Human Relations ESSAY
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Owners and managers of profit and nonprofit organizations define human relations as fitting people into work situations so as to motivate them to work together harmoniously. The process of fitting together should achieve higher levels of productivity for the organization, while also bringing employees economic, psychological, and social satisfaction. Human Relations occurs on several levels. Individuals interact in a variety of settings—as peers, subordinates, and supervisors. No matter what the setting, relationships are built. All types of groups exist in an organization. Human relations cover all types of interactions among people—their conflicts, cooperative efforts, and group relationships. It is the study of why our beliefs, attitudes and behaviors sometimes cause interpersonal conflict in our personal lives and in work-related situations
Human Relations Movement
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Write My Essay For MeAlthough it is difficult to pinpoint exactly when the human relations movement began, most researchers agree that the earliest developments emerged in the mid-1800s. In the beginning, the focus was mainly on improving efficiency, motivation, and productivity. But over time, this research became more involved with redefining the nature of work and perceiving workers as complex human beings.
Around the turn of the century, Frederick Taylor and other researchers interested in industrial problems introduced the concept of scientific management. They believed that productivity could be improved by breaking down a job into isolated, specialized tasks and assigning each of those tasks to specific workers. Taylor’s work was sharply criticized by those who believed it exploited workers. Critics say that he did not foresee that his theories would be applied in ways that dehumanized the workplace. (Wray et al 1996)
At a time when, employees were considered just another input into the production of goods and services, what perhaps changed this way of thinking about employees was research, referred to as the Hawthorne Studies conducted by Elton Mayo during 1924 – 1932 (Dickson, 1973). This study found employees are not motivated solely by money and employee behavior is linked to their attitudes (Dickson, 1973). The Hawthorne Studies began the human relations approach to management, whereby the needs and motivation of employees become the primary focus of managers (Bedeian, 1993). These were followed by researches that completely shifted the focus to employees. For example, Maslow’s Need-Hierarchy, Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory, Vroom’s Expectancy Theory, Adams’ Equity Theory, and Skinner’s Reinforcement Theory.
According to Maslow, employees have five levels of needs (Maslow, 1943): physiological, safety, social, ego, and self- actualizing. Maslow argued that lower level needs had to be satisfied before the next higher level need would motivate employees. Herzberg’s work categorized motivation into two factors: motivators and hygiene’s (Herzberg, Mausner, & Snyderman, 1959). Motivator or intrinsic factors, such as achievement and recognition, produce job satisfaction. Hygiene or extrinsic factors, such as pay and job security, produce job dissatisfaction.
Vroom’s theory is based on the belief that employee effort will lead to performance and performance will lead to rewards (Vroom, 1964). Rewards may be either positive or negative. The more positive the reward the more likely the employee will be highly motivated. Conversely, the more negative the reward the less likely the employee will be motivated.
Adams’ theory states that employees strive for equity between themselves and other workers. Equity is achieved when the ratio of employee outcomes over input……………………
Finally, Perhaps the single most important aspect of designing any work environment is the plan that links all workers and supervisors with multiple channels of communication. Good communication may be cited as the most important component of sound human relations.
References
Adams, J. S. (1965); Inequity in social exchange; In L. Berkowitz (ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology; New York: Academic Press.
Bedeian, A. G. (1993); Management (3rd ed.); New York: Dryden Press.
Dickson, W. J. (1973); Hawthorne experiments. In C. Heyel (ed.), The encyclopedia of management, 2nd ed. (pp. 298-302); New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
Herzberg, F., Mausner, B., & Snyderman, B. B. (1959); The motivation to work; New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Maslow, A. H. (1943); A theory of human motivation; Psychological Review; July 1943; 370-396.
Skinner, B. F. (1953); Science and Human Behavior; New York: Free Press.
Vroom, V. H. (1964); Work and motivation; New York: Wiley
Wray, Ralph, Luft, Roger, and Highland, Patrick. (1996). “Fundamentals of Human Relations: Applications for Life and Work”. Cincinnati, OH: Southwestern Publishing.
Qualitative and Quantitative Techniques
Rapid social cha
