Increasing Efficiency In Business by Walter Dill Scott (desktop ebook reader .txt) 📕

>to the means of self-preservation, of social

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