McGregor’s Theory X / Y in the context of Recruitment

As per McGregor’s theorizing, there are two diametrically different types of people at work which he recognized as Theory X and Theory Y (Lawter et al, 2015).

The Theory X discusses that the people are often averse to working and are lacking ambition and responsibility towards their job roles, thereby requiring close supervision and rigid controls to prevent the passiveness of employees (Gannon and Boguszak, 2013).

This incapacity of employees would lead the management to provide detailed instructions and to reduce the scope of work assigned to each employee to match their limited capabilities. As such, McGregor (1957) identified the aforesaid as the most pessimistic view of human nature which needs continuous supervision to get a job done.

In contradiction to the Theory X, McGregor proposed an alternative approach which is identified as Theory Y, where it assumes that people are not passive and in fact the organizational objectives can be achieved in a more fruitful manner with the right direction and provision of opportunities by the management (Gannon and Boguszak, 2013). 

Theory Y assumes that a) people can find work enjoyable provided, the work environment and conditions are suitable, b) people are capable of self- direction and self-control and c) people possess the ability of intellectual contribution towards their job roles (McGregor 1960).

DeCamp (1992) emphasizes that the causes for high employee turnover ratio in most of the organizations are mainly due to the failures in their recruitment processes as they are keen on verifying the compatibility of the candidate only with the interviewer and not with the actual people they get to work with. Further, DeCamp (1992) discusses that the interviewers should select Y type employees for managerial positions to ensure that the lower level staff are motivated and always achieve the set targets.

In this connection, I observe that the company I work for, always give preference for applicants who have the qualities of theory Y for all managerial positions. This is due to the increased level of responsibility, encouragement, successful delegation of authority which would be observed from their staff.  However, for certain job roles such as call centre executives, front line officers and back office functions, company would even consider candidates who possess characteristics similar to Theory X, considering the limitation of job profiles and costs.

References

DeCamp and Donald, D (1992).  "Are you hiring the right people?" Management Review, vol. 81, no. 5

Gannon, D and Boguszak, A, (2013). Douglas McGregor’s Theory X And Theory Y, CRIS Bulletin 2013/02.

Lawter, L., Kopelman, R. and Prottas, D., (2015). McGregor's theory X/Y and job performance: A multilevel, multi-source analysis. Journal of Managerial Issues

McGregor, D. M (1957). “Human Side of Enterprise.” Management Review 46: 622-628

McGregor, D. M (1960). The Human Side of Enterprise. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill