Advantages And Disadvantages Of The Scientific Management In Modern Organisations

Introduction

The Scientific Management was discovered in the early 1900 by Frederick Winslow Taylor. Firstly, used in the engineering industries but later was applied to cover all the industries management manner. The scientific management is used particularly for the massive advantages that might be achieved by following scientific methods. “'The principal object of management', he states, 'should be to secure the maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with the maximum prosperity of each employee.' For the employer, 'maximum prosperity' means not just large profits in the short term but the development of all aspects of the enterprise to a state of permanent prosperity.” The Scientific Management has got a range of different advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages are including the following:

  1. Provides training to employees to practice their job efficiently and less time consuming;
  2. As well as to arrange the stock, the equipment's and the process of work;
  3. Also, an improvement of the cooperation between employees and employer.

Disadvantages are including the following:

  1. It is not compatible for the small industries for the massive cost that small activities cannot afford.
  2. As well as it is uncertain that the workers are going to collaborate with their organization because of the inequity that might come up with the profit as the employer take all the profit and they do not consider rewarding the workers.
  3. The job in some cases is monotony, people treated as machines not as humans.

This paper will look at above points in context of the scientific management in modern organisations about the case study related to Ryanair and Pret a Manger.

Ryanair case study

Ryanair has been founded by Rayan in the early 1985. The company competing with government founded airlines, like Air France and British Airways thankfully to an EU regulation that allowed new airlines to enter the commerce. Newly in the market Ryanair took the advantage of starting trading between European countries. This company is an example of modern management with disadvantages and advantages specified in the following concepts:

Advantages:

Firstly, the company decided to reduce some added values considered “expensive” such as “free food, drinks and newspaper and allocated seats”, the purpose of this service is to be more practical and valuable than “luxury” this helped the company to grow every year making more profit and gaining more costumers. In the same period, passengers' number “increased by 16 per cent to 28m thanks to improved load factors, up six per cent to 92 per cent.”

Secondly, Ryanair invested in a new aircraft to allow less emission and to be environmentally friendly, invested in apps to allow online boarding to reduce paper waste.

Thirdly, they are using the best strategy to maintain their customers with by maintaining the lowest fares in whole Europe and by “The launch of our Always Getting Better (“AGB”) Customer Charter, and increased focus on digital technology through the release of our new website app, has improved our interaction with customers, providing them with the services and information they require to make their travel more productive and comfortable.”

As well as the managers of Ryanair are using the right strategy to keep the profit high by keeping the fares cost cheap to make sure the costumers always find the way to travel cheap with a reliable company.

Disadvantages:

The employees are not satisfied with their job, while the company is making high profits the workers are treated with unfairness, an example of a crew member Mrs Berger that rose a case against Ryanair, “Raising the issue in the House of Commons, Luciana Berger accused the company of 'ruthlessly' exploiting staff and helping the company achieve record profits of nearly half a billion pounds. She also accused the Ryanair chief executive, Michael O'Leary, of profiting on the backs of poorly treated staff.”

Furthermore, the company most frequently cancels flight caused by the dissatisfaction of the employees that affects the costumers, finding themselves the day of their jurney with the flight cancelled without any prior advice.

Nevertheless, Ryanair is taking advantage of the cheap fares to push people to buy allocated seats, a traveller said “My partner was seated far from our baby on a flight. Is this a ploy to make money from passengers?”.

Case study Pret a Manger

The story of Pret a Manger started in the year 1986 with the first coffee shop opened in Victory Street, London. The founder's objective was to offer healthy food with a great customer service and a good team work. They had an important profit along the years by following the scientific management with its strength and weaknesses following listed.

The Strength:

Primarily, the recruitment team on selecting people do not employ them based on the experience but considering dedication, good communication skills and as well as group work, they look at the person before the work background. Certain skills are important more than the environment because workers can be trained to do the job. “You cannot hire someone who can make sandwiches and teach them to be passionate. So, we hire passionate people and teach them to make sandwiches”.

Secondly, Pret provides good and specific training at their “Pret Academy”. When the candidates succeed the interviews, they start the training scheme where they learn how to make sandwiches.

