In a paper read at the Philadelphia meeting of hospital superintendents, Mr. Lathrop threw out a suggestion about engaging servants that might well be adopted by hospitals in general. In referring to the system of hospital records and reports used in Roosevelt Hospital, he said: “A book, entitled ‘A List of Officers and Employees,’ alphabetically arranged, contains the signature of each to a contract at the head of the page. The contract reads as follows:
Contract
“I, the undersigned, accept the terms herein mentioned, agree to do faithfully the work assigned to me and to conform to all rules of the hospital while in its employment; and it is distinctly understood and agreed that whether I am paid by the day, week, month or year, my engagement is to terminate upon notice by the superintendent that my services are no longer required; and upon payment being made to me for the actual time of service rendered, I agree to accept and receipt for the same in full consideration for all demands against the institution. The hospital reserves the right to deduct for absence from whatever cause.”
This contract reduces to a minimum the difficulty in getting rid of undesirable help without unpleasantness. The last clause is especially important. The only possible way of making an impression on some servants, and keeping them up to the mark in punctuality, is by touching their pocket. When the absence or tardiness occurs from a legitimate cause, as in illness, it may not be best, if the time lost is trifling, to make any deduction, but at any rate the servant should understand that part of the agreement, and when it is not enforced he will be likely to have a due appreciation of the fact.
Merit System
When a hospital pays a fair rate of wages to its employees it is in a position to insist on certain conditions, and to maintain certain standards regarding work in all departments. If it pays the lowest market price for such labor it must expect its servants to remain only till something better is found. The merit system has been successfully used in other lines of work, and ought to yield equally good results in a hospital. If after giving a servant a fair trial, he is found faithful and anxious to please and capable, he ought to be shown that these qualities are appreciated. If he was engaged for fifteen dollars a month, a raise of wages of one dollar every three or four months until it has reached a certain point, would give him some inducement to stay. The habit of expressing satisfaction with work well done is a powerful incentive to continuance in well doing and better service in the future. Servants are all human. They need reproof and correction, but need quite as much the kind word of appreciation of their efforts. There are but few people who will long continue to do their best if they think nobody cares or notices it.
Schedule of Work
When servants enter the employ of the hospital, it is a good plan to have some kind of schedule of the routine work ready to give them. Certain duties will have to be performed every day, others on stated days of the week. Usually the housekeeper is subject to demands of all kinds. It is necessary for her to study how to get routine work done well, with the least tax on her memory or vitality, and the schedule will help in that direction. Proper instruction at the beginning is always important. Many a servant has become discouraged in a few days and left his place vacant, when a patient explanation of what to do, and how to do what seemed to be expected of him, would have developed a capable worker. It is never a good plan to have such fixed ideas as to how a desired end should be reached that no other method will be accepted. If servants have been accustomed to one certain way of doing things, and their way yields as good results as some others, it is well for the housekeeper to let them follow their own plans unless it is found to entail a waste of time and material. In a hospital where there is such a multiplicity of details to be attended to, no housekeeper can afford to waste much time over non-essentials. The point is to be able to recognize non-essentials and not to ignore things of importance. If she sees that time and material can be saved by doing things according to her methods, a suggestion and a little teaching ought to effect the desired change. If it does not, if they do not try to improve, and refuse to apply the instruction received, then it is better to let them go and try to secure more tractable material.
There is seldom a time when all help is just what the housekeeper wants, and it is safe to predict there never will be. Some will need more supervision than others. Some will remember a thing if told once, others will need to have it repeated again and again. One would naturally expect that a thing that had to be done every day would soon be done as a matter of habit, but this is by no means the case, as every housekeeper knows. It is not enough to say: “This thing must be done every day.” Somebody must be on the watch to see that it is done. Some servants when they find a neglect passes unnoticed will be very likely to repeat it, and the lack of proper supervision accounts for the general slipshod condition of the domestic department of many institutions. Usually there are enough hands to do the work if they were kept up to the mark and properly supervised.
In the matter of cleanliness and neatness a great difference in standards is observed in visiting institutions. Suffice it to say that in a hospital, above all other places, there should not be a spot from attic to basement that the superintendent would not wish to throw open for inspection. Ice-boxes, kitchens, pantries, storerooms, basement, laundry, all should be models in respect to cleanliness and good order.