Now days this question would be easy to answer in a welfare country, where the education rates are high. This was not always the case before and after the second world war. Companies where merely a economic organ and there where workers left and right fighting to get a job. Some development countries are still in this state of mind. Workers are doing low-income jobs with no hope of education or any job security for future. What made the change in companies in rest of the world?  

In 1940s after the world war, companies started having room to grow and develop. At this time, there was a voice in the crowd that suggested different development areas for the companies. This voice belonged to a man named Peter Drucker. This man argued that an organization is both an economic and social organ and companies have nothing but to gain from it. His theory was to modify the management for better economic and social results. His theories were and still are revolutionary.  

He questioned many antique norms and work habits, and even the whole hierarchy of an organization. He said that workers need to be listened when improvements in the workplace are made. Workers were treated as an expense and a disposable resource. Drucker argued against this by saying that they are assets and to increase productivity, organizations should give more influence and job satisfaction for the workers.  

For example, at that time Ford was producing cars in assembly line where workers made some part of the car and passed it to the next station. Even thought it was undeniably efficient, it didn’t give the workers job satisfaction. Nor did the workers have influence to change the process to become more efficient. All the major and minor changes were made by the managers, who didn’t listen to working men. 

 Drucker started renewing organizations from the top, one of his many quotes “Only three things happen naturally in organizations: friction, confusion, and underperformance. Everything else needs leadership.” sums it up very nicely. 

 Drucker made a list of the main qualities of what managers in his opinion, should pursue towards. It went like this: managers need to set objectives, organise, motivate, and communicate, measure, and finally, develop people and themselves. Drucker was ahead of his time with his theories, but he started a revolutionary development in organisations and managerial training. He was thought of being the father of post war managerial thinking and this statement was deserved. 

Before we can start answering the question” Are workers merely a disposable drain on resources”, we need to take a quick look at how Drucker changed the managerial role and how it affected the relationship between the workers and organizations.  

Drucker`s idea was to teach managers to care about employees, environment and the whole world around the organization. He knew that changes needed to come from the top and the change needed to be made in the mindset of the managers. By opposing the thought of managers being all knowing and not needing others help or opinions. Ducker created a movement that shaped modern managerial norms into being beneficial for organisations, managers and the workers. Organisations started seeing managers as an own separate part of the working force.  

This led to organisations being led by educated managers who had different mindset about the whole picture. Organisations started to take a social and a environmental responsibility. Managers started involving workers in decision making, which led to the relationship between the organisation and the workers skyrocket drastically. It even led to improvement of the community and customer relations all around the organization.  

We can all be thankful to Drucker for asking these questions and standing behind his theories and ideas, but was all his theories, right? Drucker argued in favor of self-management and giving workers more influence in decision making which is good to some degree. If all the workers were independent and self-managed, then what role would the managers have and who would keep the company going in the right path? By making employees have more power in the company there is a bigger possibility for mistakes and lack of knowledge in management.   

Now we can get to the question, are workers merely disposable drain of resources? The phrasing of this question gives us a strong one-sided stance because of our emotions. Are we disposable? Is anyone just a disposable recourse? We like to think that we are special and important in our work and as a person, when in reality everyone is replaceable.  

Here in Finland where everyone is well educated, professional competence is highly valued, and it shows in the way the organization holds on to its workers that are important. We know this in the back of our mind, so we try our best to be irreplaceable and climb higher in the company for safety. If we think this question from the perspective of the organization, we will quickly see that the workers are disposable recourses in the eye of economic organization, this is what Ducker argued against.  

In economic and social organization, workers are much more than recourses, they are part of the organization, and they represent it. They have a deep understanding of the working habits, what motivates them, who’s their friend or not, and they know the fastest and best way to do their job. All of this so we could say they`re more profitable for the company. By making workers more than just resources, companies will profit directly from it.   

Companies have started playing “the long game” by making better relationships with the workers, starting to take environmental responsibility and by supporting the community around them. This movement started in Duckers vision to change the top management, and it came to fruition. 

 I have tried so hard to find something that I could argue against in Drucker’s theories about management, and how it relates to workers efficiency, but I can´t. I have studied leadership for 1,5 years in Proakatemia and I have seen so many seeds of Drucker’s theories in action that it makes almost impossible to not agree with them. 

 I like the way Drucker uses the word “assets” when talking about workers in organizations. It tells how different mindset he had comparing other managers in his time. Drucker realized that everyone would benefit if people had a different orientation about work and companies. He started going after people who could do the switch for better.   

Drucker’s list of responsibilities of managers has been a cornerstone for my managerial growth before I even knew where it came from. I think that every new manager needs to read and study little bit of Ducker because he will inspire people especially managers to think about the long game and how we need to view and guide organizations to the right direction.  

I would like to end this on one of his most famous quotes “The best way to predict the future is to create it”