DISTINCIONES BÁSICAS, PROCESOS, PROCEDIMIENTOS, SISTEMAS Y

VIII PREREQUISITOS EN EL MODELADO 43 ¿Cuánto cuenta la motivación? ¿Qué nos motiva?

I. DISTINCIONES BÁSICAS, PROCESOS, PROCEDIMIENTOS, SISTEMAS Y

The historical-evolutionary process undergone by the organization of production and work over time, and during the last century in particular, is the fundamental setting to consider in the perspective of a mature reflection about the normative regulation of the content of the work performance.

The very concept of “task”, on which we will focus in the following pages, cannot be fully understood if it is not inserted in the wider context of a work organization setting.

254_{R. P}_ESSI_{, Contributo allo studio della fattispecie lavoro subordinato, cit., 79.}

255_{The reference is to Charlie Chaplin’s movie, Modern Times, 1936, in which there is} an interesting artistic representation of the essence of the stability typical of Fordist economy, centred on the model of mass production, on the workers’ alienating repetition of the same actions in a constant acceleration of the production rhythm, established and controlled by the employer according to an evident hierarchical approach.

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We start from the considerations made in an economic ambit by Stefano Zamagni: «Con l’avvento della rivoluzione industriale prima e

del fordismo-taylorismo poi, avanza l’idea della mansione (segno di attività parcellizzate) […]»256.

In other words, the concept of “task”, which characterizes the essence of Italian labor law, is itself the result of a paradigmatic change in the organization of the production phase: it is indeed an emblematic representation of the work division determined by the Industrial Revolution and Fordism.

As is known, production organization (and therefore also work organization) has had an evolution which has brought to the gradual success, in addition to the organizational model typical of mass production (precisely the Fordist one), of the so-called “lean production”. With the expression “lean production”257_{, we refer to the}

organizational philosophy which emerged in the Japanese production context of Toyota258, in the aftermath of the Second World War, as an alternative production method to the Fordist one, based on the scientific organization of work, predominant in the industrial scenario of the Western world259.

The fundamental principles of lean production are presented also with different expressions and formulas – often substantially fungible – as for example, Toyota Production System (TPS), which refers in particular to the specific innovative organizational practices and methodologies developed by Toyota, or Just in Time (JIT), which expresses a lean industrial philosophy, but with a particular emphasis on

256_{S. Z}_AMAGNI_{, Per un’economia a misura di persona, Rome, 2012, 44.}

257_{The expression “lean production” was used for the first time in J.P. W}_OMACK_–_D.T. JONES –D.ROOS, op. cit., passim.

258_{See S. B}_HASIN_–_P._B_URCHER_{, op. cit., 56-72.} 259_{F.W. T}_AYLOR_{, op. cit., 143 et seq.}

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the management of storehouses and stocks, being based on the reduction of the stocks in excess and thus, of the considerable costs deriving from them260.

The key concepts on which the lean production organization model is based, can be identified in flexibility (considered lato sensu), in the employees’ active involvement and assumption of responsibility, and in the marked attention to the client’s orientation.

Work is mainly considered in a team dimension with a cyclical rotation of the activities and the duties performed by each employee in the perspective of favoring a deeper and more mature understanding of the overall sense of the work and a relevant awareness of the sum of the productive activities261.

In the ambit of a similar production vision, a particular role is held by the workers themselves in the making of decisions and in the solution of problems, with an important reduction of the gap between thinkers and doers, that is between those who decide and those who perform, till reaching its gradual elimination.

In order for this “responsible” involvement of the workers to be advantageous, it is necessary to maintain a high level of competence and

260_{The Fordist trend of stock and supply management, based on the so called “push} logic” – that is on the presence in warehouses of considerable quantities of raw materials, semi-worked and finished products with clearly high costs of management, maintenance and handling – is turned into a “pull logic”, as incorporated in the Toyota production model, whose essence can be summed up with the equation: “useless stock = waste to eliminate”. The “winning” and competitive enterprise on the market is therefore the one which organizes its production in short and lean processes, coordinating just in time the availability of the resources with the real needs of production, with a consequent reduction of costs. On this aspect see the interesting work of T. OHNO, op. cit., passim, with particular reference to pages 19 et seq.

261_{J.P. W}_OMACK_–_D.T._J_ONES_–_D._R_OOS_{, op. cit., 111-112: «L’azienda davvero snella}

presenta due caratteristiche aziendali chiave: trasferisce il massimo numero di mansioni e responsabilità ai lavoratori che contribuiscono effettivamente al plusvalore dell’automobile nella linea di assemblaggio e istituisce un sistema per l’individuazione dei difetti che riesce a rintracciare la vera origine di ogni problema scoperto».

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knowledge, a significant professional qualification, constantly updated with continuous training courses with the participation of the employees262.

“Specularly”, the scientific organization of work, typical of the Fordist model, is characterized by a rigid and specific work division, in the ambit of which each worker is always called to perform – in a “static” way – the same tasks, which consist of repetitive and standardized activities, requiring a limited level of competence. The performance is inserted in a context, where there is a marked distinction between the

262_{Among the main consequences that the change of the paradigms of production and} work organization has brought, considerably interesting are those determined by the human resources management practices. We can think about the promotion of “team working”, the wide use of so-called “quality control circles”, which consist in moments of confrontation between employees and management, with the aim of studying valid solutions to develop in the perspective of solving problems which can bring improvements (it is the so-called kaizen, or improvement changes). Essential elements in the ambit of Human Resources Management are also the development and the constant updating of specific and heterogeneous competences in the diffusion of performance-related pay systems (a variable remuneration with a component anchored to performance). The employees’ active involvement in the production process and in the path towards its continuous improvement, results functionally addressed to favor and promote their loyalty, so that they develop a sense of attachment and belonging to the enterprise. These last elements are crucial ones in the lean philosophy because they are capable of stimulating the employees’ potential, pushing them to make a discretionary effort, a quid pluris effort, which is made despite not being specifically necessary or requested. It is therefore possible to notice among the numerous human resources management practices, in the perspective of acquiring an advantage over one’s competitors typical of the lean organization model: a marked and rigid selectivity in the choice of the personnel, the accurate training and continues development of the employees’ competences, the variability of the tasks performed by each employee in a structure characterized by job rotation and cross utilization, the variable remuneration anchored to performance, as a tool to stimulate the motivation, participation, sense of responsibility and active involvement of the employee – who is always considered as the member of a team and not as a single individual – in the perspective of a team, whose members are all engaged in reaching in the long term the same objectives. See A. GALGANO, Toyota, Milan, 2005, 96-106.

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decision levels and the operative-doing ones, according to a hierarchical- pyramidal work organization approach263.

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