The neohuman relationshipist school is a set of theories developed during the 50s and 60s that analyze human behavior at work from an individual perspective, pointing to motivation as the main key to improving productivity.
This school arises as a response to the school of human relations, which it criticizes as well as bureaucracy, for not treating individuals individually to analyze productivity in organizations. His proposal for an improvement in productivity was satisfaction, incentives and the intrinsic motivation of human beings.
For this, it is essential to know the causes or motivations that lead people to act in one way or another. Within this school there are several theories; the most important authors were Abraham Maslow, Frederick Herzberg, Douglas McGregor, Rensis Likert and Christ Argyris.
Article index
- This school contains concepts from the theory of human relations and structuralism, although in an updated form.
- Presents greater sophistication in the control techniques used for relationships.
- Focuses on increasing worker productivity as a basis for increasing efficiency.
- Defend the imposition of objectives as an incentive to motivation.
- Defend greater worker participation.
Maslow was a psychologist from Brooklyn, New York (USA), who developed several theories related to human behavior.
The best known is the famous pyramid of needs, formulated in 1943. In this, the American raises a hierarchical scale of needs by which human behavior is governed:
It is the base of the pyramid; That is, they are the primary and biological needs without which individuals could not live: food, respiration, sleep, etc..
The second step of the pyramid is constituted by the needs for protection and security, such as order, stability (moral, economic, health), physical protection, among others..
Here would enter friendships, love, the need for belonging and affection, etc..
They are all those related to self-esteem, such as confidence, respect and success.
Finally, Maslow argues that our last need is to become the best version of ourselves, through creativity, spontaneity, understanding of things, lack of prejudice, among other ways..
Herzberg was closely related to Maslow and believed that motivation came from two factors. On the one hand, it said that organizations could introduce certain factors that would directly motivate workers (motivators).
On the other hand, he affirmed that there were other factors that, if they were not in the workplace, would demotivate the workers; However, if they were, being there would not be a motivating factor for them (hygiene factors).
Motivators are factors directly related to the job itself. Some examples are how interesting the work is, what opportunities for promotion there are, how much responsibility you have or what forms of recognition exist.
These factors have to do with everything that surrounds work. For example, a worker will not go to work if he does not have an acceptable salary or minimum safety conditions; however, the fact that these factors exist will not make you work more efficiently..
Herzberg concluded that, to increase worker motivation, organizations must adopt a democratic stance in their leadership, improving the nature and content of work through certain methods:
- Expansion of work; that is, giving workers a greater variety of tasks (not necessarily more complicated) that will make the job more interesting.
- Job enrichment, which involves giving a greater number of complex jobs, in order to increase the sense of accomplishment.
- Empowerment, which refers to giving more decision-making power to workers within their work environment.
Douglas McGregor was an American professor and economist. In 1960 he wrote the book called The human side of enterprise (in Spanish, "The human side of the company ”), where he formulated two theories that were an essential contribution to the relational neohuman approach.
This theory claimed that people inherently hate work and avoid it whenever possible. This results in authoritarian management in the organization. Some characteristics of this theory are the following:
- People must be threatened and controlled to work hard.
- The average individual prefers to be commanded, dislikes responsibility, is unequivocal, and wants safety first..
- People don't like work of any kind.
- Each individual needs to be constantly supervised.
- Workers have no incentive to work and lack ambition, so they need to be rewarded to achieve their goals.
This theory contrasts with the previous one, since it sees people in a more optimistic way; the resulting management is much more participatory. The characteristics of the workers according to this theory would be the following:
- They work on their own initiative.
- They are more involved in decision making.
- They motivate themselves to complete their tasks.
- They enjoy being the owners of their own work.
- They seek and accept responsibility, they do not need to be commanded.
- They see work as stimulating and rewarding.
- Solve problems creatively and imaginatively.
Likert was an American psychologist and educator who did work very focused on organizations. His greatest contribution to this school was the development of "new management patterns", based on the different behaviors of the bosses:
Power and direction come from above, where threats, punishments are used, communication is poor, and teamwork is minimal. Overall productivity is mediocre.
Similar to the previous one, but leaves some room for queries from below and uses rewards as well as threats. Productivity is usually relatively good, although there is high absenteeism and staff turnover.
Goals are established after discussing them with subordinates, communication is vertical in both directions, and teamwork is partially encouraged. There is some involvement of the employees as a motivating element.
Many agree that this is the best system. In this way, participation is the main objective, in order to achieve a total commitment to the objectives of the organization..
Communication is vertical in both directions, and it is also lateral. Productivity is very good and absenteeism and changes in the workforce are scarce.
Argyris was an American organizational theorist and professor emeritus at Harvard University. He felt that the classic organizational models promoted what he called "immaturity", whose characteristics were the following:
- Passivity.
- Dependence.
- Behave in few ways.
- Banal interests.
- Short-term perspective.
- Subordinate position.
- Poor self-knowledge.
As a solution, Argyris proposed to change the focus in promoting a state of "maturity", looking for the opposite characteristics in employees:
- Activity.
- Independence (relative).
- Behave in various ways.
- Deeper interests.
- Long-term outlook.
- Equal or superior position.
- Self-knowledge and self-control.
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