In a manufacturing plant, when a foreman is placed in charge of a shop he should be instructed as to his authority, responsibilities, and exact duties. When these authorities have once been established, no other man of equal or lower grade in the organization should be permitted to interfere in any way, nor should the foreman be permitted to overstep his authority.
Those occupying positions to which greater authorities are attached should also be careful to not presume upon their authority by attempting to direct work properly under control of the foreman. The superintendent or manager who, in passing through a plant, discovers a workman in the act of violating an established rule, or doing something dangerous to the lives of himself and fellow employes, or performing work in the wrong way, is justified in at once bringing the matter to the notice of that workman; but he should report the occurrence to the foreman at the first opportunity.
On the contrary, if the manager or superintendent wishes to make a change in policy involving a departure from the established customs of the shop, or if he requires the services of a workman even temporarily in another department, he should first take up the matter with the shop foreman.
The same policy in general should be observed throughout the organization. The person placed at the head of a department or division of the work should have full authority and be held responsible for the work of all employes in that department. Complaints of inefficiency of an individual employe should be made to the department head. If the purchasing agent, for instance, finds the work of a certain stenographer unsatisfactory, his complaint should be made to the chief stenographer.
20. Duties of Individual Workmen. The duties of the individual workman in the shop should be as clearly defined as are those of his foreman. It is the duty of the foreman to lay out the work and to keep the workman regularly employed on the work assigned to him.
In the operation of the manufacturing branch, the most important consideration is economy of production. When a workman is kept at one task he becomes a specialist, increases his production, and reduces costs.
21. Duties of Office Employes. Each clerk in the office should have his work clearly defined. If specialization is profitable in the shop, it is equally so in the office. Every man who has been responsible for the management of an office will agree with us that in no other branch of business is there a greater tendency to allow work to get behind.
Lack of system is mainly responsible for this state of affairs. While his duties may be more or less clearly defined, the work of the average office clerk does not follow any well defined plan. He does the thing that seems most important, leaving the less important tasks until he "has time." Instead of surveying the field and laying out a logical, systematic plan, the average office employe goes about his work in a haphazard sort of way following the line of least resistance.
The work in every office is largely routine, but the faithful performance of routine tasks is a necessary accompaniment to those larger tasks, which in themselves, appear of greater importance. Routine tasks are drudgery—something that every man seeks to escape. In freeing himself from a state of drudgery, the department head should be careful lest he place his subordinates in the same dreaded rut. An office clerk should be given an opportunity to learn all of the routine of the division in which he is employed. He will become a more valuable employe; while adding variety, the performance of more than one task is training him for a more advanced position.