MIND AND WORK
MIND AND WORK
THE PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS
IN INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE
BY
CHARLES S. MYERS
M.A., M.D., Sc.D., F.R.S.
Director of the Psychological Laboratory, Cambridge University ; Member
of the Industrial Fatigue Research Board ; Lieut. -Colonel, late
R.A.M.C.; sometime Consulting Psychologist, B.E.F.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS AND FIGURES
IN THE TEXT
LONDON
UNIVERSITY OF LONDON PRESS, LTD.
18 WARWICK SQUARE, E.G. 4
1920
INTRODUCTION
THIS book may be regarded as an expan-
sion of part of my Present-day Applications
of Psychology, the fourth edition of which
is now out of print . It contains the sub-
stance of various lectures and addresses,,
which I have given during the past two
years, on the relation of psychology to the
well-being and efficiency of industrial and
commercial workers.
Of the four main determinants of in-
dustrial and commercial efficiency— the
mechanical, the physiological, the psy-
chological, and the social and economic —
the psychological is by far the most im-
portant and fundamental. Intelligence in
foreseeing demands and in improving
industrial conditions, and a sympathetic
understanding of the standpoint of others,
are much more " productive " than mere
capital or mechanical labour. The physio-
logical factors involved in purely muscular
vi INTRODUCTION
fatigue are now fast becoming negligible,
compared with the effects of mental and
nervous fatigue, monotony, want of interest,
suspicion, hostility, etc. The psychological
factor must therefore be the main con-
sideration of industry and commerce in
the future; and in the following pages
I shall endeavour to show its importance
in (i) movement study, (ii) fatigue study,
(iii) selection study, (iv) incentives study,
and in (v) industrial unrest. In move-
ment study it will prove necessary also
to take into consideration mechanical and
physiological factors; in fatigue study,
certain physiological factors ; in describing
the methods of selecting workers according
to their special aptitudes, the standpoint
will be principally psychological; while
in considering the incentives towards
increased efficiency (in the chapters headed
" Restriction of Output " and " Systems
of Payment ") and the causes of industrial
unrest, social and economic considerations
must necessarily be introduced.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I FA«
MOVEMENT STUDY 3
Its three aspects (p. 4) — Examples of motion
study (p. 5) — Importance of initial training
(p. 15) — Needless stooping, walking and stand-
ing (p. 17) — Principles of motion study (p. 18)
— Monotony in motion study (p. 19) — Use of
the cinematograph (p. 29) — The chronocycle-
graph (p. 29).
CHAPTER II
FATIGUE STUDY ...... 39
The four aspects of fatigue (p. 41) — The ergo-
graph (p. 43) — Fatigue and increased output
(p. 46)— -Mental fatigue (p. 47) — Boredom and
weariness (p. 48) — Methods of estimating fatigue :
factory methods (p. 53); apparatus (p. 55);
tests of nervous and mental efficiency (p. 56) —
Factors affecting the work curve (p. 59) —
Holiday and Monday effects (p. 61) — Variations
in work curve (p. 62) — Physiological fluctuations
(p. 64) — The load lifted (p. 65) — Needless stand-
ing and stooping (p. 66) — Effects of illumination,
noise, ventilation, temperature, humidity, etc.
(p. 67) — Importance of rest pauses (p. 71) —
Effects of reducing hours of work (p. 75).
vii
viii CONTENTS
CHAPTER III PAGB
SELECTION STUDY .... 83
Genius and talent (p. 83) — Excessive labour turn-
over (p. 84) — Individual differences (p. 85) —
Vocational guidance (p. 87) — Reaction times
(p. 88) — Tests of telephone operators (p. 89) —
Other mental tests (p. 90) — Physical and sexual
differences (p. 91) — Army, Air Service and
Admiralty selection tests (p. 93) — "General
impressions " (p. 97) — "Phrenological" and
"physiognomic " tests (p. 98) — Classification and
use of mental tests (p. 99) — Blind-alley and
unsuitable occupations (p. 102) — Pre-vocational
and vocational training (p. 103) — The future of
vocational guidance and selection (p. 104).
CHAPTER IV
RESTRICTION OF OUTPUT . . . .111
Restriction by the employer: deliberate (p. Ill);
unconscious (p. Ill) — Restriction by the em-
ployee: deliberate (p. 112); unconscious (p. 116)
— Examples of employees' restriction of output
(p. 118)— Methods of detection (p. 120)— Artificial
uniformity of output (p. 121) — Need of efficiency
records (p. 123) — Coal output (p. 124) — Brick-
laying (p. 126) — American and British produc-
tivity (p. 126) — Effects of increased use of
machinery (p. 127).
