What is the Taylor Exception Principle?

The initial goal of F. Taylor was aimed at eliminating waste in American industries, which has proven to be one of the important elements in shaping product prices. Thus, the goal was achieve higher productivity and, with lower costs and better profit margins, face growing competition in all markets.

For Taylor, the organization and administration of companies must be studied and treated scientifically and not empirically. Improvisation must give way to planning and empiricism to science. Thus, Taylor's work is of special importance for the application of a systematic methodology in the analysis and solution of organizational problems, from the bottom up.

Taylor was the first to make a complete analysis of the work in the factory, including times and movements, establishing patterns of execution. It trained the workers, specialized them according to the phases of the work, including the supervisory and management personnel; he set up planning rooms and organized each unit within the complex.

Scientific Administration

While Taylor and other American engineers developed the so-called Scientific Administration in the United States, In 1916 the so-called Classical Theory of Administration (Henri Fayol) arose in France, which quickly spread throughout Europe.

The Classical Theory started from the study of the organizational set and its structure to ensure the efficiency of all parties involved, whether they were bodies (sections, departments, etc.) or people (occupants and executors of chores). The concern for the structure of the organization as a whole constitutes, without a doubt, a substantial extension of the object of study of the TGA (anatomical and structural approach).

The benefits derived from scientific management can be summarized as follows:

• Improved working methods brought huge increases in productivity.
• Its rational approach to organizational work enables tasks and procedures to be measured with a considerable degree of precision.
• The measurement of trajectories and processes provides useful information on which to base improvements in working methods, plant design, etc.
• It allowed employees to be paid for results and to take advantage of incentive payments.
• Encouraged management to adopt a more positive leadership role at the plant level
• It contributed to significant improvements in the physical working conditions of employees.
• It provided training for modern labor studies.

The drawbacks were mainly for the workers:

• He reduced the role of the worker to one of rigid adherence to methods and procedures over which he had little discretion.
• It led to further fragmentation of work due to its emphasis on divisional work.
• It spawned an economics-based approach to employee motivation by linking salary to results-oriented.
• He put the planning and control of workplace activities exclusively in the hands of managers.
• He ruled out any realistic bargaining on wage rates, as all jobs were measured and graded "scientifically."

Taylor basics

The Four Management Principles of Frederick W. Taylor that provide the basis for scientific management are described below:

1. Each element of the work must be analyzed scientifically rather than as a general rule.
2. Workers are selected, trained and scientifically developed for the positions for which they are most rather than allowing them to select their own work and use their own methods to perform jobs.
3. Cooperation between managers who plan the work and those who do the work are encouraged to ensure that all work is performed in accordance with scientific principles developed.
4. Responsibility for work is shared and appropriately assumed between those who plan the work and those who carry it out.

Principle of exception

Another management principle pointed out by Frederick W. Taylor is as follows: The principle of exception. It describes that the manager should receive only condensed, summary, and comparative reports that include both the especially good and the especially bad exceptions.

It is an information system thatpoints out concrete results that diverge or deviate from expected results. The exception principle is based on condensed and summary reports showing only deviations or deviations, omitting normal occurrences, making them comparative and easy to use and visualize.

In summary, therefore, while scientific management technique has been used to increase productivity and efficiency in both public and private services, it has also had the disadvantage of discounting many of the human aspects of employment. Taylor's ideas about management and workers demonstrate justice for both parties (employer and employee).

Taylorism prevailed in the 1930s through the early 1960s, and in many organizations much later. Peters and Waterman in the 70s / 80s and Senge in the late 80s / early 90s led us to what we now call 'Systems thinking', where the broader potential contributions and rights of employees were emphasized considerably higher.