Fines Never Accrue to the Management. — Fines have been a most successful mode of punishment under Scientific Management. Under many of the old forms of management, the fines were turned back
to the management itself, thus raising a spirit of animosity in the men, who felt that everything that they suffered was a gain to those over them. Under Scientific Management all fines are used in some way for the benefit of the men themselves. All fines should be used for some benefit fund, or turned into the insurance fund. The fines, as has been said, are determined solely by the disciplinarian, who is disinterested in the disposition of the funds thus collected. As the fines do not in any way benefit the management, and in fact rather hurt the management in that the men who pay them, no matter where they are applied, must feel more or less discouraged, it is, naturally, for the benefit of the management that there shall be as few fines as possible. Both management and men realize this, which leads to industrial peace, and also leads the managers, the functional foremen, and in fact every one, to eliminate the necessity and cause for fines to as great an extent as is possible.
Assignment to Less Pleasant Work Effective Punishment. — Assignment to less pleasant work is a very effective form of discipline. It has many advantages which do not show on the surface, The man may not really get a cut in pay, though his work be changed, and thus the damage he receives is in no wise to his purse, but simply to his feeling of pride. In the meantime, he is gaining a wider experience of the business, so that even the worst disadvantage has its bright side.
Discharge To Be Avoided Wherever Possible. — Discharge is, of course, available under Scientific Management, as under all other forms, but it is really
less used under Scientific Management than under any other sort, because if a man is possibly available, and in any way trained, it is better to do almost anything to teach him, to assign him to different work, to try and find his possibilities, than to let him go, and have all that teaching wasted as far as the organization which has taught it is concerned.
Discharge a Grave Injury to a Worker. — Moreover, Scientific Management realizes that discharge may be a grave injury to a worker. As Mr. James M. Dodge, who has been most successful in Scientific Management and is noted for his good work for his fellow-men, eloquently pleads, in a paper on "The Spirit in Which Scientific Management Should Be Approached," given before the Conference on Scientific Management at Dartmouth College, October, 1911:
"It is a serious thing for a worker who has located his home within reasonable proximity to his place of employment and with proper regard for the schooling of his children, to have to seek other employment and readjust his home affairs, with a loss of time and wages. Proper management takes account not only of this fact, but also of the fact that there is a distinct loss to the employer when an old and experienced employé is replaced by a new man, who must be educated in the methods of the establishment. An old employé has, in his experience, a potential value that should not be lightly disregarded, and there should be in case of dismissal the soundest of reasons, in which personal prejudice or temporary mental condition of the foreman should play no part.
"Constant changing of employés is not wholesome for any establishment, and the sudden discovery by a foreman that a man who has been employed for a year or more is 'no good' is often a reflection on the foreman, and more often still, is wholly untrue. All working men, unless they develop intemperate or dishonest habits, have desirable value in them, and the conserving and increasing of their value is a duty which should be assumed by their superiors."
Punishment Can Never Be Entirely Abolished. — It might be asked why punishments are needed at all under this system; that is, why positive punishments are needed. Why not merely a lack of reward for the slight offenses, and a discharge if it gets too bad? It must be remembered, however, that the punishments are needed to insure a proper appreciation of the reward. If there is no negative side, the beauty of the reward will never be realized; the man who has once suffered by having his pay cut for something which he has done wrong, will be more than ready to keep up to the standard. In the second place, unless individuals are punished, the rights of other individuals will, necessarily, be encroached upon. When it is considered that under Scientific Management the man who gives the punishment is the disinterested disciplinarian, that the punishment is made exactly appropriate to the offense, and that no advantage from it comes to any one except the men themselves, it can be understood that the psychological basis is such as to make a punishment rather an incentive than a detriment.
Direct Incentives Numerous and Powerful. — As