CHAPTER V
SYSTEMS OF PAYMENT 135
Time rate and output rate (p. 135) — Opposition
to payment by results (p. 136) — Differential
piece rates, premium and bonus systems (p. 140)
— Scale of recognised individual differences
in output (p. 145) — Advantages and objections
CONTENTS ix
PAGE
of day rate (p. 147) — Graded day rate (p. 150)
— Collective piece rate and bonus (p. 161) —
Profit sharing (p. 152) — Co-partnership (p. 154)
— Present tendencies (p. 155).
CHAPTER VI
INDUSTRIAL UNREST 161
Industrial overstrain and the war (p. 161) —
Overstrain and loss of higher nervous control
(p. 163) — Loss of higher mental control (p. 165)
— "Defence mechanisms" (p. 166) — The extremist
employer and employee (p. 170) — Labour's
attitude to Scientific Management (p. 175}—
The worker's envy (p. 178) — The appointment
of a works psychologist (p. 179) — Educational
experiments (p. 182) — Labour and management
(p. 184) — Security against unemployment, and
share in management (p. 190) — The introduc-
tion of vocational guidance and selection (p. 191)
— The introduction of motion study (p. 191) —
Motion study, craftsmanship, and trade secrets
(p. 193) — Vocational training and its organisa-
tion (p. 198) — Functions of a National Institute
of Applied Psychology and Physiology (p. 199).
INDEX 201
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
JIG Facing page
1. "PACKET" DESIGNED TO FACILITATE
ASSEMBLY MOVEMENTS (GILBRETH) . 5
2. RECORD OF A CHAMPION GOLFER'S SWING
(GILBRETH) 30
3. DIAGRAMS SHOWING GRADUAL DEVELOP-
MENT OF THE CHRONOCYCLEGRAPH page 31
4. CONSTRUCTION, FROM CHRONOCYCLEGRAPH,
OF WIRE MODEL OF LEFT-HAND MOVE-
MENTS IN WORKING A DRILL PRESS
(GILBRETH) ..... 33
5. MODEL OF LEFT-HAND MOVEMENTS IN
FOLDING HANDKERCHIEFS (GILBRETH) . 33
6. MODELS OF DRILL PRESS MOVEMENTS SHOW-
ING PRACTICE EFFECTS (GILBRETH) . 34
7. KRAVELIN'S ERGOGRAPH . . . page, 43
8. ERGOGRAM, SHOWING THE ONSET AND
PROGRESS OF "MUSCULAR FATIGUE" . 45
CHAPTER I
MOVEMENT STUDY
Its three aspects — Examples of motion study — Im-
portance of initial training — Needless stooping, walk-
ing and standing — Principles of motion study —
Monotony in motion study — Use of the cinematograph
— The chronocyclegraph.
CHAPTER I
MOVEMENT STUDY
MOVEMENT study may be broadly
regarded from three aspects. The first
of these relates to the planning of the
factory or business, including the arrange-
ment of tools and materials; the second
to the division of work among skilled and
unskilled employees; and the third to
the learning of the best movements in
work. The last is generally known as
" motion study."
The planning of the factory or business
involves, among other things, the proper
organisation of administrative departments
for specification, costing, order of work,
instruction, material, and stores, and the
proper location of the different industrial
3
MIND AND WORK
or commercial operations. On this par-
ticular aspect it is unnecessary to dwell,
as its technical nature lies beyond the
province of the psychologist. Two state-
ments, however, may be repeated which
have been made elsewhere— (i) that only
2 1 per cent, of the industrial firms in
this country, in contrast to 10 per cent,
in the United States and 92 per cent, in
Germany, have established efficient sys-
tems of costing; (ii) that in a certain
works, whilst wages are calculated in
tenths of a penny, it often costs 2s. Qd.
to get a split pin out of the stores !
A few striking instances will be now
quoted where industrial efficiency has been
improved by a better arrangement of
tools and materials. The New England
Butt Company, for example, was engaged
in manufacturing machines for braiding
called " braiders," and an expert was
called in to apply movement study to the
factory. He found the tools lying any-
4
FIG. 1. — " Packet " designed to facilitate
assembly movements (Gilbreth).
{To face p. 5.
MOVEMENT STUDY
where, the base of each braider placed
on an ordinary low bench, with the various
parts kept on the floor or in boxes.
No special method was being taught.
The assemblers l worked by tradition, or
according to individual fancy. The con-
ditions must have resembled those obtain-
ing in a factory in this country, where it
was recently calculated that 75 per cent,
of the time was spent in handling the tools,
15 per cent, in handling the machine,
and only 10 per cent, on the actual
job!
