Remember, that as a rule the best paid employes are the cheapest. You can well afford to pay the heads of your departments more wages if they can save you more money.
A manufacturer should divide the number of completed articles done per day or per week by the amount of wages paid, and find out what the wage item is in each department per article.
Suppose that under your present system it costs you eighty cents in wages per article in Department A, sixty cents per article in Department B, etc. Explain to the foreman of Department A that it is now costing you eighty cents per article for wages in his department, and to the foreman of Department B that wages are costing you sixty cents per article in his department. Tell these employes you will give them one-third or one-half of whatever they can save in their departments. You will find Department A will cost you from seventy to seventy-five cents per article thereafter, and Department B from fifty to fifty-five cents per article, and in the meantime the foreman of the department is making more money for you, and likewise making more money for himself, than under the old system.
This matter of expense is most important, and should have the most serious attention of the proprietor.
Advice
One of the things most frequently asked for and yet one seldom made use of, is advice. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred the man who comes to you for advice as a matter of fact really wants to have his own opinion confirmed.
Do not go around with a pocket full of advice offering it to everyone. If you advise a man to change his habits or manner of life he will resent your proffered aid. The best way to give advice is to take another fellow for example and hit your friend through the illustration of the other fellow. Let him discover the point himself rather than let it appear that you are telling him the thing.
The matter of advice is a very hard thing to properly understand. You advise another to do a certain thing, forgetting in the meanwhile, that if you were in his position your view-point would be his and not your own. You play your strong qualities against his weak ones.
It is easy enough for you to advise a drunkard not to drink, but difficult for you to understand his view point on the subject if you are not a drinking man yourself.