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Donasian Mbonea
HR Consultant, Tanzania
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#1: Division of Work/Labor-principle (Fayol)
Let's discuss: What are the benefits of Fayol's "Division of Labor/Work"-principle (Fr: Division du Travail)?
Henry Fayol argues that work should be divided among individuals and groups so that they can focus on their portion of the task, build up skills and become more productive.
Also this principle brings in the notion of specialization. At the workplace, each employee is allocated responsibilities according to his/her areas of specialization and expertise. If an employee is given a specific task to do, they will become more efficient and skilled in it. This is opposed to a multi tasking culture where an employee is given many tasks to do at once.
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Jaap de Jonge
Editor, Netherlands
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First Principle of Fayol: Division of Work/Labor 👍Thanks for starting this topic involving Fayol's 1st management principle. In my opinion,
- When taken too far, the 1st principle results in extreme specialization (ultimately each employee or team is only performing 1 single task). It's easy to see this is likely to cause boredom of the employees involved. For the organization, this situation is efficient in the short term, but the risks of mistakes and of the employees leaving are high.
- When taken not far enough, the 1st principle leads to extreme generalization (ultimately 1 employee or team performing all tasks). It is obvious that this is likely to lead to stress and burn-outs of the employees involved. For the organization, this situation is not efficient and again the risk of the employee dropping out is high.
So we should always be looking for a balance in applying the 1st principle of Fayol - and not overdo it.
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Peter Cobbe
Strategy Consultant, United Kingdom
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A Marxist Perspective on Division of Labour Here is a critique of the division of labour from a Marxist perspective:
Marx saw the division of labour in capitalist societies as exploitative and alienating for workers. By breaking work down into simple, repetitive tasks, workers' skills and energies are narrowing, not developing. This makes work monotonous and unfulfilling.
The division of labour separates mental and manual labour. Managers and capitalists do the thinking and planning, while workers simply execute tasks. This denies workers' opportunities to be creative and use their full human potential.
By dividing work into specialised roles, workers lose their connection with the final product. They do not directly see the fruits of their labour, which further alienates them. This especially impacted artisans replaced by factory production.
The division of labour makes workers more interchangeable and replaceable. Specialised workers are seen as cogs in a machine. This decreases their bargaining power and job security.
According to Marx, capitalism used the division of labour to increase profits and exert control over workers. Simplifying tasks allowed employers to pay lower wages and speed up production.
However, the division of labour has also led to increased productivity and economic growth. From a non-Marxist perspective, these efficiencies allow goods to be produced more abundantly and cheaply.
In summary, Marx saw the division of labour as a tool of exploitation by capitalists. It deskills workers and denies their human potential for creativity. He believed it should be transcended in a communist society organised for human needs, not profit.
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Anonymous
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Levels of Division of Labor The principle of division of labor is being applied at many levels, including:
- FUNCTION. For example, in a plant (i.e., the manufacturing function), on an assembly line, one person completes a single part, job, or task before the unit is moved to the next station/individual to perform the next task.
- COMPANY. In a medium-size firm, one team usually specializes in Manufacturing the product, while other teams take care of Sales, Marketing, Accounting, Design, HR, Legal, etc.
- CORPORATION. Large companies often have multiple Strategic Business Units (Divisions) specializing in an entire business activity. For example a global financial company may have a retail banking division, a wholesale banking division, and an insurance division.
- SUPPLY CHAIN. Supply chains are also the results of division of work. Company A may specialize in mining certain raw materials, Company B transports them to Company C who turns them into semi-finished products, Company D transports them to Company E who turns them into an end product, which are being marketed and sold though Company F.
- COUNTRY. If a country is very good at providing certain products or services for one reason or the other, it can specialize in them and source other products or services from other countries that excel in that area. See: comparative advantage.
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Paramathmuni srinivas Kumar
India
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Division of Labour in Light of Adoption of Artificial Intelligence With the wide spread of adoption of IT, more recently AI, in all spheres of activity, routine tasks are performed more efficiently and effectively. As a consequence of division of labour now a days the thinking is to how to automate the tasks at hand and how to harmoniously coexist with software agents at work will be a skill to have and is in demand.
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Sandy Szilage
United States
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Division of Work/labor Principle In my opinion, the division of work/labor to teams of workers in general is returning good results. However, the success of a company or business is in the hands of each employee. Therefore, the teams should have regular meetings to share their work and goals amongst all the teams as a whole. Otherwise, it might result in "the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing", a term of derision for an organization where different members are pursuing contradictory goals.
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JUAN MANUEL UGARTE CHAVEZ
Professor, Mexico
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Origin of the 1st Principle of Administrative Science It's great to discuss the principles of the administrative science in these times of constant changes.
Fayol took this concept of specialization from Taylor, and Taylor from Adam Smith (the pinball process).
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Molokanova
Professor, Ukraine
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Who is Suitable for the Division of Work/Labor-principle? The Division of Work/Labor-principle is not suitable for all employees.
Approximately one-fourth of the population ("workhorses") tend to constantly do the same work and even find their joy in it. Such people enjoy working on the assembly line, they like to do work in which nothing changes from day to day. They like the feeling of stability and their competence in a particular job.
On the other hand, there are also people who cannot stand the monotony, who are constantly looking for something new. They also make up about a quarter of the population ("researchers").
The rest of humanity is somewhere in the middle in relation to monotonous work, they can put up with it, endure for a while, and then the cup of patience overflows and they run away.
The conclusion is, if you need to introduce a division of labor in a company, look for "workhorses". However, the workhorses are the first to be replaced by robots. 😉.
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Oshun, Grace Okaima
Lecturer, Nigeria
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Application of the Principle of Division of Labour I read the submission of the writer patiently and became eager for him to suggest a better alternative to the principle. But he merely stated that Division of Labour is opposed to 'multi tasking' with...
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Sarkis Yaralian
Director, Saudi Arabia
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Size and Stage of Business Matter With the current transformation of most workplaces and working conditions, narrow specialization is not applicable in many functions or even organizations. For example, let's consider a startup organi...
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Tom Wilson
HR Consultant, United States
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Fayol's Principle of Esprit de Corps Favors SAG in the Hollywood Writers Strike Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" is an explication of the economics of Jesus as a moral science. Everything became a moral science as a result of Hegel process to devolve paradox and explore the prope...
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Maurice Hogarth
Consultant, United Kingdom
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Division of Labour PROs & CONs To respond to the question as to the good aspects of division of labour. I consider these to be:
Specialism-
Expertise-
-feeding personal Pride (self esteem).
The specialism/expertise may be consi...
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Norman Dragt
Netherlands
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Fayol's Principles Have a Point for the 19th Century After reading all answers I think they all make valid points about Fayol's first principle.
However I want to make a maybe obvious point: One should view Fayol's principle in the realm of his time. F...
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Tom Wilson
HR Consultant, United States
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Fayol's Principles are the Leading Edge of the Starship Capitalism of the 25th Century @Norman Dragt: It is pertinent to recall that Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations is an explication of the economics of the Bible, generally, and the economics of Jesus, in particular, as a moral science.
...
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Norman Dragt
Netherlands
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Warnings Often Go Unheeded @Tom Wilson: And they may never get the memo and even if they got the memo, that is not the same as understanding. If I understood Adam Smith and Karl Marx correctly, both were warning their capitali...
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Maurice Hogarth
Consultant, United Kingdom
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Division versus Multiplication of Labour To go back a bit; as some of the responses show "division of labour" has been around since "labour" started: from the woman gatherers and the men hunters through the spinners and weavers ... to the He...
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