The greatest difficulty is in fixing the allowance on the base time in order to obtain standard time. It is easy to fix it so that the worker cannot reach standard time, and that means a loss of efficiency and of reward. This is essentially a point for trade-union interference, and it is here that the supreme value of the time study is best appreciated.
Most of the foregoing items are in connection with the practical working of the system, and it is to the interests of both employer and worker that all such interferences with production should be prevented.
Each trade will have its special loopholes where miscalculations can creep in, and the worker must watch for these and have them corrected immediately they are discovered.
(h) Loss of Skill due to the Reward System
It is sometimes stated that under time study methods a man cannot attain the same skill as a day work man, and that he loses what skill he had if he becomes a "team" worker.
Let us consider this contention.
Suppose a man leaves a "reward" shop and goes to work in a day work shop; is he any less efficient under day work because of his training under the Reward System?
Now, in the first place, he has been trained and used to care and diligence, to working to definite instructions. Is that any disadvantage to him? It is clear that such an experience is a distinct advantage. But has he the same knowledge and adaptability and initiative as the older-fashioned worker? Can he tackle a difficult job with the same chance of success?
Well, what difficulties has he to face? It does not follow that because he has been working to instructions he remains in ignorance of the essential factors of his trade. On the contrary, instructions scientifically worked out give him far more knowledge than if he is compelled to work them out for himself. The men who work out these instructions are highly paid men who have all the advantages of a shop training and a scientific engineering education combined, and this is an expensive and arduous business. If a man prove a failure, one may be sure he will not be allowed to continue planning out such instructions as we are discussing.
Therefore one must assume that the men who make out the instructions have studied every element of the case. The brains of these men are in the methods and instructions used by the workman, and if the latter is worth his salt he will soon know far more than the old rule-of-thumb man.