Human relations

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Human relations is a term in industrial sociology and industrial psychology that describes the informal social relationships in the company between employees or between employees and managers. These should develop in the most conflict-free way possible and then have a positive effect on work performance. It is also used in labor and industrial sociology, but these are more focused on formal industrial and labor relations.

Prehistory and significance

As a result of the application of the methods of "scientific management" by Frederick Winslow Taylor , there was an expansion of work preparation and planning activities, on which the efficient design of the production processes increasingly depended. Patriarchal company rules were no longer a guarantee of performance; the workers' loyalty to the company became less and less. Since the workers were physically dependent on wages, this seemed to be the most important factor securing their benefits.

However, the wage factor turned out to be less effective than expected. This is how human relations for organizational practice was discovered in the 1930s. This aimed primarily at influencing the social driving factors of work performance. Leadership has become one of the most important tasks of management. This included function, planning, organization, motivation and control of the work. The leadership also won in a scientific perspective is becoming increasingly important in terms of job performance of workers and their attitude to work.

Hawthorne Investigation / Mayo Group

In the 1920s, the management of the Hawthorne plants of the Western Electric Company in Chicago began a series of tests. The factory employed 29,000 workers and mainly manufactured telephones and accessories. The test series was intended to find out what influence the working conditions have on the development of fatigue and the experience of monotony among workers.

The theoretical and methodological starting point of the analyzes was initially the approach of psychotechnology (in this case the so-called object psychotechnology according to Fritz Giese 1927), which, following Hugo Münsterberg ( Psychology and Economic Life , 1912), became the predominant paradigm in the USA, Germany (1918: Working group for industrial psychotechnics at the TH Berlin-Charlottenburg) and in the Soviet Union.

The field experiments initially focused on the influence of factors such as breaks, working hours and lighting on work performance. The test series lasted from 1924 to 1927, with the investigations being expanded in the last year with regard to the assumed active factors. After the start of these investigations, the Australian-born social scientist Elton Mayo joined the team at the invitation , who continued the experiment with the Mayo Group (with Fritz Roethlisberger and William John Dickson ). The experiment itself was divided into three phases. In the first phase, six women were observed assembling telephone relays or supplying supplies in the relay test room. The behavior of the women was recorded by various control devices. There were also regular health checks and a questioning of the workers about their origin, family life and social activities.

First they experimented with rest breaks, then with shorter daily to weekly working hours. It was found that the work performance of women steadily increased in terms of quality and quantity, despite a later return to the original working hours. To explain this, hypotheses were developed that linked the increase in performance with economic incentives, better health and changes in the relationship between women and their superiors. However, apart from the “social relationships” hypothesis, none turned out to be conclusive.

Starting in 1929, an interview room was designed in the second phase in which 20,000 employees were interviewed. The aim was to improve leadership, but also attitudes and relationships between employees. Since the interviewers were mostly superiors, they learned something new on the basis of what the workers said about their superiors' behavior. The workers were allowed to express their opinions and felt that they were recognized. The feeling of participating in the problems of the company and their solutions had a positive effect on their work performance. It turned out that work situations in which social participation was insufficient were the cause of negative attitudes.

As a result of the investigation, it was found that performance-influencing factors are a coherent whole of external social conditions, psychological conditions and social working conditions in the company. The company is not just a technical organizational structure, but a social organization ("system of sentiments": system of emotional relationships). Working conditions, working behavior and working environment receive their significance through the social organization.

In the final phase of the test series, 14 masterminds were put together in one observation room (“bank-wiring-observation room”) for six months. Its purpose was to study social relationships in a work group. An important requirement was that no supervisor was actively involved in the work. Finally, it was found that every worker was reluctant to perform. The output volume was determined by a standard developed by the group regarding the daily output volume, despite a performance wage based on individual piece chords. So it was informal, social practices within the group that governed behavior. Cliques were formed and outsiders were sanctioned. The master is also seen as an outsider to the group, with the group leader being "one of them". The social relationships are not structured by the same work or position, but by the informal group. This can be referred to as a so-called "inline organization" because it has its own structures, norms and standards. It fulfills two functions: on the one hand to protect the group against betrayal from "inside", on the other hand to ward off interference from "outside".

