Being More Efficient - Division of Labour

Have not written a post for quite a while now. Have been distracted by lots of work and my new kindle (have finished several books already in a span of a few weeks). Anyway, back to our topic of the day.

The Division of Labour. This is quite a well known phenomenon, most of us can imagine factories having products going along a conveyor belt whilst different parts are introduced at each stage to make up the final product. Initially mainly used to produce cars, this is now widely seen in most factories. Manufacturing good in this way is more efficient than making each product individually before moving on to the next one.

And not just in factories. At home, if we cook dinner together with friends, housemates or families, usually the person that cook best does the cooking, whilst others take on individual tasks - be it peeling potatoes or washing up the dishes afterwards. As common experience can tell us, this is far quicker than if we were all trying to make the same dish. In the work place, each person is designated a particular area to work on within one of the many departments. It would be unmanageable if everybody has to multitask to cover all the functions of the entire company.

So, the main idea is that by breaking up the big job into smaller tasks the job can be done far more efficiently. Not only is it quicker, but each specialised area/ person become more efficient at carrying out the particular task, contributing to even greater efficiency. This was a revolutionary idea that helped to drive the Industrial Revolutions. However, stepping away from the factories and conveyor belts, when the same principle is applied to humans, we start to see some problems.

Contrary to common sense and our everyday experience, for the sake of the argument let's say that the manager or the boss of a workforce is better at doing most jobs carried out by the employees. But it is more efficient for him to delegate out these responsibilities so that he can concentrate on the most profitable task of leading and managing - so far so good. Now, let's suppose the company hires a secretary that only does photocopying. Whilst this job may be essential for many documents to be completed, the job itself is boring and demoralising. Unlike machines that are happy to carry out repeated tasks over and over again, there are other considerations when dividing up human labour.

Also, highly skilled workers may have essential skills the company highly depends upon, this put enormous power onto the hands of a few individuals in the organization. At the other extreme, specilists will find it difficult to get hired if the particular skill he or he possesses is not in high demand. 

 

Nevertheless, it is remarkable that this simple idea (i.e. dividing up the tasks) is able to increse productivity so dramatically.