Question

1) Describe a job you have had where the idea of "division of labor" has been put to good use. What economic principles did you see at work? For example, how did this affect efficiency, etc. 2) Can you think of an example where "division of labor" could be executed in a way that could be unhealthy...in a way that we could say we went overboard? 3) What do you think is the wave of the future in this concept? What sorts of technology will best make use of division of labor approaches?

Answer 1

Solution

1.

During my internship in a manufacturing company,the division of labor has been put to good use.Due to this the definitely,the efficiency of the workers will increase for the simple fact that they become specialized in a specific task.So,they can improve their speed and ease with which they can complete their particular task.This will cause cost savings for the company due to improved production levels.Also the reliance on specific resource(s) decreases which is another positive for the company as it can create back-up for the executing the task.

Division of labor leads to specialization of task but we can say that in this process,the learning curve of an individual employee will be comparatively slower than the person who would be handling multiple tasks in a company.So the companies can use this as an advantage to retain the resources by convincing them that they can provide them with job rotation.In this way,the companies have an option at least for prolonging the retention of employees.Good employee retention means lower recruitment ,employee and administrative charges.

2.

Yes,it can be executed in an unhealthy way.If you create division even in case of very minor tasks,it take s a huge toll on the financials of the company.Secondly,it lowers the speed of completion of an entire process of manufacturing since more number of different tasks,more steps ,so more time and resource required for coordination between the different tasks / activities.

3.

In future,Division of labor may become less relevant,because automation is the future.Now the repetitive tasks are being automated and being done with the help of software programs and / or by deploying robots.

Also in the present days,companies are looking for workforce who can multi-task.In this way,they are controlling their resource cost in-order to remain ahead in the highly competitive global environment.

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