DIVISION OF LABOR

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2014

Intercollege Limassol Campus

Andreas Mavrikios



[DIVISION OF LABOR]

This assignment paper requires the student to: Discuss the concept of division of labor in today’s corporations.


 

DIVISION OF LABOR

Division of labor is the term used to refer to the segregation of work into separate jobs or tasks assigned to several different people. This subdivision of work gives way to job specialization, since each job now consist of a limited subset of tasks required to complete a particular product or service. As corporations grow, a vertical division of labor usually occurs, accompanying a horizontal division of labor: Some individuals are assigned the role of supervising other employees; while others take responsibility for managing those supervisors, and so on and so forth.

Why do companies or corporations segregate the work or tasks required to complete into several separate jobs? Answer: Job specialization increases efficiency of work. Four job workers can master their tasks quicker because the cycles of work are much shorter. They waste less time switching from one task to another, and training costs are also reduced because employees are only required fewer mental and/or physical skills to accomplish their assigned work. Finally, job specialization makes it more efficient to match people with specific skills or aptitudes to the jobs that are best suited for them. Employees are much skilled in different areas. Although one person can work alone, for instance preparing, serving, and marketing food products all together, doing so would take him/her more time to do than having someone else prepare the food, somebody else to serve it to customers, and still yet another person or persons to do all the marketing, accounting, purchasing, and other related functions.


ADVANTAGES of Division of Labor

• The right man doing the right job: Under job specialization, each person will get to do the job for which he/she is best suited. “There will be no round pegs placed in square holes.” Each job will be better done by everyone.
• Time Saving: The worker/employee no longer has to switch from doing one process to another as he/she works only on the exact same process. With this, work goes on without much loss of valuable time.
• The worker becomes a specialist: Under job specialization, the worker/employee keeps doing his/her assigned task only. By constantly repeating this action, he/she becomes an expert in this task, and in time he/she will be able to produce better service or goods. Practice makes perfect and the skill and craftsmanship of each person in the factory increases.
• Less training required: As a worker only has to do his/her part of the job, he/she then needs to master only that part. Thus, long and costly trainings become unnecessary. It will take a longer time for someone to learn how to build a complete chair than it will take him/her to learn how to perfectly polish it.
• Invention: When a person is doing the exact same job over and over again, new ideas will occur leading to many great inventions. These inventions lead to economic progress.
• Heavy work is done by machinery: In a division of labor, it is possible for heavy work to be allocated to machinery as only light work can be done by workers so that they get less strained.
• Economic use of tools: In this setup, it becomes unnecessary to provide each employee/worker with a complete set of tools/equipments to be able to do the entire work. He only needs a few tools for the specific job or task he has to do. He/she also keeps using these same tools so it is very economical.
• Cheaper things: As division of labor and the use of machinery creates mass production, it makes it possible to produce cheaper things as well. Even less fortunate people can now buy stuffs and the standard of living generally improves.


DISADVANTAGES of Division of Labor

• Monotony: Doing the same task over and over again without any changes creates mental fatigue in the worker. The job becomes monotonous and un-enjoyable, and the worker loses interest. The quality of his/her work then suffers.
• Destroys the creative instinct: Since many people contributed each to the making of a chair, no one can say that he/she made it; the creative instinct of each person is not satisfied. Each person’s job gives him/her no pleasure and no pride since none of the workers can claim that the product is his or her own creation.
• Loss of skill: The overall skilled worker deteriorates in terms of technical skill. Instead of building a whole chair, he/she is required to keep doing only a few simple steps of the process, and the skill of building a complete chair gradually dies out.
• Loss of development of one’s personality: If a person has been making an eighteenth part of a high-chair, he becomes only an eighteenth part of a person as well. This narrowed down sphere of work tends to decrease the proper mental and/or physical development of the entire person.
• Check mobility: The worker is doing only one part of the entire job, thus he knows only that much and nothing else. In this way, he/she losses mobility as it may not be easy for him/her to find the exact same type of job elsewhere if he does need some change.
• Risk of unemployment: If a worker/employee is dismissed from the factory he/she is currently working in, he/she may find it difficult to find a job for he/she has only one specialty. He may be able to create the legs of a chair excellently, yet it is doubtful if he can build an entire chair. His chances of getting more related jobs elsewhere will be slimmer.
• Loss of sense of responsibility: No one can be held responsible for any bad production that ensues because no one can be said to have had built the “chair”. When something goes wrong, everybody tries to pass on the responsibility to someone else.
• Problem of distribution: Under job specialization or division of labor, many individuals contribute to the production of a piece of item or in this case a piece of furniture. They each must receive a due share of the profit and the amount of this share is not at all easy to determine. Hence, the problem of distribution arises. If only one worker had produced an item, he/she independently would get his/her entire share of its value so there becomes no trouble. But division of labor tends to divide the community’s people into two conflicting groups, i.e. capital holder and labor worker. The gap between these two groups is ever growing, and thus strikes and lockouts have become a common incidence these days due to the problem of distribution.
• Dependence: A necessary consequence of the system of division of labor is the ensuing dependence of one country on another country from where it is getting its workers from. This dependence proves perilous in times of war.
• Evils of the factory system: Division of labor essentially gives birth to factory system, which is a load full of various evils. It abuses the environment, exploits women and children, and eliminates the humane factor in the production and administration of different products and/or services.



REFERENCES

• Inkling. (2010). Division of Labor and Coordination. Available: https://www.inkling.com/read/organizational-behavior-mcshane-von-glinow-5th/chapter-13/division-of-labor-and. Last accessed 3rd November 2014.
• Boundless. (2011). The Importance of the Division of Labor. Available: https://www.boundless.com/sociology/textbooks/boundless-sociology-textbook/economy-16/work-120/the-importance-of-the-division-of-labor-676-3157/. Last accessed 3rd November 2014.
• Kumar, B. (2012). What are the advantages and disadvantages of division of labor?. Available: http://www.preservearticles.com/201102224125/what-are-the-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-division-of-labor.html. Last accessed 3rd November 2014.