Henry Grantt Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Henry Grantt - Essay Example ("Wikipedia") Upon graduating from the John Hopkins College, Gantt worked as a schoolteacher and draughtsman. He then pursued mechanical engineering and was employed by Midvale Steel and Bethlehem Steel in 1887. In these companies, he worked as a management consultant in collaboration with Frederick W. Taylor, known as the father of Scientific Management. ("Wikipedia") Gantt became influential during the early 1900s when his proposed management theories and tools where broadly recognized in the world of business. As one of the pioneers of the Scientific Management movement, Gantt believes that management problems should be studied according to scientific methods. This entails the elimination of guesswork, setting a proper task for each man and allocating apt rewards for the achievement of assigned tasks. (Gaus) His most prominent legacy to the management discipline is the Gantt chart, an important tool in project management. Aside from this, Gantt also focused on developing motivational schemes, reward systems, methods of measuring efficiency as well as the importance of leadership qualities and management skills in building effective industrial organizations. ("Gurus") Gantt is recognized as a forerunner of the Human Relations School of Management. He "humanized" the prevailing salary scheme during those times, which was based on Taylor's piece-rate system, by developing a pay incentive scheme comprising of a guaranteed minimum wage plus bonus system ("Gurus"). With Gantt's proposed wage program, bonuses are provided for workers who accomplished their jobs in less time than the benchmark set (Higgins). This served as the motivating factor for workers to strive to become more productive in completing assigned tasks. He advocated this type of incentive scheme because he deemed that this would result in the congruency of interests of both employers and employees. He believed that organizational efficiency could be substantially enhanced by further improving the productivity of workers in the same pace as that of production technology. (Knoedler) In terms of employee training, Gantt disagreed with Taylor's vision that the purpose of training was primarily to assist employees in learning and perfecting rudimentary tasks. During his stint as management consultant, he permitted machinists to experiment with new methods until they were able to discover innovative means of improving their productivity and earning bonus based on the quality of their performance. (Knoedler) Given these findings, Gantt had indeed refined and expanded the human resource management theories asserted by Taylor (Henderson). Furthermore, he believed that all corporate undertakings should be in line with human nature. Gantt posited, "We cannot drive people; we must direct their development." ("Professional Development in Private Sector") Gantt's influence on wage incentive and training schemes is still remarkable until now. Nowadays, companies tend to relate their bonuses and other benefits on employee performance which in return is based on the meeting of specific objectives or targets set for each employee. Moreover, companies provide relevant trainings and seminars for