Frederick Taylor Vs. Elton Mayo

Frederick Taylor vs. Elton Mayo

Elton Mayo is part of the Human Relation Movements and most of his work is based on a series of social experiments known as the Hawthorne Studies. Both Taylor and Mayo theories focus on the individual and have similar goals for their theory such as ways to motivate workers to increase efficiency. In order to achieve this they try to identify workers needs, which would then allow managers to "manipulate or influence these needs, making it easier for employees to improve their performance"(Miles,1975, p 45). However they differ greatly what an employee needs and what motivates them. Mayo focuses on work relationships as the key to improving workplace productivity, inspired by the Hawthorne studies. He studied the effects of physical working conditions on employee productivity and fatigue. These studies suggested that leaders are able to positively influence employee motivation and productivity by showing concern for employee relationships. What these studies also showed is that people desire to have good human relations in the work place, “Man's desire to be continuously associated in work with his fellows is a strong,