Increasing Efficiency In Business - Walter Dill Scott (ebook reader browser .txt) 📗

CHAPTER IV

LOYALTY

 

AS A MEANS OF INCREASING HUMAN EFFICIENCY

 

DELAYED by a train of accidents, a

big contractor faced forfeiture of his

bond on a city tunnel costing millions

of dollars. He had exhausted his ingenuity

and his resources to comply with the terms of

his contract, but had failed. Because public

opinion had been condemning concessions on

other jobs on flimsy grounds, the authorities

refused to extend the time allowed for completing

the work. By canceling the contract,

collecting the penalty, and reletting the task,

the city would profit without exceeding its

legal rights.

 

In his dilemma, he called his foremen

together and explained the situation to them.

“Tell the men,” he said. Many of these

<p 75>

<p 76>

had been members of his organization for

years, moving with him from one undertaking

to the next, looking to him for employment,

for help in dull seasons or in times of misfortune,

repaying him with interest in their

tasks and a certain rough attachment.

 

He had been unusually considerate, adopting

every possible safeguard for their protection,

recognizing their union, employing three shifts

of men, paying more than the required scale

when conditions were hard or dangerous.

 

A score of unions were represented in the

organization: miners, masons, carpenters,

plasterers, engineers, electricians, and many

grades of helpers. Learning his plight, they

rallied promptly to his aid. They appealed

to their trades and to the central body of

unions to intervene in his behalf with the city

officials.

 

_How One Considerate Employer was protected

by his Men_

 

As taxpayers, voters, and members of an

organization potentially effective in politics,

<p 77>

they approached the mayor and the department

heads concerned. They pointed out—

what was true—that the city’s negligence in

prospecting and charting the course of the

tunnel was partly responsible for the contractor’s

failure. They pleaded that the city

should make allowances rather than interrupt

their employment, and that the delay in the

work would counterbalance any advantage

contingent on forfeiture. They promised also

that if three additional months were given the

contractor, they would _*do all in their power to

push construction_.

 

The mayor yielded; the extension was

granted. And the men made their promise

good literally, waiving jealously guarded rights

and sparing no effort to forward the undertaking.

The miners, masons, carpenters, and

specialists in other lines in which additional

skilled men could not be secured labored frequently

in twelve-hour shifts and accepted

only the regular hourly rate for the overtime.

With such zeal animating them, only one conclusion

was possible. The tunnel was entirely

<p 78>

completed before the ninety days of grace had

expired.

 

Here was loyalty as stanch and effective

as that which wins battlefields and creates

nations. It increased the efficiency of the

individual workers; it greatly augmented the

effectiveness of the organization as a whole.

It was developed, without appeal to sentiment,

under conditions which make for division

rather than co<o:>peration between employer

and employee. The men were unionists;

wages, hours, and so on, were contract matters

with the boss. Yet in an emergency, the tie

between the tunnel builder and his men was

strong enough to stand the strain of the fatiguing

and long-continued effort necessary

to complete the job and save the former from

ruin. Like incidents, on perhaps a smaller

and less dramatic scale, are not uncommon;

but the historian of business has not yet risen

to make them known.

 

<p 79>

_Loyalty, to Nation or Organization, shows itself

in an Emergency_

 

As with patriotism, business loyalty needs

some such crisis as this to evoke its expression.

In peace the patriotism of citizens is

rarely evident and is frequently called in

question. In America we sometimes assume

that it is a virtue belonging only to past

generations. But every time the honor or

integrity of the country is threatened, a multitude

of eager citizens volunteer in its defense.

Likewise, many a business man who has

come to think his workmen interested only in

the wages he pays them, discovers in his hour

of need an unsuspected asset in their devotion

to the welfare of the business, and their willingness

to make sacrifices to bring it past the

cape of storms.

 

Study of any field, of any single house, or

of any of the periods of depression which have

afflicted and corrected our industrial progress,

will convince one of the unfailing and genuine

loyalty of men to able and considerate em-

<p 80>

ployers. So generally true is this, indeed, that

“house patriotism,” “organization spirit,” or

“loyalty to the management” is accepted

by all great executives as one of the essential

elements in the day-by-day conduct of their

enterprises.

 

Striking exhibitions of this loyalty may wait

for an emergency. Unless it exists, however,

unless it is apparent in the daily routine, there

is immediate and relentless search for the

antagonistic condition or method, which is

robbing the force of present efficiency and

future power. Co<o:>peration of employees is

the first purpose of organization. Without

loyalty and team work the higher levels in

output, quality, and service are impossible.

 

_Loyalty on Part of Employer begets Loyalty in

his Workers_

 

The importance of loyalty in business could

not readily be overestimated, even though its

sole function were to secure united action on

the part of the officers and men. Where no

two men or groups of men were working to

<p 81>

counter purposes, but all are united in a common

purpose, the gain would be enormous, even

though the amount of energy put forth by the

individuals was not increased in the least.

When to this fact of value in organized effort

we add the accompanying psychological facts

of increased efficiency by means of loyalty,

we then begin to comprehend what it means

to have or to lack loyalty.

 

The amount of work accomplished by an

individual is subject to various conditions.

The whole intellect, feeling, and will must work

in unity to secure the best results. Where

there is no heart in the work (absence of

feeling) relatively little can be accomplished,

even though the intellect be convinced and the

will strained to the utmost. The employee

who lacks loyalty to his employer can at least

render but half-hearted service even though

he strive to his utmost and though he be convinced

that his financial salvation is dependent

upon efficient service. _The employer who

secures the loyalty of his men not only secures

better service, but he enables his men to accomplish_

<p 82>

more with less effort and less exhaustion. The

creator of loyalty is a public benefactor.

 

Such loyalty is always reciprocal. The

feeling which workmen entertain for their

employer is usually a reflection of his attitude

towards them. Fair wages, reasonable hours,

working quarters and conditions of average

comfort and healthfulness, and a measure of

protection against accident are now no more

than primary requirements in a factory or

store. Without them labor of the better,

more energetic types cannot be secured in the

first place or held for any length of time.

And the employer who expects, in return for

these, any more than the average of uninspired

service is sure to be disappointed.

 

If he treats his men like machines, looks

at them merely as cogs in the mechanism

of his affairs, they will function like machines

or find other places. If he wishes to stir

the larger, latent powers of their brains and

bodies, thereby increasing their efficiency

as thinkers and workers, he must recognize

them as men and individuals and give in

<p 83>

some measure what he asks. He must identify

them with the business, and make them

feel that they have a stake in its success and

that the organization has an interest in the

welfare of its men. The boss to whom his

employees turn in any serious perplexity or

private difficulty for advice and aid is pretty

apt to receive more than the contract minimum

of effort every day and is sure of devoted

service in any time of need.

 

_The Effect of Personal Relations in creating

Loyalty in a Force_

 

It is on this personal relationship, this platform

of mutual interests and helpfulness, that

the success and fighting strength of many one-man houses are built. As in the contractor’s

dilemma already cited, it bears fruit in the

fighting zeal, the keener interest, and the extra

speed and effort which workers bring to bear

on their individual and collective tasks. All

the knowledge and skill they possess are

thrown into the scale; their quickened intelligences

reach out for new methods and short

<p 84>

cuts; when the crisis