Some Total Quality Management detractors have noted that long-range plans advocated by TQM may limit an organization’s flexibility and agility. TQM teaches that a long-term plan is required to achieve a complete quality transformation, but a long-term plan that has been pursued for a long period may become an end unto itself. Completion of the plan becomes the ultimate goal.
Objectives the plan was designed to accomplish are forgotten; achieving the transformation becomes the most important objective. Instead of maintaining continuous change, the organization may reach a stable point and stagnate. To produce continuously high quality services, an organization must react quickly to changes in the community and not be restricted by its management style.
TQM detractors also argue that although Total Quality Management calls for organizational change, it does not demand radical organizational reform. Real quality improvement requires radical structural change, such as flattening organizational structures. It requires liberation of employees from stifling control systems and the tyranny of functionalism, both of which stifle teamwork.
Total Quality Management calls for the elimination of the goals and objectives required by Management-by-Objectives. Critics of TQM claim that this may negatively affect motivation.
They claim that having established production goals gives employees increasingly higher goals to reach, which motivates them to find new ways to reach the goals. When there are no established production goals, some employees will only produce the minimum required to keep their job.
Some maintain that Total Quality Management delegates the determination of quality to quality experts rather than to "real" people.
TQM claims that quality is a complicated entity that is beyond the average employee to comprehend without specialized training in statistical techniques. It takes what is common sense to the ordinary worker and makes it sound complicated by changing the name and dressing it up with technical language.
Total Quality Management calls for the elimination of performance assessments that rate employees in relation to each other. Critics fear that without performance assessment managers would have too much power over employees and may be use it capriciously. Many managers feel performance assessments let them document employee performance for possible reward, but some employees fear the assessments might be used against them in some disciplinary actions.
Performance assessments may give employees with grievances the documentation they need to prove managers are treating them unfairly. Without them, managers could make unfair accusations about an employee’s performance and the employee would not have the documentation to counter the claims.
Objectives the plan was designed to accomplish are forgotten; achieving the transformation becomes the most important objective. Instead of maintaining continuous change, the organization may reach a stable point and stagnate. To produce continuously high quality services, an organization must react quickly to changes in the community and not be restricted by its management style.
TQM detractors also argue that although Total Quality Management calls for organizational change, it does not demand radical organizational reform. Real quality improvement requires radical structural change, such as flattening organizational structures. It requires liberation of employees from stifling control systems and the tyranny of functionalism, both of which stifle teamwork.
Total Quality Management calls for the elimination of the goals and objectives required by Management-by-Objectives. Critics of TQM claim that this may negatively affect motivation.
They claim that having established production goals gives employees increasingly higher goals to reach, which motivates them to find new ways to reach the goals. When there are no established production goals, some employees will only produce the minimum required to keep their job.
Some maintain that Total Quality Management delegates the determination of quality to quality experts rather than to "real" people.
TQM claims that quality is a complicated entity that is beyond the average employee to comprehend without specialized training in statistical techniques. It takes what is common sense to the ordinary worker and makes it sound complicated by changing the name and dressing it up with technical language.
Total Quality Management calls for the elimination of performance assessments that rate employees in relation to each other. Critics fear that without performance assessment managers would have too much power over employees and may be use it capriciously. Many managers feel performance assessments let them document employee performance for possible reward, but some employees fear the assessments might be used against them in some disciplinary actions.
Performance assessments may give employees with grievances the documentation they need to prove managers are treating them unfairly. Without them, managers could make unfair accusations about an employee’s performance and the employee would not have the documentation to counter the claims.