There can also be difficulties of communication – particularly where the management do not understand the sentiment of the group and supervisors who have competing needs with the group. The workers were meant to produce around 7200 units a day to meet their bonus. Incentive schemes did not work as management expected, because groups formed their own production standards that individuals felt obliged to follow. Significantly the supervisors could do little about the level of production, and if they tried to change it they were intensely disliked. Firstly, they had to be highly experienced so as not to improve their times through learning new techniques.

Their job was to wire conductor banks, a repetitive and monotonous task. The banks were one of the major components of automatic telephone exchange. Between 3,000 and 6,000 terminals had to be wired for a set of banks. The work was tiring and required the workers to stand for long periods of time. Pay incentives and productivity measures were removed, but a researcher was placed into the test room as an observer and the workers were interviewed. The purpose of the bank-wiring tests was to observe and study social relationships and social structures within a group, issues raised by two other significant members of the research team, W.

The experiments in detail

Despite the seeming implications of the Hawthorne effect in a variety of contexts, recent reviews of the initial studies seem to challenge the original conclusions. The intentions of the participant—which may range from striving to support the experimenter’s implicit agenda to attempting to utterly undermine the credibility of the study—would play a vital role herein. Such improvements result not from any advances in learning or growth, but from a heightened interest in the new stimuli. The Novelty Effect denotes the tendency of human performance to show improvements in response to novel stimuli in the environment (Clark & Sugrue, 1988).

• The analysts reasoned that socio-mental factors, for example, the sensation of being significant, acknowledgment, consideration, investment, durable work-bunch, and non-order oversight held the key to higher efficiency.
• After a detailed systematic review and investigation of all studies performed on the subject, the results showed a wide variation range in the proposed Hawthorne effect.
• The researchers concluded that positive mental feelings, management, and relationships with coworkers are important for job satisfaction and output.
• For this purpose, the researchers set up a relay assembly test room two girls were chosen.

These experiments were performed to find out the effect of different levels of illumination (lighting) on productivity of labour. The brightness of the light was increased and decreased to find out the effect on the productivity of the test group. Surprisingly, the productivity increased even when the level of illumination was decreased. Illumination experiments were undertaken to find out how varying levels of illumination (amount of light at the workplace, a physical factor) affected the productivity.

Warner was on Mayo’s Harvard team, trained as an anthropologist and primarily interested in Hawthorne from an entirely different perspective, that of an observer of the social behavior of a group. Perhaps the most revealing aspect of the bank-wiring tests was that the workers combined to slow down production-a clear indication of the need for analysis of the social relationships of workers. Research showed the most admired worker among the group was the one who demonstrated the greatest resentment of authority by slowing down production the most.

Hawthorne Studies

Despite the possibility of the Hawthorne effect and its seeming impact on performance, alternative accounts cannot be discounted. Additional observation unveiled the existence of smaller cliques within the main group. Moreover, these cliques seemed to have their own rules for conduct and distinct means to enforce them. The first and most influential of these studies is known as the “Illumination Experiment”, conducted between 1924 and 1927 (sponsored by the National Research Council).

The evidence indicates that the efficiency of a wage incentive is so independent on its relation to other factors and cannot be taken as an independent effect. The purpose of the next study was to find out how payment incentives would affect productivity. Workers apparently had become suspicious that their productivity may have been boosted to justify firing some of the workers later on.[11] The study was conducted by Elton Mayo and W. Lloyd Warner between 1931 and 1932 on a group of fourteen men who put together telephone switching equipment.

Four Parts of Hawthorne Studies / Experiments

The output increased in Relay Room due to effectively functioning of a social group with a warm relationship with its supervisors. It was expected that highly efficient workers would bring pressure on less efficient workers to increase output and take advantage of group incentive plan. However, the strategy did not work and workers established their own standard of output and this was enforced vigorously by various methods of social pressure. Fear of unemployment, fear of increase in output, desire to protect slow workers etc.

• Moreover, these cliques seemed to have their own rules for conduct and distinct means to enforce them.
• In the 1920s, with support from the National Research Council, the Rockefeller Foundation, and eventually Harvard Business School, Western Electric undertook a series of behavioral experiments.
• The Hawthorne studies have undoubtedly influenced how employee productivity is viewed today.
• Changes in working hours and workday were introduced, such as cutting an hour off the end of the day and eliminating Saturday work.
• Likewise, if older students were informed that their classroom participation would be observed, they might have more incentives to pay diligent attention to the lessons.
• As the speed of individual workers determined overall production levels, the effects of factors like rest periods and work hours in this department were of particular interest to the company.

