10 Facts About Taylorism

Taylorism looked at shoveling in the unloading of railroad cars full of ore; lifting and carrying in the moving of iron pigs at steel mills; the manual inspection of bearing balls; and others.

Taylorism discovered many concepts that were not widely accepted at the time.

Taylorism observed that most workers who are forced to perform repetitive tasks tend to work at the slowest rate that goes unpunished.

Taylorism, therefore, proposed that the work practice that had been developed in most work environments was crafted, intentionally or unintentionally, to be very inefficient in its execution.

Taylorism posited that time and motion studies combined with rational analysis and synthesis could uncover one best method for performing any particular task, and that prevailing methods were seldom equal to these best methods.

Taylorism led to productivity increases, meaning fewer workers or working hours were needed to produce the same amount of goods.

Taylorism was criticized for turning the worker into an "automaton" or "machine", making work monotonous and unfulfilling by doing one small and rigidly defined piece of work instead of using complex skills with the whole production process done by one person.

Taylorism was one of the first attempts to systematically treat management and process improvement as a scientific problem, and Taylor is considered a founder of modern industrial engineering.

Taylorism focused on the organization of the work process, and human relations helped workers adapt to the new procedures.

One approach to efficiency in information work is called digital Taylorism, which uses software to monitor the performance of employees who use computers all day.