Hawthorne effect Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Hawthorne effect - Essay Example n at Hawthorne, I would define the Hawthorne Effect as the confounding that occurs if experimenters fail to realize how the consequences of subjects performance affect what subjects do". In a Design industry environment consisting of around 150 draftsmen as workforce it was found that the productivity dropped suddenly in the recent six months’ time. Although the workers were given good wages and incentive packages, the productivity didn’t increase. In spite of repeated meetings and re-fixing of targets, there was no improvement in the productivity. The management was confused and tried to study the cause of the situation. After much thought, the Hawthorne studies were taken for experimenting with the situation. The entire workforce was working on a 5 day week, on a general shift of 8Â ½ hours a day, i.e. between 09:00 to 17:30 hours, including 30 minutes break for lunch. Each worker in the entire workforce of 150 draftsmen currently designed 5 AutoCAD drawings per day. The workforce was grouped into two – the formal group and the informal group. At first, both the groups were put on specific targets of 6 AutoCAD drawings per worker per day over a period of 12 weeks. The formal group was made to work on the existing timing. The informal group was given a rest break of 10 minutes twice in the day over a period of 4 weeks. Observations showed that the output of informal group went up. As the next step, the rest breaks for the informal group were lengthened to four 10 minutes rest breaks. The workers complained that the pace of their work was getting disturbed. As a result, their productivity decreased. Then, the rest breaks of informal group were returned to the two rest breaks, the first one with a supply of tea by the Company free of cost. As a result, the productivity increased. Then as the next step, the week was extended to six day working week for the informal group over a period of 4 weeks. The productivity decreased. Finally, the rest breaks