Analyzing Character by Arthur Newcomb (best ereader for epub .txt) 📕

While the purchasing of mere inanimate material, which after all is only secondary in importance, has thus been reduced to science and art in charge of specialists, the methods of selection, assignment, and handling of employees in nearly all industrial and commercial institutions continues to-day on the same old dishonest basis as that which we found in the printing and publishing house described. Foremen, superintendents, and heads of departments still guard jealously their prerogatives of hiring and firing. So deeply rooted is this prejudice in the minds of the industrial and commercial world, that many managers have said to us in horror, "Why, we can't take away the power to hire and fire from our foremen. They couldn't maintain discipline. They would not consent to remain in their executive positions if they did not have this power of life and death, as it were, over their employees."

Incidentally, we may say, that we have had almost no trouble in securing the enthusiastic and loyal co-operation of foremen and superintendents where employment departments have been installed.

SCIENTIFIC EMPLOYMENT THE REMEDY

It is becoming increasingly clear to employers that, only by following the example of the purchasing department, can industry and commerce cure the evil which we have briefly described and exemplified in the two preceding chapters. We find that employment, instead of being left to the tender mercies of foremen, Tom, Dick, and Harry—who may or may not be good judges of men, who may or may not be honest, who may or may not indulge in nepotism, who may or may not pad the payroll; who may or may not be unreasonable, tyrannical and otherwise inimical to the best interest of the concern from whom they draw their living—selection of help is now delegated to specialists and experts. Employment departments are now established with more or less complete control over the selection and assignment of men and women in the organization. In some of these departments complete records are kept. Exact and painstaking care is used in securing data, hunting up applicants, watching the actual performances of those who are put to work, determining whether or not they live up to their opportunities. In other employment departments this system is very loose and the departments exist principally for the purpose of securing applicants who are then turned over without recommendation to the foreman who still has the power of employing and discharging.

The remedy for which we have been looking is to be found in an employment department, organized with a carefully selected personnel, which will perform the same careful, analytical research and record-keeping functions as a scientific purchasing department. Perhaps, for the sake of clearness, it would be well for us to describe rather in detail the work of such a department.

ORGANIZATION

The organization of such a department depends entirely upon the number of applicants and employees with which it must deal and the character of the work to be done. Suppose, for example, we have a factory with two thousand employees, seventy-five per cent of them skilled, fifteen per cent of them unskilled, and ten per cent office employees. The work of such a department could be very well carried on by one employment supervisor, one assistant supervisor, one clerk and record-keeper, and part of the time of one stenographer. The employment supervisor is a staff officer. His position in the company is that of a member of the staff of the general manager or president. His work should be subject to oversight by the president or general manager alone, and he should not be answerable to any other officer or member of the corporation. It is the function of the employment supervisor to direct the work of his department, to conduct its relations with all other departments of the business, to interview, analyze, and recommend for employment all executives and employees of more than ordinary importance; to hear and adjudicate all cases of complaint or disagreement between executives or between executives and their employees and also to review cases heard by his assistant in which there is any degree of dissatisfaction with the settlement proposed.

It is the duty of the assistant employment supervisor to interview and analyze, select, and recommend for employment all applicants for minor positions in the factory and office. It is also his duty, under direction of the supervisor, to number and carefully analyze every position in the organization, determining its requirements, and, having made a careful list of these requirements in a card index, to keep it in the files of the department where it can be readily consulted. It is the duty of the clerk and record-keeper to make out all reports, to record all reports sent from heads of departments, to keep the files, to make out notifications to the paymaster and to other officers as occasion requires, and in general to keep the records and files of the department in a neat, orderly condition, up to date every moment of the day, and so managed as to yield readily and instantly any information desired.

It is the duty of the stenographer to attend to all correspondence of the department, including dictation from the supervisor and the assistant supervisor.

FUNCTIONS OF AN EMPLOYMENT DEPARTMENT

Briefly, it is the function of the employment department to secure, interview, analyze, select, and recommend for employment men and women who will pre-eminently fit into the various positions in the organization; by competent counsel, upon request, to assist the line executives in the management of employees, and, in all its activities, to act in the capacity of expert in human nature, conducting all phases of relationship between the corporation and its employees.