The expert proceeded systematically to
study the best positions for the tools
and parts before assembly. The latter
he arranged in definite order on a vertical
trellis frame called a " packet " (Fig. 1),
which he provided with arms and hooks
so as to allow the parts to be placed in
the most convenient position for the
assembler's grasp. This packet was loaded
1 " To assemble " means to fit the parts together.
5
MIND AND WORK
by an apprentice, who was meanwhile
being trained in the principles of assembly.
Henceforth the tools were placed in pre-
arranged order on the table, and the table
was so designed that it could also be used
when turned over on its side, thus pro-
viding a table of two heights, one for the
ordinary, the other for the taller or " double-
deck " braiders. The result of these im-
provements was that, without increased
fatigue (and with increased earnings), a
man could assemble 66 braiders per day,
in place of a previous output of 18 per
day ; that is to say, a 266 per cent, increase
in rate of output was obtained.
Another instance of the effects of move-
ment study occurred in the Derwent
Foundry Company, Derby, which was
engaged during the war in making Mills'
hand grenades and what are called " fuse-
hole plugs." These fuse-hole plugs fitted
into the top of shells in place of the fuses
until the shells Were wanted for actual
6
MOVEMENT STUDY
use . The managing director of the foundry
came to the conclusion that he could
enormously improve the output without
causing a greater amount of fatigue among
the workers. So, broadly following F. W.
Taylor's methods, he set to work, with
two or three men whom he could trust,
including his works manager, to analyse
each small job, in his and their cases,
into its essential component movements,
and to time these movements with a stop-
watch in order to see how he could improve
the movements. Having done this to
his satisfaction, and having drawn up
a list of the " standard times " of each
separate unit movement and the " standard
time " in which the whole job should be
performed, he devised instruction cards
on which these estimates were entered.
He deducted 10 per cent, from what he
had evolved as standard times, so as to
allow the worker 45 minutes during the
day to attend to his personal needs, and
7
MIND AND WORK
also to allow for accidental waste of time ;
and then, after making various improve-
ments in the arrangement of materials,
in the efficiency of the machining, and
in the co-ordination of the moulders' and
labourers' work, he turned to his workers
and asked them to allow themselves to
be trained. He said : " We are out for
shorter hours, higher wages, and more
output; will you help us?53 They said
they would. His object was to train them
individually so that needless movements
could be eliminated, and so that they
might adopt the best and most expeditious
methods. As soon as each worker began
to be trained, his hours were reduced
from 54 to 48 a week, and he received 25
per cent, higher wages than the ordinary
day wage of the district as an inducement
for him to continue his training. When
the men began to produce at the standard
rate, they were put on to a special system
of payment which he had devised, in
MOVEMENT STUDY
which piece-rate and bonus systems were
combined. In the early days they did
not fully appreciate the working and
the advantages of this system, and some
of the older men were disinclined to give
up the older methods; they were in a
groove from which it was difficult to
escape. To any such grumblers the manag-
ing director said : " If you do not like it,
you can come to-morrow morning as
before at six instead of eight o'clock and
go back to your old wages.95 There is
good reason to believe that some of them
would have done so if it had not been for
the tact of the managing director and his
works manager.
The result was as follows. At the out-
set the Ministry of Munitions had estimated
that the foundry would turn out 3000
articles a week. In the end they turned
out 20,000. Part of this difference, of
course, may have been due to an under-
estimate on the part of the Ministry of
9
MIND AND WORK
Munitions ; but in order to obtain a better
basis for comparison, the managing director
later visited a foundry which had actually
more machinery than his firm had, and
he observed that while his firm was turning
out 20,000 a week, the other foundry
had difficulty in turning out 5000 such
units. There is hence no doubt as to
the enormous increase of output in his
own foundry due to his methods. It
is an extremely difficult matter, of course,
to determine how much of this improved
efficiency was due to movement study,
how much to shorter hours or higher
wages acting as an incentive, how much
to better food arising from higher wages —
for there had been a striking improvement
in the general appearance of the workers
after the increase of pay— and how much
to increased efficiency of the machinery
and better organisation of the factory.
It is probable that in the actual moulding
and casting, about 90 per cent, of the
10
MOVEMENT STUDY
increased output was due to improvement
in the human factor, and that more than
20 per cent, of this was due to training
in the best movements. In the machining,
of course, the improvement was largely
due to improved machinery.
