Increasing Efficiency In Business - Walter Dill Scott (ebook reader browser .txt) 📗
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Measuring this cold-blooded policy against
the consideration, the unfailing effort of their
old employer to “take care of them” in bad
seasons, the workers decided to stick to the
smaller company and refuse the advance.
_Next to continuous employment, among methods
of increasing the value of wages, is the policy
of making promotions from the ranks_.
This practice seems to be commonly ac-
<p 156>
cepted as fruitful, although many firms believe
it impossible of application in filling some
of the higher as well as some of the more technical
positions. Where the system is applicable,
it acts as a powerful stimulus to the
men by adding to their present wages the
promise or possibility of better positions and
higher pay in the future. It gives assurance of
promotion for faithful service much greater
than in houses which fill the upper positions
from outside sources on the assumption that
they thus get “new blood” into the business.
The men secured from outside may be more
skilled or more productive of immediate results
than any available in the house organization.
By their importation, however, the
wages of all the men aspiring to the position
have been cheapened. Nor does the evil stop
there.
_The assumption is naturally drawn that the
same practice is likely to be followed in filling
other vacancies. The stimulus to initiative and
activity is thus weakened for men in every grade
and their wages are shrunk below par_.
<p 157>
The importance which some successful employers
attach to this principle of promotion
from the ranks is well illustrated by an incident
which recently occurred in a large manufacturing
establishment organized on a one-man
basis. During the president’s absence it was
decided to open up a new zone of trade for a
new product. No one in the organization
knew the product and the field, so a new man
was put in charge. The work progressed
surprisingly well; the enterprise was in every
way successful.
When the real head returned, he called his
managers together and told them that the
new man must be removed and the most deserving
man in the regular organization appointed
in his place. He was met with the protest
that no employee was capable of taking up the
work and reminded that the new man had
already achieved great success. The president
answered that he was willing to lose money
in the department for the first year rather than
cheapen and disorganize the service by taking
away the certainty of promotion and by re-
<p 158>
moving the incentive to study and self-development
which had increased the efficiency of
every ambitious employee.
Innumerable examples of the same principle
in promotions could be gleaned from the
records of some of the oldest and most progressive
houses in the country. In one establishment
visited, the quality of whose wares
is strenuously guarded, it was discovered that
the chemist and metallurgist in charge of the
factory laboratory had been lifted out of one
of the departments and supplied with the
money to take a specialized course in physics,
chemistry, and metallurgy. The advertising
manager, the factory engineer, and two or three
of the foremen had been given leaves of absence
to study and fit themselves for the positions
to which their talents and inclinations
drew them. Even among the workmen there
was a fixed basis for advancement towards the
better jobs and the higher rates, dependent on
satisfactory service and output.
To these major considerations in increasing
the worth of wages, those companies which
<p 159>
have given the longest attention to the problem
add many other inducements.
_An efficient and contented employee has a
positive money value to any employer. To hold
him and keep him efficient, his personal comfort
and needs should be considered in every way
not detrimental to the company’s interests_.
As nearly as possible, the ideal in factory
location and construction is approached. Some
industries have removed bodily to country
towns, less for the sake of a cheap site than
for the purpose of establishing themselves
where housing conditions for workers were
good, rents low, the cost of living cheaper, and
other factors tending to *add value to every dollar
paid in wages were present. Direct appeal
was made to the intelligence of employees,
whose health is part of their capital, by making
and keeping working conditions as healthful
and sanitary, as little taxing on eyesight and
bodily vigor as circumstances and judicious
investment of capital allowed. Scores of
towns have been built outright, to benefit
employees.
<p 160>
In line with this policy are the systems of
benefit insurance for accident and sickness
maintained and partly supported by many
companies; the pension systems which have
been adopted within the last few years by
some of the greatest and most progressive
companies in America; the free medical service,
both in case of factory accidents and
sickness at home, which other firms provide
for employees; and various other activities
contributing to the welfare of workers, both
during working hours and afterwards.
Employers are coming more and more to
see that this is the case and to devote both
thought and money to the elimination of conditions
which cut wages below par.
_Whatever reduces hazard, discomfort, loss of
time, uncertainty, or the cost of living for workers
adds value to their wages and is a means of
influencing their attitude towards the company_.
Some employers are continually exercised
to keep the wages of their men from falling
below par. Others are equally solicitous that
their men may regard their wages as above
<p 161>
par. This classification is a real one and was
made plain by some of the interviews referred
to above. Thus in answer to the question,
“What special method do you employ to make
men satisfied or pleased with their wages?”
one employer immediately put his own interpretation
on the question. To him it meant,
“What method do you employ to keep your
men from being *dissatisfied with their wages?”
