1. Elton Mayo’s Study on Employee Motivation and Work Productivity
Hawthorne Studies
Elton Mayo’s Study on Employee Motivation and Work Productivity

2. What Will Be Covered Definition of the Hawthorne Studies
Experiment that Mayo conducted
Results
Conclusions
Brainstorming: How this can be used in organizations

3. What Will Be Covered Cont.
Nuts and Bolts: Explanation of topic
How it works in the field
Real World Example
Summary
References

4. Definition of Hawthorne Studies
“The Hawthorne Studies were conducted from at the Western Electric Hawthorne Works in Chicago, where Harvard Business School Professor Elton Mayo examined productivity and work conditions.”
The studies grew out of preliminary experiments at the plant from on the effect of light and productivity. Those experiments showed no clear connection between productivity and the amount of illumination but researchers began to wonder what kind of changes would influence output.

5. Definition of Hawthorne Studies Cont.
“Mayo wanted to find out what effect fatigue and monotony had on job productivity and how to control them through such variables as rest breaks, work hours, temperatures and humidity.”

6. Mayo’s Experiment
Five women assembled telephone relays, one supplied the parts.
Made frequent changes in working conditions with their consent.
Records were kept of relays made, temperature and humidity of rooms, medical and personal histories, eating and sleeping habits, and bits of conversation on the job.
No one supervised the girls.
They were told to work as they felt and at a comfortable pace.
Telephone relays - a small mechanism of about forty parts which had to be assembled and dropped in a chute when completed.
Changes made were temperature and humidity of the rooms, hours worked in a week and in a day, the number of breaks they received, and when they ate their lunch.

7. Mayo’s Experiment Cont.
Productive capacity was measured by recording the girls’ output for two weeks before the study began.
First five weeks, no changes were made.
Third stage, a pay system was ensured allowing the girls’ to earn in proportion to their efforts.
Eight weeks later, two five-minute rest pauses were added.
By adding a pay system this centralized the girls’ financial interest on the study.
The two added rest pauses were at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. They then were given a light lunch in the pauses.

8. Mayo’s Experiment Cont.
Eighth phase, workday ended a half-day early.
Ninth phase, the girls finished an hour earlier than usual.
Five-day week introduced.
Girls went back to no breaks, lunches and a full work week, output declined for those twelve weeks.
which ran through the summer of 1928.
Introduction of five day week lasted through the summer of 1928.

9. Results
Researchers found that output rates weren’t directly related to the physical conditions of the work.
Output went up when:
They were put on piece-work for eight weeks.
Two five minute rest pauses were introduced for five weeks.
Rest pauses were lengthened to ten minutes.
A hot meal was supplied during first pause.
They were dismissed at 4:30 p.m. instead of 5:00 p.m.
As the girls went from one phase to the next, output rate increased.
At a forty eight hour week, the girls produced 2,400 relays a week each.

10. Results Cont.
Output slightly fell when six five minute pauses were added.
It remained the same when they were dismissed at 4:00 p.m. instead of 4:30 p.m.
Mayo believes “what actually happened was that six individuals became a team and the team gave itself wholeheartedly and spontaneously to cooperation in the experiment. The consequence was that they felt themselves to be participating freely and without afterthought, and were happy in the knowledge that they were working without coercion from above or limitations from below.”
The girls complained that the six five minutes pauses interrupted their work rhythm. Once they were put back to normal working hours and everything, the highest output was recorded, averaging 3000 relays a week.

11. Conclusions Work is a group activity.
Social world for an adult is primarily patterned about work.
Need for recognition, security and sense of belonging.
Complaints, commonly a symptom manifesting disturbance of an individual’s status position.
The need for recognition, security and sense of belonging is more important in determining workers’ morale and productivity than physical conditions of the work place.

12. Conclusions Cont.
Attitudes and effectiveness are conditioned by social demands.
Informal groups at work are strong social controls over the work habits and attitudes of a worker.
Change from established society to adaptive society.
Group collaboration.
Changing from an established society in the home to an adaptive society in the work plant resulting from the use of new techniques tends to disrupt the social organization of a work plant and industry.
Group collaboration must be planned and developed. If it is achieved the human relations within a work plant may reach a cohesion which resists the disrupting effects of adaptive society.

13. Brainstorming: How this can be used in organizations
Cooperation and communication with coworkers.
Rearrange/reorganize job functions.
Create an atmosphere of working as a team.
Workers have a strong need for cooperation and communication with coworkers, by first recognizing this, the organization can then brainstorm ideas in order to rearrange/reorganize the job functions in such a way that workers feel that they are working with a team.