Human Relations Theories

George Elton Mayo was an Australian psychologist, sociologist and organization theorist. He is known as the founder of the Human Relations Movement, and was known for his research including the Hawthorne Studies

Mayo stressed the following:

1. Natural groups, in which social aspects take precedence over functional organizational structures.
2. Upwards communication, by which communication is two way, from worker to chief executive, as well as vice versa.
3. Cohesive and good leadership is needed to communicate goals and to ensure effective and coherent decision making.^[1]

It has become a concern of many companies to improve the job-oriented interpersonal skills of employees. The teaching of these skills to employees is referred to as "soft skills" training. Companies need their employees to be able to successfully communicate and convey information, to be able to interpret others' emotions, to be open to others' feelings, and to be able to solve conflicts and arrive at resolutions. By acquiring these skills, the employees, those in management positions, and the customer can maintain more compatible relationships.

Hawthorne Studies

The ground-breaking Hawthorne studies carried out in the Hawthorne plant of the Western Electric Company (USA) 1927 - 32.

Stage 1 (1924 -27): Study of the physical surroundings (lighting level) on productivity of workers. Control group and experimental group previously had similar productivity before study began

Control Group = constant lighting level, Experimental Group = varied lighting level

Result: Both groups productivity increased - even when experimental group was working in dim light

Stage 2 (1927 - 29): 'Relay assembly room stage' -- Still analysing effect of physical surroundings (rest, pauses, lunch break duration, length of working week) on output.

Result: Output increased even when worsening conditions -- Hypothesis was now that it was the attitudes of subjects at work and not the physical conditions. This gave rise to the 'Hawthorne Effect' - employees were responding not so much to changes in the environment as to the fact they were the centre of attention - a special group.

Stage 3 (1928 - 30): A Total of 20,000 interviews were collected with the workers on employee attitudes to working conditions, their supervision and their jobs.

Stage 4 (1932): 'Bank winning observation room' -- This time the new subjects (14 men) put in separate room for six months

Result: Productivity restricted due to pressure from peers to adopt a slower rate to circumvent company wages incentive scheme to generally adopt own group rules and behaviour.

Matrix management is the practice of managing individuals with more than one reporting line (in a matrix organization structure), but it is also commonly used to describe managing cross functional, cross business group and other forms of working that cross the traditional vertical business units.