Hawthorne Effects On Factory W

Hawthorne experiments were conducted at the Hawthorne (Illinois) plant of the Western Electric Company to determined the psychological factors, components of the job and work satisfaction on the employees. The experiments identified the factors that will help me to manage the operating employee of the factory. The Hawthorne experiments were divided into three phrases and there were 4 experiments conducted within this purpose.

The first phrase was the test room studies where there were two experiments conducted for this purpose. The first experiment was the illumination experiments (1924-1927) which studied the effects of lighting on output. Two groups of workers were selected in the company and one group had no variations in its level of lighting while the other group were placed under the envoirement that had several variations from better to worse. The result was surprising, as output of both groups were increased.

The second experiment named Relay Assembly Test Room ((1927-1929) were conducted to further the investigation. In this experiment, a group of women were made to subject of various conditions that include the effects of changes in working conditions such as rest periods and meal breaks. Again, the result of the experiment shown that regardless of whether the conditions were improved or worsened, the productivity always increased. Elton Mayo identified this situation is due to the fact that the women responded to the researchers’ attention. And saw themselves as a special group. This form of behavior is known as “Hawthorne effect”.

From the first phrase of studies, I learnt that an important factor were not the incentives or working conditions, but is the esprit de corps that lies within the workers. In this case, I need to develop the esprit de corps among the operating workers by showing more personal interest to them. In short, I need to pay a lot of attention to the operating workers in my factory.

The second phrase of the Hawthorne experiment was the interviewing studies. Interviewing programs were established to determine the attitudes of people at the plant towards their jobs, working conditions and supervision. It was also aimed to establish the importance of social relationships in the work situation to increment the interest in human relations at work. 21000 people were interviewed for a morale survey. The survey, however, cannot identify the dissatisfactions of the workers. The result of the survey identified that the wealth of material gained was used to improve several aspects of working conditions and supervision.