workers with hearts - human resource management & total quality management

Workers with Hearts:

Human Relations & TQM

Dr. Joe O’Mahoney 2007

0790613349

Learning Objectives

• To briefly revisit Human Relations

• To know the history and features of TQM

• To understand the methods by which TQM enhances managerial control.

• To examine the limits of control using TQM and Human Relations schemes

0790613349

AGENDA

1. The Failure of Taylorism?

2. Human Relations

3. TQM (neo-Human Relations?)

4. Critiquing TQM

- Rhetoric or Reality?

- Enhancing Control?

0790613349

The Failure of Rationality?

0790613349

Late 18th century art

0790613349

Early 20th century art

0790613349

The Failings of Science?

• The Great Depression

• The First World War

• The Holocaust

0790613349

Human Relations

0790613349

The discovery of the heart?

• The growth of ‘welfare’

• Growth in worker militancy

• Freud & the subconscious

• Anomie, alienation & angst

• WWI Personality testing

0790613349

Human Relations

• Hawthorne (Mayo), McGregor (Theory X & Y), Maslow (HoN)

• Psychology, sociology and Organisational Behaviour

• Practices:

- Team work

- Autonomous working

- Decision making

- Coaching

- Innovation / creativity

0790613349

Total Quality Management

0790613349

Japan v USA: a story of quality

1950

1985

2000

0790613349

Western Weaknesses

• Quality

• Costs of poor quality?o Loss of custom

o Product Repair

o Inspection

o Rework

o Complaints Management

0790613349

Supplier Inspection

Incoming Inspection

Fabrication Inspection

Sub-product Test

Final Product Test

Field Service

0.003

0.03

0.30

$3

$30

$300

Cost of finding and correcting a defective component

The Cost of Low Quality

0790613349

So what was Japan doing right?

• Innovation: In 1986 from a labor force of 60,000 Toyota received 2.6 million improvement proposals. 96% were implemented

• Error Free: 3.6 defective parts per million

• Efficient work layout & minimal waste

• Low inventory, no buffer stock

Yes, but HOW was it doing it?

0790613349

• “Continuous Improvement”- training

• Who are the experts?- empowerment

• Internal customers- Teamwork

Kaizen: Continuous Improvement

0790613349

• Team members volunteering (personal recognition)

• Different departments: engineering, marketing, HRM…

• Brainstorm Problems

• Potential Solutions

• Prioritized Solutions

• Implementation Plan

• 50% participation in Japan

• Illegal (in Japan) unless voluntary

Quality Circles

0790613349

Errors are inspected out Quality is built in

Workers are Drones Workers Are Experts

Managers tell Managers Support

Machines are sprinters Machines are marathon runners

Quality costs Quality is free

Specialisation Multi-skills

Hierarchy Flat Organisations

Traditional v TQM Philosophy

0790613349

Spread of TQM• 1980s

o Adoption of Japanese techniques

o Crosby: Quality is Free

o Peters and Waterman: In Search of Excellence

• 1990s & 2000so Expansion to non-manufacturing companies

o IEEE & Six Sigma

0790613349

Example: Xerox

• Japanese had entered the US market and were selling cheaper copiers

• Xerox lost its market share, down from 90% to 15%

• Mr. David Kearns became CEO of Xerox in 1982

• He adopted TQM– No inventory– No Inspectors– Managers as support

• It took 7 years for Xerox to get back its market share

0790613349

However….

0790613349

International Comparison

Suggestions per employee p.a.

Percentage accepted

Av. value of reward

% from operators

Japan 47 70% $35 84%

Rest of World

1 54% $178 55%

0790613349

Surveys of TQM Implementation

• Rhetoric not reality – WIRS 5% (Cully et al, 1998)

• Work intensification & enhanced controls

• Companies deemed ‘excellent’ later failed

• Evidence of resistance (e.g. Hawthorne)– Output restriction (Homans, 1959)– Acting-out– Informal resistance– Cross-cultural barriers

0790613349

TQM….empowerment or exploitation?

• Garrahan, P. and Stewart, P. (1992) The Nissan Enigma: Flexibility at Work in a Local Economy, London: Mansell

• Teamwork = surveillance & peer pressure

• Flexibility = exploitation

and intensification

• Quality = rhetoric & hype

0790613349

Weaknesses

• Not a miracle cure: 66% dissatisfied with TQM (Korukonda, A.P., Watson, J.G., and Rajkumar, T.M., ``Beyond Teams and Empowerment: A Counterpoint to Two Common Precepts in TQM''. S.A.M. Advanced Management Journal. Vol. 64 No. 1 (1999)).

• Takes a long time: 1 – 2 years to change mindset

• Things get worse before they get better (Estes, P. ``Northwood Research Raises Disturbing Questions about Employee Empowerment in Florida Businesses''. Northwood University Employee Empowerment Study, Fall (1997). http://www.seflin.org)

• Requires good labour relations (Boone, L.E. and Kurtz, D. Contemporary Marketing. Texas: The Dryden Press, 1998)

0790613349

Old wine, new bottle?

• Concerned with control

• Focus on intensification

• Scant evidence of real implementation

• Fits with modern rhetoric– Flexibility– Innovation– Creativity

0790613349

Thank you

0790613349

Reading• Peters, Tom and Waterman, Robert (1982) In search of excellence: lessons from

America’s best run companies. Crosby, Philip

• Crosby, P. (1979) Quality is Free. London: McGraw Hill.

• Willmott, H. (1995) Making quality critical

• Knights, David, and Darren McCabe (1998) ‘Dreams and designs on strategy: a critical analysis of TQM and management control’, Work, Employment and Society 12/3: 443-456.

• Knights, David, and Darren McCabe (1999) ‘Are there no limits to authority?: TQM and organisational power’, Organisational Studies, 20/2: 197-224.

• Rees, C. (1998) ‘Empowerment through quality management: employee accounts from inside a bank, a hotel and two factories’, in Experiencing Human Resource Management. C. Maybe, D. Skinner and T. Clark (eds.). Sage: London: 98-124

• Sewell, G., & Wilkinson, B. (1992). “Someone to watch over me’: Surveillance, discipline and the Just-in-Time labour process”, Sociology, 26(2), 271-289.

• Tuckman A (1994) “The Yellow Brick Road: Total Quality Management and the Restructuring of Organizational Culture”, Organization Studies, 15(5), pp727-751.

0790613349