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

has passed, there may be

a temporary reaction, but there is likely to be

a permanent advance both in individual efficiency

and organization spirit.

 

On the employer’s side, this feeling is expressed

in the surrender of profits to provide

work in dull seasons; in the retention of

aged mechanics, laborers, or clerks on the

payroll after their usefulness has passed;

in pensions; in a score of neighborly and

friendly offices to those who are sick, injured,

or in trouble. A reputation for “taking care

of his men” has frequently been a bulwark of

defense to the small manufacturer or trader

assailed by a greedy larger rival.

 

Personality is, beyond doubt, the primitive

wellspring of loyalty. Most men are capable

of devotion to a worthy leader; few are

ever zealots for the sake of a cause, a principle,

a party, or a firm. All these are too abstract

to win the affection of the average man. It is

only when they become embodied in an individual,

a concrete personality which stirs our

human interest, that they become moving

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powers. The soldiers of the Revolution fought

for Washington rather than for freedom;

Christians are loyal to Christ rather than to

his teachings; the voter cheers his candidate

and not his party; the employee is loyal to the

head of the house or his immediate foreman

and not to the generality known as the House.

Loyalty to the individuals constituting the

firm may ultimately develop into house loyalty.

To attempt to create the latter sentiment,

however, except by first creating it for

the men higher up is to go contrary to human

nature—always an unwise expenditure of

energy.

 

_Human Sympathy as a Factor in developing

Loyalty in Men_

 

In developing loyalty, human sympathy is

the greatest factor. If an executive of a

company is confident that his directors approve

his policies, appreciate his obstacles,

and are ready to back him up in any crisis,

his energy and enthusiasm for the common

object never flag. If department heads and

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foremen are assured that the manager is

watching their efforts with attention and regard,

approving, supporting, and sparing them

wherever possible, they will anticipate orders,

assume extra burdens, and fling themselves

and their forces into any breach which may

threaten their chief’s program.

 

If a workman, clerk, or salesman knows that

his immediate chief is interested in him personally,

that he understands what service is

being rendered and is anxious to forward his

welfare as well as that of the house, there is

no effort, inconvenience, or discomfort which

he will not undertake to complete a task which

the boss has undertaken. Throughout the

entire organization, the sympathy and co<o:>peration

of the men above with the men below

is essential for securing the highest degree of

loyalty. No assumed or manufactured sympathy,

however, will take the place of the genuine

article.

 

<p 87>

_Personal Relationship with Workers as Basis

for creating Loyalty_

 

The effectiveness of human sympathy in

creating loyalty is most apparent in one-man

businesses where the head of the house is in

personal contact with all or many of his employees.

This personal touch, however, is

not necessarily limited to the small organization.

Many men have employed thousands

and secured it. Others have succeeded in impressing

their personalities, and demonstrating

their sympathy upon large forces, though

their actual relations were with a few. The

impression made upon these and the loyalty

created in them were sufficient to permeate and

influence the entire body. Potter Palmer, the

elder Armour, Marshall Field, and Andrew Carnegie

were among the hundreds of captains

who made acquaintance with the men in the

ranks the cornerstone on which they raised

their trade or industrial citadels.

 

When the size of the organization precludes

personal contact, or when conditions remove

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the executive to a distance, the task of maintaining

touch is frequently and successfully

intrusted to a lieutenant in sympathy with

the chief’s ideals and purposes. He may

be the head of a department variously styled,

—adjustments, promotion and discharge,

employment, labor,—but his express function

is to restore to an organization the simple

but powerful human relation without which

higher efficiency cannot be maintained. In

factories and stores employing many women

this understudy to the manager is usually a

woman, who is given plenary authority in the

handling of her charges, in reviewing disputes

with foremen, and in finding the right position

for the misplaced worker. Whether man

or woman, this representative of the manager

hears all grievances, reviews all discharges,

reductions, and the like, and makes sure that

the employee receives a little more than absolute

justice.

 

Many successful merchants and manufacturers,

however, disdain agents and intermediaries

in this relation and are always ac-

<p 89>

cessible to every man in their organizations;

holding that, since the co<o:>peration of employees

is the most important single element in

business, the time given to securing it is time

well spent.

 

Even though human sympathy may well

be regarded as the most important consideration

in increasing loyalty, it is not sufficient

in and of itself. The most patriotic citizens

are those who have, served the state. They

are made loyal by the very act of service.

They have assumed the responsibility of promoting

the welfare of the state, and their

patriotism is thereby stimulated and given

concrete outlet. A paternalistic government

in which the citizens had every right but no

responsibility would develop beggars rather

than patriots.

 

Similarly in a business house ideally organized

to create loyalty, each employee not

only feels that his rights are protected, but

also feels a degree of responsibility for the

success and for the good name of the house.

