In working out any special problem, care should be taken that such accidental causes affecting performance—whether they decrease the performance or, as may happen, increase it—should be carefully noted and be a part of the regular report on the work. These features of a report ordinarily are ignored as being unimportant, but they are of the utmost value to the success of the work.
STIMULATING THE MEN
The art of persuading a man who is turning out 500,000 foot-pounds of work in ten hours, to turn out 800,000 foot-pounds of work in ten hours with a trivial increase in pay, is on its face difficult; but is by no means impossible, and a list of some of the ordinary means of doing this should not be out of place here.
1. Watching the Work. If, on the average work under the observation of a foreman whom they know, the men are made to realize that their individual performance is being watched and recorded by someone who is above and beyond their own foreman, there will usually result an increase in performance of from 10 to 20 per cent per man; and particularly if a tab is kept upon the performance of the gang as a whole, the foreman will add his own stimulus to that applied by the men themselves, resulting in highly increased efficiency.
On such work as teaming, where teams are hauling earth along a road for a considerable distance, a punch-card is very valuable. The driver knows that the time of his trip is being recorded and compared with the time for the same work done by other drivers; and it has the effect of concentrating his mind upon his performance, which in itself causes him to use more care in cutting down delays and keeping his team up to their work.
In the operation of drilling, most valuable results have been achieved by giving each drill runner a card on which, at the completion of each hole, the time of the finishing of the hole is punched; and also the time of starting the new hole, in the same way. This card will then show the length of time that it took to drill the hole, and the length of time required to move his drill. He will be stimulated to move quickly, which in soft rock is an exceedingly important element of the drilling work, and he will be stimulated in the effort to get his holes down rapidly.
Where earth or rock is being loaded by steam shovels and hauled by dinkey trains, great economy can be arrived at by providing each dinkey runner with a punch-card or a report card on which he indicates the time when his train left the shovel and when it returned again to the shovel. This card then indicates the time for a round trip, and his mind is constantly being stimulated to look out for causes of delay; and, if he is at all conscientious, as most men are, he will instinctively attempt to make the best time. Some remarkable results have been achieved by this means alone in recent work.
When concrete is being mixed by hand, if a record is made of the time when each batch is finished, there will inevitably be an increase of activity of all the men in the mixing gang.
2. Discharges. The principle of natural selection of the men can be very advantageously applied. Where the supply of labor is adequate, it is advisable to make a rule of discharging a few of the poorest men every few days, taking on new men to fill their places. This necessarily results in an increase of the ability of the average men on the work, and it gives a healthy spur to the men who are not discharged. In carrying this method out, it should be done judiciously and with care to avoid discharging good men, lest the discipline of the work be interfered with. Any man who is not willing to do his best, or who is caught loafing deliberately, is an economic disadvantage to the work, and should be allowed to go. Likewise, any man who with good intentions is so dull as to hinder the progress of the work, should not be retained because of his good intentions alone.
3. Bonus Systems. An immense advantage can be counted upon by the employment of a bonus system, of which there are a good many; and it should be said at the start, that a bonus system may, although it probably will not, be opposed by labor unions. The general idea of a bonus system is to place the men upon a contract footing whereby they will be guaranteed a minimum wage, and more money than the minimum if they perform unusually good work. A refinement of this system may be applied where the men receive less than the guaranteed minimum if their work is noticeably poor. Where this latter arrangement should be applied, will depend largely upon the local conditions; and this feature is the one that is peculiarly obnoxious to the labor unions. Where the supply of labor is adequate, it is usually better to discharge the inefficient men than to attempt to work them under a depressed rate.