The Hawthorn Experiments Determining Human Relations in Management

Hawthorn Experiments on Productivity & Motivation

Employees desire to have a better pay packet at the end of each wage period. The objective of the employer however is that the wage cost per unit of his product should be as low as possible. Both objectives can be reconciled if higher productivity can be ensured. The challenges before managers is how to improve worker productivity. Several attempts were made at different period. Fixing wages at piece rate was tried. To some extent it proved working initially. But it resulted in employees out of a misplaced zeal for higher quantity of output, overlooked quality of product resulting in higher percentage of defective/damaged products, and heavier contribution of scraps. Later a variety of incentive schemes were implemented to induce employees accept higher output. The presumption was that the attractive of monetary benefit will motivate employees to work towards reaching better productivity. Various facilities/benefits to woo the employees to provide positive effect on productivity like illumination, rest periods, work days and pay were tried. However experience did not reveal a cause and effect relationship between such provisions and increased productivity.

Between 1924 ands 1927 National Research Council carried out studies on effect on workers and their productivity of illuminations and other conditions and found the experiment was a failure. The research project was further continued at Harvard, by Elton Mayo, Roethlisberger and other members and found interesting facts. They found that improvement in productivity, as employee morale, satisfactory relationship and effective management based on the skills, such as motivating, counseling, leading and communicating. Illuminations, rest periods, work days and pay system had no effect at all. This is known as HAWTHRONE effect. The work of Mayo and his team underscores the need for greater and deeper understanding of the social and behavioral aspects of management, which had been mentioned by earlier thinkers.

Conclusions Drawn from Hawthrone Experiments
Source: Italian Telework by Patrizio Di Nicola - Article titled "Mayo's Hawthorne Experiments "
URL - http://www.telelavoro.rassegna.it/fad/socorg03/l4/Elton%20Mayo-Hawthorne.htm ]

Flowing from the findings of these investigations Mayo came to certain conclusions as follows:

• Work is a group activity.

• The social world of the adult is primarily patterned about work activity.

• The need for recognition, security and sense of belonging is more important in determining workers' morale and productivity than the physical conditions under which he works.

• A complaint is not necessarily an objective recital of facts; it is commonly a symptom manifesting disturbance of an individual's status position.

• The worker is a person whose attitudes and effectiveness are conditioned by social demands from both inside and outside the work plant.

• Informal groups within the work plant exercise strong social controls over the work habits and attitudes of the individual worker.

• The change from an established society in the home to an adaptive society in the work plant resulting from the use of new techniques tends continually to disrupt the social organization of a work plant and industry generally.

• Group collaboration does not occur by accident; it must be planned and developed. If group collaboration is achieved the human relations within a work plant may reach a cohesion which resists the disrupting effects of adaptive society.