • In a second study, there was a 70% reduction in malpractice claims among 22 hospitals that implemented stress prevention activities.

• Mintzberg's Management Roles

  • Henry Mintzberg (1973), the Cleghorn Professor of Management Studies at McGill University, defined ten management roles within three categories: interpersonal, informational, and decisional.
  • At any given time, a manager may carry out some combination of these roles to varying degrees, from none of the time to 100 percent of the time.

• The Evolution of Labor Relations

  • While the term is used broadly and in many contexts, labor relations, for our purposes, is the study and practice of managing unionized employment situations.
  • Industrial relations was a more prevalent field of study historically, however, and has seen substantial decline both as an academic field and as a business application.
  • Explain the way in which labor relations and labor unions evolve and change over time, alongside the implications of the negotiation process between employers and employees.

• Classical Versus Behavioral Perspectives

  • The Hawthorne studies were an important start to the behavioral perspective of management.
  • These were a series of research studies conducted with the workers at the Hawthorne plant of the Western Electric Company.
  • The Hawthorne studies found that workers were more strongly motivated by psychosocial factors than by economic or financial incentives.
  • Around this same time, Abraham Maslow created his hierarchy-of-needs theory, which showed that workers were motivated through a series of lower-level to higher-level needs.