BUS603: Managing People

Earlier, we studied Frederick Winslow Taylor, who researched time and motion and determined the most efficient ways for workers to do their tasks. Taylor's "one right way" was the birth of work specialization. When Henry Ford conceived the assembly line, he tossed aside "one best way" and viewed work specialization with an eye toward continued improvement. Work specialization describes the degree to which activities in the organization are divided, and then subdivided, into separate jobs.

If you put one worker on the task of building an automobile, he might still be building it a month or two later. But if you have one worker that's focused on installing right front tires, and another who is focused on left front fenders, then those tasks become standardized. Employees learn to do them quickly with practice.

By the 1940s, most manufacturers were practicing work specialization, or "division of labor" as it's sometimes called. Work specialization was ideal from a task point of view - easy tasks could be done by unskilled labor, and those tasks that required more skill could be separated out and addressed by employees that possessed those skills. Those skilled employees weren't wasting their time on tasks they didn't have to be doing.

Work specialization was also ideal from a productivity point of view. Installation of brake pads requires different tools than the installation of a tire, and when workers were assigned to one of those tasks instead of both, tools didn't need to be taken out and put away. Employees could cheaply be trained to do one specific task, and many employees, each trained to do their specific task, could assemble highly complex machinery quicker and easier than one highly trained employee that possessed all the skills to complete the assembly.

Manufacturers continued to tinker with and fine-tune worker specialization to increase productivity until the 1960s, when it became clear that a good thing could be taken too far. Boredom, stress, low productivity, increased absenteeism and turnover offset higher productivity. Manufacturers responded by enlarging worker specialization, including more tasks within a position to increase engagement.