Prison Management Styles Essay

Organizations and businesses alike all have managers and management styles that they abide by. Some may be company policy; while others seem to be implemented by the manager’s themselves. In this paper, three different management styles are explained; Scientific, human relations, and systems management styles. All have been used in different organizations, and some are still used today. In order for a business to effectively succeed in their goals, a certain management style needs to be used. Management Styles The key to making any kind of business work depends on management and how management or managers manage the companies they work for. There are several different management styles that people have, however, this paper will focus mostly on three different styles; Scientific, human relations, and systems management. Scientific Management Scientific management, which is said to of been made by Frederick Taylor who first did time and motion studies, is the first management style out of the three and was mostly used in the early 1900s. (Peak, 2012). The focus of scientific management laid down the fundamental principles of large-scale manufacturing through assembly-line factories. It emphasized standardization and rationalization of work through division of labor, time and motion studies, and measurement. This was also known as â€Å"Taylorism. † (Backer, 1998). In Frederick’s early days, he worked in the steel mills and was eventually hired as chief engineer. After years of working he became interested in coming up with different methods for greater productivity in workers, so he recommended giving hourly breaks among other methods. Taylor’s way soon proved to be a drastic change to the work force with the cut in manufactured goods, and wages getting increased. (Backer, 2012). Scientific management became more widely known after World War I when managers moved into more high managed position. By the 1920s, the new management system started being promoted by some of the biggest companies and industrial engineering grew into a popular career field, and is still popular today. Industrial engineers today are still taught the scientific management way through time and motion studies, wage determination, and production planning. (Backer, 2012). Human Relations Management Beginning in the 1930s, human relations management arose to help impose a sense of dignity and pride into employee’s work ethics. In the 1930s police departments were known to use this management theory most. The human relations theory is often referred to as the â€Å"motivational† theory and assumes that people want to work and that they are self-motivated. (Peak, 2012). This theory was based a lot from the X Y theories, the motivational part coming from the Y. X on the other hand presumed that employees are unmotivated and lazy, and are only in to reap the benefits and rewards of getting paid. The main focus for implementing the human relations management style was because it was assumed that the organization would prosper as long as it helped the employees prosper. However, soon police departments decided that this wasn’t the right route for their organization to go because employees began to give less but expect more. (Peak, 2012). Systems Management Lastly, there is the systems management, a combination of both human relations management and scientific management. It was implemented to focus both on business productivity as well as the needs of the employees. In order to understand the systems management style, there needs to be a comprehension of a system. What is a system? A system is made of a variety of parts that work together to achieve a mutual goal. (Peak, 2012). Managers that go by the systems management way examine the patterns and events in the workplace in order to coordinate different programs to work together as a whole for the overall goal of the organization rather than just targeting different departments. (Peak, 2012). It used to be that managers would focus all their attention to one department, and when done, would focus all their attention to a different department. In the end, one department would be great, while all the others were different and didn’t sync well with the others. Most Effective and Disadvantages In order for today’s criminal justice system to work correctly, the best management theory would be the systems theory. The criminal justice system needs to have a structured and organized system in order to make things work, the systems management theory focuses on the overall goals of the departments as a whole, rather than focusing just on one goal for each department. Criminal justice is a system; there are several different parts that need to work together in order for it to work. This would include all components, such as the courts, police, and corrections. They all need to be on the same page in order to keep the balance between the three and avoid chaos. A disadvantage of scientific management in criminal justice was that the style focused more on the production and the needs of the organizations over caring for the needs and wants of the employees. The disadvantages of the human relations theory, was that is focused too much on the employees. With too much focus on the employees, the goals of the organization became secondary. Employees were being rewarded, and soon, employees expected more for less work. (Peak, 2012). Conclusion All three different management styles explained above have all been implemented and used in past and present organizations and seemed to work for some, while it didn’t work for others. Today, the systems management is the most popular however; the scientific management style is still used in the engineering field. Overall, the systems management style seems to be the best fit for companies of all sorts because this way of management seems to focus on all aspects of a business rather than just one here and one there. A business is a system; there are several components that work together in order to make the business a success, and the systems management theory is the best fit.