In detail, however, the functions of a well-organized and efficient employment department are these:

ANALYSIS OF POSITIONS

1. Theoretically, the first function of an employment department is to analyze carefully every position in the organization, listing its requirements, noting the environment and other conditions which surround it; in short, painting what will be to the members of the department a clear and easily recognizable word-picture of the aptitudes and character of the man or woman best fitted to fill that position. While this is the theoretical first function of the department, in actual practice certain conditions may arise which will make this inadvisable. But it ought to be done as quickly as possible, and the records tabulated on cards in a convenient way in a card file. These are the specifications for the human material needed in each place. The method of making this analysis varies under different circumstances.

ANALYSIS OF EXECUTIVES

2. The next step in the work of an employment department is the analysis of all executives. Each executive is interviewed and carefully analyzed for two purposes; first, to find whether he is indeed the right man in the right place; second, to observe his characteristics, his peculiarities, his personality, and to learn from him his preferences. All of these are carefully listed, and, in selecting employees, care is taken to select only those who will work harmoniously and happily with the executives under whom they are placed.

ANALYSIS OF EMPLOYEES

3. Employees in the organization at the time of the installation of the employment department are analyzed as opportunity offers. In this way the supervisor determines whether or not they are well placed as they are, or whether they have talent and abilities which would make them far more valuable in some other part of the institution. The analysis of each employee is made out either completely and in detail or in a general way, according to his importance, his future possibilities, his probable length of service with the institution, and other conditions. Clearly a great deal more time would be spent and a great deal more careful analysis made in the case of an important executive, than in the case of a day laborer engaged as a member of a temporary shoveling gang.

These analyses, after having been written out, are filed in folders. Each employee has a folder of his own, and in this are placed not only his analysis, but a sheet for the keeping of his record and all letters and papers referring to him.

SECURING OF APPLICANTS

4. Inasmuch as every live organization is always growing and, therefore, taking on new employees, and inasmuch, also, as there is a state of flux in every organization, vacancies occurring for one reason or another, it is a function of the employment department to secure as many of the most desirable applicants possible for all of the positions in the enterprise. Some of these applicants come to the employment department in the natural course of events, others come as the result of advertisements; still others because the employment supervisor and his assistant take means to ferret them out and send for them. Promising young men in schools and colleges and in the employ, perhaps, of other organizations are kept under careful observation. Data in regard to them is listed in the reserve file, and their records, as they come in various ways to the employment supervisor, are filed with them.

5. Applicants having been secured in these ways, the next step is carefully to analyze them. Under ideal conditions this analysis is made by observation, unknown to the applicant, during a pleasant interview. He may be asked certain questions, not chiefly for the sake of bringing out direct information, but for the sake of observing the effects of the interrogations upon him.

In some large organizations, in the rush season, 100 new employees may be added every day. In order to select this number, perhaps several hundred applicants may be interviewed. Obviously, a detailed and thorough analysis of each cannot be made. Under such conditions, however, the work is usually of such a character that the most casual observation on the part of a trained interviewer will reveal at once the fact that the applicant either is or is not fitted for the work to be done.

As a result of the analyses made by the employment supervisor and his staff, applicants are recommended to foremen who have made requisitions for the filling of vacancies. Bear in mind, it is not the function of the employment department arbitrarily to employ. When a desirable applicant has been found, he is sent, with a recommendation, to the head of the department which has made requisition for an employee. Then the foreman or superintendent or the manager either rejects or accepts the applicant. In case of rejection, the executive returns the applicant to the employment department, stating his reason for his action.

When an applicant is accepted, the employment department notifies the paymaster, also places a folder for a new employee in the file. It is often highly desirable, also, before sending an employee to a foreman to inform him fully and in detail as to the work he is expected to do, the conditions under which he will be expected to work, the rate of pay he will receive, the opportunities for advancement, and all other information which may decide the applicant for or against accepting the position if it is offered to him.

REPORTS AND RECORDS

6. The employment department organizes methods for receiving regular and complete reports upon the performance and deportment of every employee in the organization. These reports include punctuality, attendance, efficiency, special ability, deportment, home environment, and habits, companions, and other necessary and valuable information. Every employer who has the good of his employees and their advancement at heart ought to know these things. Reports are received from foremen and superintendents, also from others who are especially assigned by the employment supervisor to secure the information.

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