He feels that his task or process is an essen-

<p 90>

tial part of the firm’s activity; and hence is

important and worthy of his best efforts. To

cement this bond and make closer the identification

of the employee with the house many

firms encourage their employees to purchase

stock in the company. Others have worked

out profit-sharing plans by which their men

share in the dividends of the good years and

are given a powerful incentive to promote

teamwork and the practice of the economies

from which the overplus of profit is produced.

 

_Loyalty may be developed by Education in House

History and Policies_

 

The stability of a nation depends on the

patriotism of its citizens. Among methods

for developing this patriotism, *education ranks

as the most effective. In the public schools

history is taught for the purpose of awakening

the love and loyalty of the rising generations.

The founders, builders, and saviors of the country,

the great men of peace and war who have

contributed to its advancement, are held up

for admiration. From the recital of what

<p 91>

country and patriotism meant to Washington,

Jefferson, Lincoln, Grant, and a host of lesser

heroes, the pupils come to realize what country

should, and does, mean to them. They

become patriotic citizens.

 

_Grounding the New Employee in Company

Traditions and Ideals_

 

In like manner the history of any house can

be used to inspire loyalty and enthusiasm

among its employees. Business has not been

slow to borrow the methods and ideals of

education, but the writer has been unable to

discover any company which makes adequate

use of this principle. That this loyalty may

be directed to the house as a whole, and not

merely to immediate superiors, every employee

should be acquainted with the purposes and

policies of the company and should understand

that the sympathy which he discovers in

his foreman is a common characteristic of the

whole organization, clear up to the president.

The best way to teach this is by example—

by incidents drawn from the past, or by a

<p 92>

review of the development of the company’s

policy.

 

To identify one’s self with a winning cause,

party, or leader, also, is infinitely easier than

to be loyal to a loser. For this reason the

study of the history of the firm may well include

its trade triumphs, past and present;

the remarkable or interesting uses to which its

products have been put; the honor or prestige

which its executives or members of the

organization have attained; and the hundred

other items of human interest which can be

marshaled to give it house personality. All

this would arouse admiration and appreciation

in employees, would stir enthusiasm and

a desire to contribute to future achievements,

and would foster an unwillingness to leave the

organization.

 

Some companies have begun in this direction.

New employees, by way of introduction,

listen to lectures, either with or without

the accompaniment of pictures, which review

what the house has accomplished, define its

standing in the trade, analyze its products and

<p 93>

their qualities or functions, sketch the plan and

purpose of its organization, and touch upon the

other points of chief human interest. Other

companies put this information in booklets.

Still others employ their house organs to recall

and do honor to the interesting traditions of

the company as well as to exploit the successful

deeds and men of the moment. An organized

and continuous campaign of education

along this line should prove an inexpensive

means of increasing loyalty and efficiency

among the men. To the mind of the writer, it

seems clear that the future will see pronounced

advances in this particular.

 

Personality can be overdone, however.

Workers instinctively give allegiance to strong,

balanced men, but resent and combat egotism

unchecked by regard for others’ rights.

Exploitation of the employer’s or foreman’s

personality will do more harm than good unless

attended by consideration for the personality

of the employee. The service of more than

one important company has been made intolerable

for men of spirit and creative ability

<p 94>

by the arrogant and dominating spirit of the

management. The men who continue to

sacrifice their individuality to the whim or the

arbitrary rule of their superiors, in time lose

their ambition and initiative; and the organization

declines to a level of routine, mechanical

efficiency only one remove from dry—

rot.

 

_How Efficiency and Loyalty of Workers may be

Capitalized_

 

Conservation and development of individuality

in workers may be made an important

factor in creating loyalty as well as in directly

increasing efficiency. Great retail stores put

many department heads into business for

themselves, giving them space, light, buying

facilities, clerks, and purchasing and advertising

credit as a basis of their merchandising;

then requiring a certain percentage of profit

on the amount allowed them. The more successful

of Marshall Field’s lieutenants were

taken into partnership and, as in the case of

Andrew Carnegie and his “cabinet of young

<p 95>

geniuses,” were given substantial shares of the

wealth they helped to create.

 

Some industries and stores carry this practice

to the point of making specialized departments

entirely independent of the general

buying, production, and selling organizations

whenever these fall short of the service offered

outside; while the principle of stock distribution

or other forms of profit sharing has

been adopted by so many companies that it

has come to be a recognized method of promoting

loyalty.

 

Regard for the employee’s personality must

be carried down in an unbroken chain through

all the ranks. It may be broken at any step

in the descent by an executive or foreman

who has not himself learned the lesson that

loyalty to the house includes loyalty to the

men under him.

 

It is not uncommon, in some American

houses, to find three generations of workers

—grandfather, father, and apprentice son—

rendering faithful and friendly service; or to

discover a score of bosses and men who have

<p 96>

spent thirty or forty years—their entire

productive lives—in the one organization.

Where such a bond exists between employer

and employees, it becomes an active, unfailing

force in the development of