The investigations by the Mayo-Group produced two important results: An increase in the performance of the workforce can result from social attention (so-called Hawthorne effect ). Anyone who suddenly receives more attention reacts with higher motivation or more performance. His loyalty to the company also increases. It also discovered the effectiveness of informal groups, which are often more important than working conditions. This discovery shows that Taylor's “scientific management” approach is shortened.

The management's conclusion was: The previous assumptions about the behavior of workers were wrong. To see their behavior as "economic-rational" is extremely one-sided. Even a tight control system must fail due to the effect of the informal relationships and the loyalty to the informal group.

The human relations movement

The concept of the human relations movement denotes an economic approach that incorporates the needs, psychological condition and identity of employees more into the management calculation. Middle managers switch from the role of supervisor and planner to that of mediator between employees and higher management.

As a result of the effects of Taylorism / Fordism on companies and workers, from around 1930 new approaches were integrated into the spectrum of subjects in economics , especially business administration. The results of the Mayo group's studies not only influenced management practice, but also the theoretical discussions about the concept of human beings in economics and social sciences. Gradually there was a “humanistic” opening of business administration, in particular through the behavior-oriented further development of subjects such as marketing or human resources studies, which were ascribed little economic importance before 1930. This change found expansion in a renewed perspective, which classified economic activity as a whole as part of social action . Initial research now focused on group phenomena , social interactions , job satisfaction, and collaborative leadership . These approaches underline the human dimension in the company . The homo oeconomicus gives way to the social man .

The Mayo Group turned away from its basic psychotechnical assumptions and became the core of the "Human Relations School", which reached the peak of its effectiveness in the 1950s. Since the conflict-free working atmosphere was seen as the most important requirement for high productivity, techniques were developed to control group behavior. Mayo influenced a number of leadership training programs during World War II; Much research for the military has shown the influence of the human relations movement outside of industry. It is true that this movement remained academic for a long time because its practical implementation meant too much effort for the companies. In practice, “human relations” has tended to be reduced to approaches to training managers. Today, however, one sees the origin of modern human resource management in these developments.

Further development towards the motivation theory approach

A further development of the human relations movement is the motivation theory approach . This goes back to the initial clinical investigations by Abraham Maslow , which he carried out between 1934 and 1943 . These were transferred to work motivation by Douglas McGregor in 1954 . The criticism of the motivation theory approach was based primarily on the difficulty of operationalizing the need concepts from Maslow's hierarchy of needs . The theory of motivation was therefore initially of little use to business administration.

In 1960 , Douglas McGregor compared two opposing images of people in business administration and named them Theory X (which is made up of the representations of the employee in traditional management literature) and Theory Y (which introduces a kind of ideal type that responds to human relations strategies).

criticism

A criticism that can be made is that the “human relations” movement was too one-sided insofar as it neglected collective “industrial relations” and “labor relations”. These are one-dimensional harmony models, which means that a single need is satisfied and there is no balance of interests between the company and employees. But the assumption that individual needs and operational goals can be harmoniously optimized is probably unrealistic. Trade unions or conflict activities played no role in the “human relations” world. As a result, models were developed that also included the reality of conflicts.

The application of human relations techniques is often associated with the manipulation of human behavior. However, since the late 1960s and 1970s, doubts have been raised about the manipulability of these techniques. Research on the connections between job satisfaction, management style and participation of employees in decisions on the one hand and their productivity on the other hand showed no or even negative results.

Others

The human relations approach should not be confused with human resources .

See also

work atmosphere

literature

  • Karlheinz Sonntag, Ekkehart Frieling , Ralf Stegmaier: Textbook Industrial Psychology , Bern: Huber 2012 (therein 1st chapter)
  • Gertraude Mikl-Horke : Industrial and Work Sociology , Munich: Oldenbourg 2007

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. E.g. Albert Bidermann, Herbert Zimmer (eds.), The manipulation of human behavior , London / New York: Wiley & Sons 1961
  2. ^ Charles Perrow, Complex Organizations , 1986, pp. 79-144; DP Schwab, LL Cummings, Theories of performance and satisfaction: A review , in: Industrial Relations, 9, 1970, pp. 408-430