For example: —
Men who cannot produce the prescribed output
constantly, are placed on other work. The slow, unskilled worker who has difficulty to learn, may be put upon work requiring less skill, or where speed is not required so much as watchfulness and faithfulness. The worker who is slow, but exceptionally skilled, has the opportunity to rise to the position of the functional foreman, especially in the planning department, where knowledge, experience and resourcefulness, and especially ability to teach, are much more desired than speed and endurance. Thus there are places provided, below and above, that can utilize all kinds of abilities.
"All Round" Men Are Utilized. — The exceptional man who possesses executive ability in all lines, and balance between them all, is the ideal man for a manager, and his special "all round" ability would be wasted in any position below that of a manager.
Stability Provided For. — Every man is maintained in his place by his interresponsibility with other men. If he is a worker, every man's work is held to standard quality by the inspector, while the requirements and rewards of his function are kept before him by the instruction card man, rate fixer and the disciplinarian.
Promotion and Development Provided For. — Functionalization provides for promotion by showing every man not only the clearly circumscribed place where he is to work, but also by showing him the definite place above him to which he may be promoted and its path, and by teaching him how he can fill it. This allows him to develop the possibilities
of his best self by using and specially training those talents which are most marked in him.
Functional Foremanship allows many more people, to become foremen, and to develop the will and judgment which foremanship implies.
Men in the Organization Preferred to Outsiders. — Men in the organization are preferable to outsiders as functional foremen and for promotion. Not only does a worker's knowledge of his work help him to become more efficient when he is promoted to the position of foreman, — but his efficiency as a teacher is also increased by the fact that he knows and understands the workers whom he is there to teach.
All Men Are Pushed Up. — Scientific Management raises every man as high as he is capable of being raised. It does not speed him up, but pushes him up to the highest notch which he can fill. Actual practice has shown that there is a greater demand for efficient men in the planning department than there is supply; also, that men in the planning department who fit themselves for higher work can be readily promoted to positions of greater responsibility, either inside or outside the organization.