Increasing Efficiency In Business, Walter Dill Scott [best novels for teenagers .TXT] 📗
- Author: Walter Dill Scott
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distinction, and of the accumulation of
wealth.
_The worker with a fixed salary or wage does
not feel as continuously the goad of his wage.
It is less in mind and does not control his attitude
toward his work. The man on a fixed
salary, therefore, will not produce so much_.
If he be a workman, he may take better
care of his tools, keep his output up to a higher
standard of quality, prepare himself for more
responsible positions. If he be a salesman, he
may be more considerate of his customers and
hence really more valuable to his employer;
he may be more loyal to the house and hence
<p 145>
promote the “team work” of the organization,
and he may because of his more receptive state
of mind be preparing himself for much greater
usefulness to his house. If he be a superintendent,
he may be more thoughtful of his
men, or more scrupulous for the future of the
business.
Production methods or labor conditions
are often such that piecework is impossible.
There are many functions and processes which
thus far have not been satisfactorily adjusted
to task systems; there are others (the inspection
service in a factory, for instance) where a
premium on increased output would defeat
the first purpose of the service. Where results
can be accurately measured, however, and the
quality of the service can be automatically
secured or is not sacrificed by concentration
upon quantity, the task system—whether
it take the form of piece rates, premiums, or
bonus—has such superior psychological advantages
that it will probably come more and
more into use.
Under the general heading quoted above—
<p 146>
“How do you make the most of the wages
paid your employees?”—the following question
was asked: “What special method do
you employ to make men satisfied or pleased
with their wages?” The answers were most
interesting and instructive. One manager
having many thousand men in his organization
narrated various methods by which he
kept in personal touch with his men, and
turned this personal relationship to the advantage
of the house.
One illustration will make clear the line he
pursued. In the card catalogue of the employees,
the birthday of each is noted, the
executive recognizing that for the average
man this is an anniversary even more important
than New Year’s.
_If for any reason a member of the organization
deserves or requires the executive’s personal attention,
his birthday may be chosen as the date
of the interview. Then whether the man merits
an advance for extra good work or needs help to
correct a temporary slump in efficiency, the reward
or the appeal takes on added meaning_
<p 147>
_because it coincides with a turning point in his
life_.
To facilitate the plan, the manager’s file
of employment cards is arranged, not by
initials or departments, but by birthdays.
Each workman’s name falls under his eye a
few days in advance, long enough to secure
a report from his foreman, if knowledge is
lacking of his progress.
As I entered this manager’s office, I met a
young man coming out. He had been in the
company’s employ only a few months and his
relations with the organization had not yet
been established. Asked for a report, his
foreman gave him a good record and recommended
a small advance. Imagine the surprise,
the instant access of pride and loyalty,
the impulse towards greater effort and efficiency,
when the young man was called into the
manager’s office on his birthday, congratulated
on his record, and informed that he would start
his new year with an advance in wages.
Double the advance, if allowed in the usual
way, would not have so impressed and satisfied
<p 148>
him. The increased wage made its appeal direct
to the instinct for social recognition, and
hence was very effective.
Such a method does not admit of general
application. Practiced in cold blood, it might
even be harmful. But in this case, it struck
me not as an act of selfish cleverness, but as
the expression of a real sympathy and interest
which the manager felt for his men. The
cleverness lay in the recognition that no man is
ever so susceptible to counsel, to appreciation,
or to rebuke as on his birthday, when the social
self is especially alert.
In other organizations, the effort to extend
this factor of human sympathy to each worker
and to see that full justice is rendered to him
takes the form of a department of promotion
and discharge. The head is the direct representative
of the “front office” and is independent
of superintendents and foremen. No
man can be “paid off” until the facts have been
submitted to the consideration of this department.
Here also the man may present his case
to an unprejudiced and sympathetic arbiter.
<p 149>
_In actual practice the man “paid off” is
sometimes retained and the foreman, on the evidence
of prejudice, bad temper, or other incompetency,
is discharged. In consequence every
workman knows that his place does not depend
upon the whim of his immediate superior, but
that faithful service will certainly be recognized_.
Furthermore, this department assumes the
task of shifting men from one department to
another and thus minimizing the misfits which
lower the efficiency of the whole organization.
Records of each man’s performance are kept,
and promotions and discharge are more nearly
in accord with facts than would be possible in
a large house without some such agency. In
too many big establishments the individual
feels that he does not count in the crowd and
that he is helpless to do anything to advance
himself or to protect himself against an antagonistic
foreman. In large measure, such a department
reduces this feeling and bridges the
chasm between the men and the firm.
