HUMAN RELATIONS MOVEMENT

Using the techniques developed by the psychologists, George Elton Mayo (a psychologist) and Fritz J. Roethlisberger (a sociologist) of Harvard Graduate school of Business Administration and William J. Dickson of Western Electric Company conducted some experiments (known as Hawthorne Experiments) in the field of industrial psychology between 1927 and 1932. Mayo and his associates followed up their experiments and investigated the myriad of informal groupings, informal relationship, social cliques, patterns of communication and patterns of information leadership. As a results, during the 1930’s a trend began which can be phrased as ‘ being nice to people’. This trend was eventually termed ‘the human relations movement’.

Elton Mayo and his associates drew the following conclusions from the Hawthorne experiments:

·         The amount of work to be done by the worker is not determined by his physical capacity but by the social norms.

·         Non-economic rewards and sanctions play a significant role in influencing the behaviour of the workers.

·         Generally, workers do not act or react as individuals, but as members of group.

·         Informal leaders play an important part in setting and members of group.

·         Informal leaders play an important part in setting and enforcing the group norms.

Elton Mayo wrote two books: The Industrial Civilisation (1933), and The Social Problems of Industrial Civilisation (1949). In both the books, Mayo discussed in detail the factors that cause a change in human behaviour. He concluded that the cause of increase in the productivity of the workers is not a single factor like changing working hours or rest pauses, but a combination of these and several other factors such as less restrictive methods of supervision, giving autonomy to the workers, creating conditions which encourage and support the growth of these groups, and cooperation between workers and management. All these factors are even now the concern of personnel/human resource management.