Day Work Never Scientific. — The simplest of all
systems, says Dr. Taylor in "A Piece Rate System," paragraph 10, in discussing the various forms of compensation "is the Day Work plan, in which the employés are divided into certain classes, and a standard rate of wages is paid to each class of men," He adds — "The men are paid according to the position which they fill, and not according to their individual character, energy, skill and reliability," The psychological objection to day work is that it does not arouse interest or effort or hold attention, nor does it inspire to memorizing or to learning.
It will be apparent that there is no inducement whatever for the man to do more than just enough to retain his job, for he in no wise shares in the reward for an extra effort, which goes entirely to his employer. "Reward," in this case, is usually simply a living wage, — enough to inspire the man, if he needs the money enough to work to hold his position, but not enough to incite him to any extra effort.
It is true that, in actual practice, through the foreman or some man in authority, the workers on day work may be "speeded up" to a point where they will do a great deal of work; the foreman being inspired, of course, by a reward for the extra output, but, as Dr. Taylor says, paragraph 17 — "A Piece Rate System," this sort of speeding up is absolutely lacking in self-sustaining power. The moment that this rewarded foreman is removed, the work will again fall down. Therefore, day wage has almost no place in ultimate, scientifically managed work.
Piece Work Provides Pay in Proportion to Work Done. — Piece Work is the opposite of time work,
in that under it the man is paid not for the time he spends at the work, but for the amount of work which he accomplishes. Under this system, as long as the man is paid a proper piece rate, and a rate high enough to keep him interested, he will have great inducements to work. He will have a chance to develop individuality, a chance for competition, a chance for personal recognition. His love of reasonable racing will be cultivated. His love of play may be cultivated.
All of these incentives arise because the man feels that his sense of justice is being considered; that if the task is properly laid out, and the price per piece is properly determined, he is given a "square deal" in being allowed to accomplish as great an amount of work as he can, with the assurance that his reward will be promptly coming to him.
Danger of Rate Being Cut. — Piece work becomes objectionable only when the rate is cut. The moment the rate is cut the first time, the man begins to wonder whether it is going to be cut again, and his attention is distracted from the work by his debating this question constantly. At best, his attention wanders from one subject to the other, and back again. It cannot be concentrated on his work. After the rate has been cut once or twice, — and it is sure to be cut unless it has been set from scientifically derived elementary time units, — the man loses his entire confidence in the stability of the rate, and, naturally, when he loses this confidence, his work is done more slowly, due to lack of further enthusiasm. On the contrary, as long as it is to his
advantage to do the work and he is sure that his reward will be prompt, and that he will always get the price that has been determined as right by him and by the employers for his work, he can do this work easily in the time set. As soon as he feels that he will not get it, he will naturally begin to do less, as it will be not only to his personal advantage to do as little as possible, but also very much to the advantage of his fellows, for whom the rate will also be cut.
Task Wage Contains No Incentive to Additional Work. — What Schloss calls the Task Wage would, as he well says, be the intermediate between time or day wage and piece wage; that is, it would be the assigning of a definite amount of work to be done in definite time, and to be paid for by a definite sum. If the task were set scientifically, and the time scientifically determined, as it must naturally be for a scientific task, and the wage adequate for that work, there would seem to be nothing about this form of remuneration which could be a cause of dissatisfaction to the worker. Naturally, however, there would be absolutely no chance for him to desire to go any faster than the time set, or to accomplish any more work in the time set than that which he was obliged to, in that he could not possibly get anything for the extra work done.