“Why does an increase in organisational efficiency necessarily cause a decrease in individual efficiency? I just don’t see it…”

I can provide, lets say, a number of examples of this. However, I suspect that the validity of them will be dependent upon a common acceptance of the meaning of certain terms within the question.

For example: “Efficiency.” does the term “efficiency” refer to the objective of the individuals labour – producing a satisfactory outcome for a “customer” or does it simply refer to a commercially defined bottom line?

It may be argued that these two are one and the same. However, I would argue this is not so. “Customers” may get differing levels of service (or non at all) depending on their profitability, and I’m prepared to give examples if required.

The examples I’m prepared to share will be based on the definition of efficiency being simply the bottom line from the point of view of the organisation.

However, another problem arises. When we talk of “organisational efficiency” what exactly do we mean. The efficiency of the whole organisation or different constituent parts of it – the sub-organisations within it?

Agian, the examples I’m prepared to share depend upon the reality of this in the real world.

If what I have defined is accepted as a working definition let me know via the comment section of this subject within the blog and on Saturday, when I’ve got more time, I’ll provide some examples.

Logically yes.

The world of british business – no.

In this world if your organisation isn’t doing very well you basically bring in management consolutants on fat fees – who will proceed to advise you to bring in more managers, raise wages for the board for the purposes of retaining their substantial talents, and sack half the shop floor to cut labour costs and scare the remaining workers into working harder.

But what do you – and I am not [deliberately] being an arse – mean by efficiency here? Efficient for who? Efficient from what perspective.

How about the system as a whole? No point building up a 6 pack if your legs are like twigs.

But what do you – and I am not [deliberately] being an arse – mean by efficiency here? Efficient for who? Efficient from what perspective.

I believe that I may have miswritten; my post was not meant to be a description of what is, but rather a description of what ought be ethical behaviour on the part of the workers. In a system where it is perfectly acceptable to maximise organisational efficiency at the expense – and I accept that this is not necessarily so – of the individual efficiency, i.e. the wages to labour input ratio, in pursuit of private goods, then it ought be perfectly acceptable for the worker to attempt to maximise his or her own efficiency, by maximising wages while minimising labour input.

As an anecdote, I recall the time a colleague of mine received bad service from the employees of a major retailer. I pointed out that they were poorly paid. I would have said exceptionally poorly paid, but this figure of speech would obscure the fact that these levels of income are the norm for great swathes of the British population. More, I knew that these employees would, in all likely hood, be on zero-hours contracts; a wonderful way to maximise efficiency of your ahuman labour units.

My colleague replied by arguing that, if these people only worked harder they would get better pay, a better contract, a better job. I pointed out the simple truth that had seemed to entirely pass her by; that there are very many people at the lower end of this labour pyramid with, in many cases, dramaticaly fewer stations to be found on each tier to be climbed. If all of these zero-hours people worked harder, as she asked, the majority would do nothing but decrease their own efficiency, rewarding an employer who is objectively in conflict with their interests – a zero-hour-near minumum-wage contract can be described as nothing else – with increased organisational efficiency. The number of vacancies at the next tier of employment will not magically increase; the retailer will always need many more shop-floor staff and stock-room pickers than it does managers.

And who would want to be a manager of an outlet that employs in such a way anyhow?

Competition for labour might change the dynamic, the manner in which a worker finds it best to maximise his or her efficiency. But this is a priviledged position to be in, though I confess that many of my friends think that, as it is their own situation, being relatively educated people, that it is the norm. But from my own experience supplying labour at the bottom end of the market, it is not the norm.

Of course if there where no competition, just one employer that offered jobs for life then your analysis would be completely accurate. There would be no incentive to work hard so it would be rational for the workers to do as little as possible, to slack and skive. This fits very well with the experimental evidence of what happened under the Socialist systems where there was only one possible employer. The workers pretended to work and the state pretended to pay them

“It has always been acceptable for employers to encourage an increase organisational efficiency, in other words a decrease in the individual efficiency of the worker.”

You are assuming this is a zero sum game. Why does an increase in organisational efficiency necessarily cause a decrease in individual efficiency? I just don’t see it…

But that assumes that workers are stuck with the limited opportunities on offer from a single employer. Even if you stick to the same occupation, that’s rarely the case. (Even most public sector workers can go to work for different local authorities, NHS trusts, schools, etc.) That being the case, proving your efficiency for the employer can prove to be the most efficient course for the worker – in doing so, the worker builds their claim to a promotion by means of going to work for another employer. As a result, they can use increased work to result in increased wages – thus bringing the system more into alignment.

Not that that always happens, but ‘the market’ is a far more cunning beast than I think you give it credit for here. Enough of ‘the workers’ see their efficiency in similar terms to those of employers. And those workers who see their best prospects resting on hard work will be the ones who set the culture – the workers who prefer to opt out and pursue the quiet life will normally do so for their own individual reasons, rather than as a statement on the ratrace.

That’s why productivity-raising is seen to be unquestionably ‘a good thing’, and will remain so until those not wanting to pursue that ratrace (or want to pursue it somewhat less, anyway) can unite around a common conception of the good life, outside of getting-and-spending. But I don’t think any form of democratic socialism does that – they tend to be concerned more with the structure (i.e., mutuality) than the substance of society.

Faced with insurmountable forces, culture must privatise or be sunk beneath the sea:The waters are rising around Venice. Each year the floods worsen and last longer. Carpets of slime coat St Mark’s Square. Statues and church walls are coated with…