Emerson's 12 Principles of Efficiency were promulgated in 1912 in a book of the same name, in which Mr. Harrington Emerson, one of the most advanced disciples of the School of Scientific Management, headed by Frederick W. Taylor, He expressed that ideas are the most important productive factor (above capital, land and labor) and that these should focus on eliminating waste and creating a more efficient industrial system.
They can be used as indicators, in any industry, to measure and locate their inefficiencies since they are basic premises, interrelated with each other, formulated with the intention that business processes run smoothly and generate the necessary support for the growth of organizations.
The first five (altruistic) principles concern human relations, specifically the employer-employee relationship, while the remaining seven (practical) correspond to applied administrative methods and systems.
The twelve principles of efficiency
"Efficiency, like hygiene, is a state, an ideal, not a method." Harrington Emerson
Here is a brief description of each:
1. Clear definition of (ideal) objectives
Goal setting is one of the fundamental principles of administration, in this Emerson was also a pioneer, some mention it as an advance to the administration by objectives proposed towards the middle of the 20th century. If a manager (company) has not set clear and concrete (ideal) objectives, it will be impossible for him to advance or he will advance in any direction.
The vagueness, uncertainty, and directionlessness that characterizes employees is but a consequence of the vagueness, uncertainty, and directionlessness that characterizes employers. If each manager formulates his own (ideal) objectives, promulgates and publishes them everywhere and inoculates them on all employees, the organization can achieve excellence.
2. Employ common sense
Emerson believed that when a company lacks ideals, organization, and common sense, it tends to be overcapitalized. Unnecessary machines are purchased and less than the total time is installed and used. This adds an excessive general burden and destroys the success of the organization.
A supreme common sense that enables one to distinguish between trees and forest. It is a common sense that leads to knowledge and asks for advice from all departments, it is not confined to a single position and yet it maintains the dignity of balance.
3. Actively seek advice from competent persons
The increasing complexity of the business requires the frequent use of technical experts. No single manager can be competent in all the areas necessary to successfully run a business. Therefore, to ensure that best practices are used in all areas, competent advice should be used and the manager should be responsive to the advice offered by such advisers.
4. Discipline
Emerson said that "Cooperation is not a principle, but its absence is a crime."
The principle of discipline makes specific reference to the fact that working with common ideals in a disciplined organization provides cooperation, to explain the foundations of the principle a simile is made with the government of a hive: no bee seems to obey any other bee, and yet the spirit of the hive is so strong that each bee works hard on its specific task assuming that any other bee is also consciously working as hard as possible in the interest of the commune.
Adherence to rules; strict obedience. The function of this principle is to ensure the loyalty and observance of the remaining eleven principles.
5. Fair treatment
Managers need three important qualities: sympathy, imagination, and above all, a sense of justice. The biggest problem in ensuring fair treatment is failure to establish equivalence between salary and outcome. Salary systems should be developed in such a way as to ensure that today becomes bearable without ruling out hope for a better tomorrow. Such compensation systems provide incentives and incentives.
6. Maintain reliable, immediate, adequate and permanent records
The purpose of information records is to increase the scope and number of warnings, to provide us with more information than what we usually receive through our senses. With overdue accounting, without budget information, without day-to-day cash flows, rational decision-making is impossible. Records provide the basis for decision making.
7. Dispatch (Expedition)
Scientific planning through which each small function is carried out in a way that serves to unite the whole and enables the organization to reach its objective, for which effective techniques of deadlines and production control must be formulated. For an organization to be efficient it is necessary that it "dispatches", that it has guaranteed what we could call the minimum infrastructure.
8. Norms and programs (standards and guides)
A method and a time for the tasks to be carried out must be made explicit, which is achieved through time and movement studies, the establishment of work standards and production planning, in such a way as to establish a constant «critical» rhythm that allows maximum efficiency.
9. Standardized conditions
A uniformity of the organizational environment must be sought, in such a way that the waste of time, effort and money is reduced.
10. Standardized operations
Standardizing operations, wherever and whenever possible, will greatly increase efficiency. The standardization of operations constitutes the detailed operating plan, which, if not supervised day by day, will not achieve the strategic objectives. It is about standardizing the methods, the ways in which tasks are executed.
11. Written, practical and standardized instructions
Documentation of the tasks is essential, if there were a mandatory custom of writing down what was done, how it was done, why it was done and what results it produced, mistakes would not be repeated and progress would be accelerated.
12. Reward for efficiency
Work well done, efficient, deserves to be rewarded, for which it is recommended the establishment of incentive programs that motivate workers in the search for individual efficiency and thus collaborate in the construction of organizational efficiency.
Bibliography
- Duncan W., Jack. Great ideas in business management. Díaz de Santos editions, 1991 Emerson, Harrington. The twelve principles of efficiency. The Engineering Magazine Co., 1924.Fernández-Ríos, Manuel y Sánchez, José C. Organizational effectiveness: concept, development and evaluation. Editions Díaz de Santos, 1997.Sicard Ramírez, Jaime. Freedom, science and efficiency: objectives of university management. Icesi Publications No. 43, 2010. p. 17-36.
