When we talk about "groups" in the organization, we generally think of "work teams", "improvement teams", "empowered teams", "quality circles" and other similar ones whose existence has been authorized by the Administration.
Boasting of having work teams speaks well of the organization, gives a good image and is already a requirement for any company that boasts of being "certified".
However, in addition to the teams formally established by management, there are other informal groups, generally ignored by the Administration, whose presence not only regulates social norms among employees, but also influences floor production standards. In reality, informal groups constitute the human organization of the company and are often at the opposite pole of the formal organization structured by management.
The Hawthorne Experiments
Although Elton Mayo is most recognized as the initiator of the School of Human Relations in Administration science, he must be given the credit he deserves as a discoverer of Informal Groups.
To understand more about the nature and dynamics of these groups, it is necessary to review studies conducted from May 1927 to 1932 at the Hawthorne Works plant of the Western Electric Co., located in Cicero, Illinois.
Initially, these experiments were designed in 1924 by industrial engineers at the factory to analyze the effects that different degrees of illumination had on the production of the workers. An experimental group and a control group were formed. The experimental group was exposed to different lighting intensities, while the control group worked under a fixed intensity. Engineers expected individual production to be directly related to light intensity.
However, they found that as light intensity increased in the experimental group, the output of both groups increased. On the other hand, as the light level decreased in the experimental group, the production continued to increase in both groups. The engineers concluded that the level of illumination was not directly related to the productivity of the employees, but they could not explain the results obtained under the approach of the scientific administration.
In April 1927, Elton Mayo joined the group of consultants, initiating the second phase of the experiment, which consisted of twelve periods in which variables such as increases in the length of breaks, an increase in the number of breaks were included., modifications in the payment system, reduction of the daily workday, and the establishment of a 5-day workday. The final result measured in the number of pieces produced was from 2,400 to 3,000 units per week per employee in the experimental group.
The third stage began in September 1928 with the Interview Program that was carried out with the employees in order to better understand their attitudes and feelings, listen to their opinions about the job, the treatment they received, and record suggestions for training supervisors. The interviews exposed the existence of an informal organization of the workers established to protect themselves from any threat from the administration against their well-being.
Among the manifestations of the informal organization are: the control of production with standards established by the workers themselves and not surpassed by any of them, informal "sanctions" or "punishments" that the group applies to those who exceed the standards, and the existence of informal leadership by certain workers who keep the groups together.
The fourth stage, which lasted from November 1931 to May 1932, aimed to analyze the characteristics of the informal organization. It was carried out with operators in the terminal assembly section for telephone stations and revealed what is already well known: once the operators produce what they consider to be their normal quota, they reduce their work rate; and, on the part of the supervisors, when they exceed their production standard, they manipulate the report of that day and leave it as a “mattress” for another day when parts are missing.
Conclusions
Hawthorne's experiments showed that the individual's behavior is supported by the group. For Mayo, the situation of workers within organizations is a key factor to improve organizational performance and better understand organizational behavior. Therefore, because the power that the group exercises to bring about changes in individual behavior is so great, management cannot continue treating workers as isolated persons, but as members of work groups subject to the influences of these. groups.
Unfortunately, more than 70 years after Mayo's discoveries about informal groups, current managers continue to ignore their presence and influence on the company. However, coexisting in parallel with formal organization, informal groups continue to define their members' standards of conduct, their forms of social rewards or sanctions, their goals, their values, their beliefs, and their expectations. It is time to recognize them. It is time to break paradigms.
