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14-2 Human Relations [CH 14

Chapter Overview
Eddie Ruiz knows that people are the critical ingredients in the success of his
restaurant company, Rustin House. To ensure employee commitment and enhance
morale Rustin promotes almost entirely from within. The restaurant industry has an
annual turnover rate averaging a dismal 250 percent, his solution was to provide his
company's employees with the needed hands-on experience by sending his managers
home and letting Rustin's employees—waiters, waitresses, cooks, and bartenders—
assume total responsibility for running the business.
The importance of people to the success of any organization is stressed in the very
definition of management: the use of people and other resources in accomplishing
organizational objectives. Management involves getting things done through and with
people. American Airlines emphasizes the important role its 110,500 dedicated
employees play in providing on-time service. But how does the organization recruit,
train, and motivate highly qualified people? In this chapter we will look at recruitment
and training practices though they vary from organization to organization, and

accepted principles of human resources management. Employee motivation is another
human relations matter.
Study of how organizations Human relations refer to the study of how organizations manage and interact with
manage and interact with their employees in their efforts to improve employee and organizational effectiveness.
employees to improve
effectiveness of the firm and Human relations is a broad term that includes such previously discussed subjects as
the employees. leadership, organizational design, extent of decentralization, and willingness to
delegate authority and responsibility. In addition, it involves such fundamental issues
as individual, group, and organizational needs; motivation; and attempts to improve the

quality of work life.

The Scientific Management Movement
During the early part of the twentieth century, management experts such as
Frederick Taylor, Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, and Henry L. Gantt devoted considerable
scientific management
Management approach to efforts to improving the efficiency of individual workers. Their application of
increase efficiency through scientific principles to the management of workers and work activities became known
scientific analysis of the as scientific management. The starting point was a scientific analysis of jobs in which
jobs of individual workers, each work task was simplified and narrowed to its most elementary function. This
careful selection and
training, and improved simplification process was based upon the concept of specialization: a worker could be
supervision. trained to perform a specific task and, through constant repetition, would become
highly productive as they became highly skilled. Dividing the overall production
process into small tasks and training workers to perform each small task would result
in increased output. Worker performance standards were then established and incentive
wages used to encourage individual workers to meet—and exceed—the standards.
Vehicle repair shops have books with repair standards to measure their billing for
services and repairs charging. Removing and replacing the water pump on a German
Opal should take the mechanic 45 minutes and the customer is billed at the shops
hourly rate for that time. Those mechanics that perform the task in 30 or less minutes
can then work on other vehicles and make more money.
United Parcel Service founder James E. Casey applied the time study research of
Frank Gilbreth and others in developing methods of measuring the time consumed
each day by each UPS driver in order to improve efficiency. The concept of
maximizing worker effort has also led to a more efficient equipment design, vehicles,
and package-loading techniques. Ocean vessels historically loaded cargo in the holds
of the ship, below decks and it was a cumbersome task to load and unload a ship’s
cargo. Now ships move cargo in containers that are stacked below the deck line and on
the deck. Loading and offloading is a process of heavy equipment lifting heavier loads,
cutting the time a cargo ship is in port.
UPS, with 543,000 employees, has the highest company work standards in the
industry. As one driver put it, "They squeeze every ounce out of you. You're always in
a hurry, and you can't work relaxed." At UPS, over 1,000 industrial engineers use time

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