In its effect on the attitude and efficiency
of employees, the method of fixing and ad-
<p 150>
justing wages is no less important than the
wages themselves. The steady trend of the
labor market has been upward and always upward;
it is one of the notable achievements of
trade and industry that this constant appreciation
in the price of man power has been
neutralized by increase in the efficiency of its
application. This increase in earning capacity
has been secured not alone by the development
of automatic machinery, but by the division
of labor, the subdivision of processes, and the
education of workers to accept the new methods,
and acquire expert skill in some specialty.
Hardly a generation has passed since one
man, or perhaps two working together, built
farm wagons, steam engines, and a thousand
other articles entire. Now a hundred mechanics
or machine tenders may have contributed
to either wagon or engine before
it reaches the shipping department. Three
fourths of these workers are paid piece rates.
The substitution of these piece rates for day
wages, the striking of a satisfactory balance
between production and compensation, and
<p 151>
the endless changes in the scale as new parts
or faster or simpler processes are invented—
have all been operations in which the tact and
man-handling skill of executives have played a
significant part.
In the larger organization this knowledge or
skill is often supplied by a manager who has
“come up through the ranks” and has not
forgotten his journeyman’s dexterity on the
way or neglected to keep in touch with improved
methods.
_Frequently the advantage of a small industry
or trading venture over its larger rivals depends
on the owner’s mastery of all the processes or
conditions involved and his ability to deal with
his employees on a personal plane in fixing
wages or in establishing the standard day’s work_.
In a stove factory where four fifths of the
processes are paid by piece rates, it was necessary,
not long ago, to fix the remuneration for
the assembling of a new type of range. Most
of the operations were standard; the workmen
and the management differed, however,
on what should be paid for the setting and fas-
<p 152>
tening of a back piece with seventeen bolts.
The men asked fifteen cents a range. When refused,
they named twelve cents as an ultimatum.
The company was willing neither to pay
such a price nor to antagonize the workmen.
The dispute was settled by a demonstration.
The superintendent was himself a graduate
from the bench and had been an expert workman.
The company’s contract with the assemblers’
union set $4.50 a day as the maximum
wage. To prove his contention that even
twelve cents was too great a price, he set the
back pieces on ten ranges himself, under the
eyes of a committee, and proved that at six
cents a range he could easily earn the maximum
day wage. The price agreed upon was
eight cents, little more than half the original
demand. Without the demonstration the
men would have accepted twelve cents reluctantly.
In the course of the interviews with employers,
it became evident that there was
agreement on one point—to educate the
worker to realize that the house’s policy in
<p 153>
handling its men gave added value to the
sums paid out in wages.
_The shiftless or unskilled man works mainly
for the next pay envelope, with little or no regard
for the continuity of employment, the possibility
of promotion, of pension, of sick or accident
benefits, of working conditions, or the like_.
The skilled worker, on the contrary, and the
more desirable class of laborers, nearly always
rate their wages above or below par, according
to the presence or the absence of these contingent
benefits or emoluments.
To the average man with a family, the
“steady job” at fair wages is the first
consideration. It appeals more strongly to him
than intermittent employment at a much
higher rate; while the younger, restless, and
less dependable man, both skilled and unskilled,
gravitates to the shop where he can command
a premium for a little while. Just as managers
are always looking for the steady worker,
nearly all agree in assuring their employees
that faithful and efficient service will be rewarded
with continuous employment.
<p 154>
To carry out this policy is sometimes difficult
in businesses where demand is seasonal
and where a large part of the product must
be made to order. Nevertheless, the manager
who adjusts his production program to cover
the entire year has the choice of the best
workers even when other factories offer higher
rates. Likewise, the employer who sacrifices
his profit in bad years to “take care of his
men” and hold his organization together recovers
his losses when the revival comes.
So deeply rooted is this desire for a “steady
job” and so generally recognized as an essential
of the labor problem that several large industries
have developed “side lines” to which
they can turn their organization during their
slack seasons; while others in periods of depression
pile up huge stocks of standard products,
making heavy investments of capital,
for the primary purpose of keeping their men
employed.
How such a policy reacts on the wage question,
and hence on the efficiency of employees,
is shown by an instance which lately fell under
<p 155>
my notice. By a long and persistent campaign
of education and demonstration, a small “quality”
house forced a rival ten times as large
to adopt the careful processes on which this
quality depended. Adopting the small man’s
methods, the competitor, instead of training its
own operatives to the new standards, sought
to hire the other man’s skilled workers. The
premium offered was a thirty per cent advance.
It was refused, however. The tempted mechanics,
analyzing the rival’s proposal, hit on
the disloyalty contemplated towards its own
employees. They were to be discharged or
transferred to other departments to make
room
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