His answer was: “By paying them somewhere
near what they ask or expect. If we
don’t,” he added, “they go out on strike and
we have to compromise.”
The majority of successful employers have
advanced beyond this negative, defensive
attitude and take a positive and aggressive
position in dealing with the problem.
_Instead of assuming their work accomplished
when the men are not dissatisfied or rebellious,
they do not rest until every dollar paid out in
wages is above par in its influence upon efficiency_.
Thus in innumerable ways the progressive
employer increases the value of all wages he
<p 162>
pays by making them appeal to the reason
and to the instincts of workers in a way un-dreamed of by less enlightened men. The
purpose of wages is to produce a certain
psychological effect and to promote the most
favorable attitude on the part of the worker.
The methods of increasing the purchasing power
of money thus spent is one of the most interesting
and yet complex problems which the
business man has to face.
This chapter shows the psychological ground
for the following statements:—
Employees differ in their response to piecework
rates and to salaries. Some respond
more satisfactorily to one and some to the
other.
When the development of men for better
positions is of prime importance, the piecework
system is not to be adopted. If the
quantity of work per unit of wage is of greatest
importance, then some form of wage other
than fixed salary should be used.
An employee should not be dismissed as
hopelessly lazy till he has shown this attitude
<p 163>
in more than one department or has failed to
respond to different forms of stimulation.
Changes in wages may often be placed under
the authority of some person or committee
other than the immediate superiors of the
employees involved. This authority may be
vested in the direct representatives of the
executives or in such a committee as would
be formed by representatives of the executives
and also employees from the different departments
of the establishment.
_Payment of wages, so far as possible, should
be made to appeal to the instincts for social distinction
and for acquisition as well as to the instinct
for self-preservation_.
Wages should never be reduced without a
tactful and sincere attempt to convince the
men of the necessity of such an act.
Increase in wages may well be made a personal
matter. Some firms, however, are most
successful with a mechanical wage system in
which employees know exactly the conditions
necessary for an increase in wages.
All work should be thoroughly supervised
<p 164>
and inspected so that employees know that
good service will be recognized and rewarded.
The policy of filling all positions from the
ranks seems growing in favor, since it gives
certain hope for advancement and hence
greater satisfaction with the present wage.
The wage may well include a tacit insurance
for the future. Employees should be assured
that so long as they remain faithful to the
firm, their work and pay will continue, and
that in accident or old age they will be provided
for. Accepted thus, the wage secures
increased service.
PLEASURE
AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY
TO prevent the usual “summer slump”
in output, the manager of a factory
employing a hundred or more sewing
girls on piecework tried various methods.
He began with closer individual supervision
by the forewomen. He set up a bulletin
board and posted daily the names of the five
highest operators. He added small cash prizes
weekly. He adopted a modified bonus system
framed so as not to interfere with the
established average of winter tasks. With
each his success was only partial. Ten or a
dozen of the more energetic girls responded to
the stimulus; on the majority the effect was
slight.
The problem was serious. June, July, and
August comprised the season when his prod-
<p 165>
<p 166>
ucts were at a premium, when future orders
were frequently lost because partial deliveries
could not be made immediately. Studying
the question, he noted specifically, what he
already knew, that the output dropped as the
temperature rose. A cool day sandwiched
into a week of hot weather frequently equaled
the best winter records. This fact, coupled
with the observation that the spirit of his
working force seemed to change with the
change of temperature from warm to cold,
helped him to arrive at the right solution.
He made the discovery sitting in the draught
of an electric fan. He looked up, made a
mental note; and next morning he moved his
office “comforter” out to the head of one file of
machines. The draught tangled the goods
under the seamstresses’ hands at times, but
the half dozen girls within range showed a
decided increase in production over the day
before and over operators at other tables.
He had found his remedy for the summer
slump. Within a week he had installed a
system of large overhead fans and an exhaust
<p 167>
blower and saw his production figures mount
to the winter’s best average. From careless,
indifferent workers, on edge at trifles and difficult
to hold, his force developed steadiness
and efficiency. Not only was the output
increased twenty per cent over previous
summers, but the proportion of spoiled work
was considerably reduced.
One of the women who had been a subject
of the first day’s experiment struck close to
the reason of her greater efficiency in her
off-hand answer to his inquiry.
“It was a pleasure to work to-day. It was
so comfortable after yesterday you just forgot
the other girls, forgot you wanted to rest,
forgot everything but the seams you were
running
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