Week 1 Post By Brian

As we began our readings this week, one of the first challenges facing management that I encountered was “soldiering,” a term that Frederick Taylor used to describe the act of workers laboring slower than they are able to, but making supervisors believe that they are working quickly (Taylor). Immediately, I thought of personal experiences at companies I’ve worked for and how soldiering was part of everyday life at the office.

In agency life, billable hours are king. Although ethical billing is expected by most employers so is a constant level of productivity (pre-determined by the company). Based on my time in client service environments, systematic soldiering is common. Despite having a workload far less than what is deemed “full,” per company regulations, workers pad their billable hours with tasks that they never performed in an effort to keep productivity up and in turn, prevent supervisors from assigning additional work to them (Wren, Bedeian).

In my experience, although a billing environment does tend to lead to systematic soldiering, it is eliminates a significant amount natural soldiering, which Taylor defines as “the natural instinct and tendency of men to take it easy” (Taylor, p. 30). Knowing that they must meet their daily productivity standard, most workers in shops I’ve worked in tended to stay busy, maintaining a high level of productivity to secure a positive performance review.

When it comes to completing tasks, how slow is too slow? While most communication professionals know how long it takes to write a news release, pitch media or perform other daily duties, there is usually no standard for how long those tasks should take to complete. In firms that I’ve worked in or observed, issues are typically not noticed or addressed unless they are so egregious that they cannot be overlooked.

Although selfishly, I would not suggest it due to the human nature that Taylor described, perhaps a time study and outline of acceptable, maximum times to perform daily tasks would improve efficiency at my office (Wren, Bedeian). If my daily productivity requirement is seven billable hours and I spend four of them writing a news release on a client’s secretary who is turning 92 years old, I am filling my quota and bringing in revenue, but in a wasteful way that delays the onset of additional projects that will bring in an equal amount of money and more in the future. I do believe that a “piece-rate” incentive, as described by Taylor would inspire frantic writing and outstanding client service, but I have a hard time believing that something an incentive-based workday would ever exist in our field (Taylor).

Part two:

Although I am not a manager, when looking at the big picture from one’s perspective, I tend to agree with Taylor’s view that systematic soldiering is most damaging. Although natural soldiering can be minimized by implementing productivity standards and other measures, identifying lazy workers and their lack of efficiency is a more involved process and requires a solid base of scientific research, such as a time study, to identify baseline facts prior to making a judgment on their efficiency (Wren, Bedeian).

In my view, Henri Fayol’s principles of management are extremely relevant and I believe that implementing them would be helpful in my current environment to engage staff and eliminate soldiering. By creating “one head and one plan for a group of activities having the same direction,” the goal would shift from meeting productivity requirements to ensuring client delight and cultivating new opportunities with existing clients, hence improving efficiency and less hang-up on “soldiered” tasks (Wren, Bedeian).

Throughout my career, I’ve often thought of the financial side of businesses as an impersonal machine, gobbling up money with no regard for the client, but “Images of Organization” opened my eyes to the thought that I, myself may be contributing to that very reality by making this comparison. Perhaps by associating billing to part of our company’s culture and livelihood, as an essential resource like water to an ecosystem, my attitude and even efficiency would improve (Morgan). After all, billing leads to revenue, which leads to salary, which leads to me being able to pursue my master’s degree, which will lead to further advancement and implementation of what I learned in graduate school.


Works Cited:

Morgan, G. (1998). Images of Organization. Thousand Oaks, CA: Saga Publishing.

Taylor, Frederick W. (1919). Shop Management. New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers.

Wren, Daniel A., Bedeian, Arthur G. (2009). The Evolution of Management Thought
(6th ed). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.