Finally, the company invested in good equipment's as they are part of the everyday service, for example coffee machines, fridges and hot holds that help to get good quality of the food and influences the employees' performance as they reduce time consuming during the cleaning. Therefore, Pret observes the visual layout of the shops because there is no difference between a Pret a Manger in London and the one in New York.

The weaknesses:

The company is concentrating on training people on smile and good customer service, but they are not looking on product policy for example the allergens that consequently had killed two innocent girls after eating a simple sandwich.”15-year-old Natasha Ednan-Laperouse, who was allergic to sesame and died on a flight after eating one of its baguettes bought at Heathrow airport.”

The price of the company sandwiches is high because they despite that are a hundred per cent natural when after a research Organic Consumers Association (OCA) a killing a pesticide that can cause cancer. “Consumers expect Pret's food to be free of synthetic pesticides, including glyphosate. Glyphosate, patented as a chelator and an antibiotic, is linked to adverse health effects including cancer, infertility and non-alcoholic fatty liver and kidney diseases”.

The company is take advantage of the employees who work a broad as Pret has been accused of low wage and cheating on the people shifts in the shop based in New York.

Conclusion

In conclusion after discussing the case studies and searching evidences of the scientific management of Ryanair company and Pret a Manger with their weaknesses and strength the modern scientific management can be a good model if gets improved from the human rights and needs, with more balance between profit and needs of each employee

References

  1. August Graham. (2018). Pret A Manger agrees payout with US staff who claim they were short changed. Available at: http://www.cityam.com/267359/pret-manger-agrees-payout-us-staff-claim-they-were-short (accessed 01/11/2018)
  2. Ben Chapman. (2018). Pret A Manger sued for ‘deceptive’ marketing of 'natural' foods found to contain carcinogenic pesticide. Available at:https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/pret-a-manger-lawsuit-cancer-natural-food-labels-glyphosate-a8554861.html (accessed 01/11/2018)
  3. Capa. (2014). Ryanair SWOT: low costs remain the key strength, even as customer service enhancements take root. Available at: https://centreforaviation.com/analysis/reports/ryanair-swot-low-costs-remain-the-key-strength-even-as-customer-service-enhancements-take-root-186145 (accessed 26/10/2018)
  4. James Nickerson. (2015). Ryanair reports €245m in first quarter profits as it continues ascent despite turbulence. Available at: http://www.cityam.com/220994/ryanair-reports-25-cent-growth-first-quarterprofits-it-continues-ascent-despite-turbulence (accessed 20/10/2018)
  5. Miles Brignall. (2018). Pay up … or Ryanair will split you up. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/feb/27/ryanair-pay-seat-allocation-families-split (Accessed 26/10/2018)
  6. Oliver Wright. (2013). Join Ryanair! See the world! But we'll only pay you for nine months a year. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/join-ryanair-see-the-world-but-well-only-pay-you-for-nine-months-a-year-8619897.html (Accessed 26/10/2018)
  7. Pret a Manger. (2018). A potted History of Pret. Available at:https://www.pret.co.uk/en-gb/about-pret
  8. Pret a Manger. (2018). Grow from Team Member to Leader, Manager and beyond. Available at: https://www.pret.co.uk/en-gb/pret-jobs
  9. Peter Moore. (2015). Pret a Manger – behind the scenes at the 'Happy Factory' Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/small-business-network/2015/apr/14/pret-a-manger-happy-coffee-chain (accessed 29/10/2018)
  10. Pugh, D., Hickson, D. (2007), “Frederick Taylor”, in Writers on Organizations, pp102-105, Penguin, London.
  11. Rayanair.com. (2018). Ryanair Environmental, Social Governance (ESG) Policy. Available at: https://investor.ryanair.com/governance/esg/ (accessed 24/10/2018)
  12. Steven Morris and Aamna Mohdin. (2018). Family of second Pret a Manger allergy victim call for answers. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/08/pret-a-manger-second-person-to-die-after-allergic-reaction-named-as-celia-marsh (accessed 02/11/2018)
  13. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/9129410/Smiley-culture-Pret-A-Mangers-secret-ingredients.html
01 February 2021
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