The electric power industry provided an additional impetus for these tests, hoping to encourage industries to use artificial lighting in place of natural light. The Illuminating Engineering Society’s Committee on Research also supported the tests and cooperated with the NRC. Workers were notified of the tests in order to attempt to control interference from human factors. When production increased in each test period, researchers looked to other factors such as increased supervision and a sense of competition that developed between the test and control groups. But the one conclusion the impressive team of industrial specialists and academics discovered was the lack of a consistent correlation between lighting levels and product output. No further tests were planned originally, but researchers were surprised at the unanticipated results.

Phases of Hawthorne Experiment – Explained

The term “Hawthorne” is a term used within several behavioral management theories and is originally derived from the western electric company’s large factory complex named Hawthorne works. Starting in 1905 and operating until 1983, Hawthorne works had 45,000 employees and it produced a wide variety of consumer products, including telephone equipment, refrigerators and electric fans. As a result, Hawthorne works is well-known for its enormous output of telephone equipment and most importantly for its industrial experiments and studies carried out. Between 1924 and 1932, a series of experiments were carried out on the employees at the facility.

The production in the experimental group decreased only when the illumination was decreased to the level of moonlight. It was observed that the efficiency expanded to practically a similar rate in both test and control bunches chosen for the examinations. In the last investigation, it was found that result diminished with the diminished brightening level, i.e., moonlight power. It is possible for regular evaluations by the experimenters to function as a scoreboard that enhances productivity. The mere fact that the workers are better acquainted with their performance may actuate them to increase their output. The results of the study seemed to indicate that workers were likely to be influenced more by the social force of their peer groups than the incentives of their superiors.

Illumination Studies

They slackened off after lunch and became boisterous, meaning that the observer had to tell them off for excessive talking, threatening to continue the experiment for another month or two. Mayo pointed out that workers were not simply cogs, in the machinery, instead the employee relay assembly test room experiment morale (both individual and in groups) can have profound effects on productivity. The work involved attaching wire with switches for certain equipment used in telephone exchanges. Hourly wage for each worker was fixed on the basis of average output of each worker.

In this experiment, a group of 14 male workers were formed into a small work group. The men were engaged in the assembly of terminal banks for the use in telephone exchanges. Since this group was subjected to experimental changes, it was termed as experimental group.

Second, there was no attempt to employ control data from the output records of the girls who were not put under special experimental conditions. Third, even if both previous points had been met, the experiments would still have been of minor scientific value since a group of five subjects is too small to yield statistically reliable results. These points make it clear that the evidence obtained from stages I, II and III does not support any of the conclusions derived by Hawthorne investigators. It is only by massive and relentless reinterpretation that the evidence is made to yield contrary conclusions. The limitations of the Hawthorne studies clearly render them incapable of yielding serious support of any sort of generalization whatever. Employees had physical as well as social needs, and the company gradually developed a program of human relations including employee counseling and improved supervision with an emphasis on the individual workers.

For stage I, it is not clear wither the 30 percent increase in the output claimed refers to rate of output or total output. For stage III, if total output per week is used to measure performance, the 15 percent increased claimed reduces to less than zero because although output per hour increased by 15 percent, the weekly hours decreased by 17 percent. In stage I, friendly supervision and a change to a preferred incentive system led to an increase in total output about 30 percent. In stage III, friendly supervision without a change in payment system led to no increase In total output. The investigator concluded that the effect of a wage incentive system is no greatly influenced by social considerations that it is impossible to consider it capable of independent effect. None of the results of the three first stages gave the slightest substantiation to the theory that the workers are primarily motivated by economic interest.

(i.e., lighting) Found that productivity increased regardless of whether illumination was raised or lowered. Hawthorne experiments were designed to study how different aspects of the work environment, such as lighting, the timing of breaks, and the length of the workday, had an on worker productivity. Here in this article, we have explained what is Hawthorne Experiment. They highlighted the importance of psychological and social factors in workplace productivity, such as employee attention and group dynamics, leading to a more human-centric approach in management practices. Changing a variable usually increased productivity, even if the variable was just a change back to the original condition. However, it is said that this is the natural process of the human being adapting to the environment, without knowing the objective of the experiment occurring.

The Hawthorne theory of management suggests that worker productivity is not only based on physical conditions, but the notion that management cares about employee welfare and wages paid to them. Since then, employers have moved to management strategies that incorporate employee welfare as a crucial aspect to help drive productivity and company success. Many employers try to make employees feel as though they are an integral part of the company. The research team went on to test other experimental variables such as light intensity, length of the workday, and the timing of breaks. In general, an increase in productivity over all working conditions was observed until the experiment ended, leading to the conclusion that productivity was due to workers knowing that they were being observed. In those experiments that involved the productivity of the workers, increased attention that was given to them by the researchers might have resulted in increased performance feedback.