I will present a few figures which may
make the results still clearer. In the
10-hour day, worked under the old
system, this foundry produced an average
output of 48 of a given item. After the
introduction of movement study the
standard output, based on standard times,
rose to 147 per day of 8f hours, which
represents nearly a 284 per cent, increase
in hourly rate of output. But this
standard output was regularly surpassed
by all the trained adult workmen ! The
increase in actual earnings in the case of
one worker (chosen at random) was found
to be, roughly, 200 per cent., while the
reduction in his working hours was about
11 per cent. When fourteen of the men
11
MIND AND WORK
and women, chosen quite haphazard, were
interviewed by a visitor in the moulding
and machine shops, they expressed them-
selves as perfectly contented with the
new system and evinced no desire to return
to the old conditions. There was no
general evidence of increased fatigue;
indeed many of them said the fatigue was
less, and several of them preferred the
new system because it involved less idling,
or because under the old system they were
called continually and irregularly from
one job to another, whereas now they had
a more methodical kind of work. Through-
out, the trade union officials placed no
serious obstacle in the way of the scheme,
although neither they nor the employers'
federation regarded it with favour. The
difficulties arising in relation to this aspect
of the subject will be considered later
(Chapter VI).
As another instance of the working
of such methods elsewhere, an operation
12
MOVEMENT STUDY
in moulding may be quoted which had
previously taken 53 minutes, but which,
an expert reported, could, with proper
training in improved methods, be done
in 44 minutes. After some practice, the
men took 20 minutes for it ! That is,
there was an increase of 165 per cent,
in the rate of output ; and one of the men
actually averaged 16 minutes during a
whole day's work. The labour cost was
reduced by 54 per cent., while the earnings
were increased by 60 per cent.
An operation in yet another factory
taking 2*17 minutes was reduced by motion
study and training to half-a-minute. The
scheduled time in which the work should
be performed was, therefore, put — to make
full allowances— at 30 per cent, over this
half-minute. In six months most of the
girls had surpassed it by 30 or 40 per cent.,
so that they had reached the half-minute,
which was equivalent to a 334 per cent.
increase in rate of output; the wages
13
MIND AND WORK
of the workers at the same time rising by
50 or 60 per cent.
In the Ferracute Machine Company in
New Jersey, with practically unchanged
equipment and a constant number of
employees, motion study reduced the time
of performing 275 jobs by 38 per cent.,
and it reduced the total cost, including
overhead expenses, by 47 per cent.; the
average day-rate paid to the workers
being increased by 11 per cent., with a
bonus increase of from 20 to 60 per cent.
In the correspondence department of a
printing office, where girls had to fold
letters with enclosures, motion study
increased the output by about 300 per
cent.
In cotton folding the number of separate
movements was reduced from 20 or 30
to 10 or 12, with the result that instead
of 125 dozen pieces, 400 dozen pieces were
folded in the same time, without any
increase of fatigue.
14
MOVEMENT STUDY
In a sweet factory of this country the
output in a certain department was almost
doubled by motion study and subsequent
training. The percentage of working time
wasted in such unproductive labour as
fetching and replacing trays was reduced
to nearly one-third of its previous amount.
The following table (p. 16) gives some
further data resulting entirely, or almost
entirely, from motion study.
Everybody who has had to do with
motion study lays stress, as may be
imagined, on the importance of the initial
training of new workers. If one can get
hold of an employee from the start, instead
of allowing him to become fossilised in
antiquated methods or to pick up his
own methods, one saves enormously.
Clearly one of the main principles of
motion study is to eliminate needless
movements, especially such as unnecessary
stooping or walking. Bricklaying is a
striking example of wasted effort in move-
15
MIND AND WORK
Nature of Work
Percentage
increase in rate
of output
Percentage
reduction in cost
Percentage
increase in
earnings, etc.
Mid-Vale Steel Co.
not
41
40
given
Bleaching
200
40 (labour eost)
40
Yale & Towne Manufac-
not
32 (labour cost)
not given
turing Co.
given
31 (overhead
charges)
Tabor Manufacturing
200
not given
25-30
Works (moulding ma-
chines, etc.)
Link Belt Works (elevat-
100
50 (labour cost)
ing and conveying ma-
20 (total cost)
25-30
chines )
Joseph & Feiss Co. (cloth
70
10 (by reduced
70 (Hours
making)
cost of super-
reduced
vision)
from 54
to 45
and less)
Putting paper covers on
100
not given
not given
small boxes
Drilling holes in metal .
300
ff
>»
Bricklaying .
192
»
Great in-
crease
Bleaching shirtings about
Putting up cloth ,,
Packing cloth ,,
80}
150 \
no)
about 60 in]
wage cost
About 140
Pillow-case making „
230
about 50 in
wage cost }
Cotton plant
100
not given
not given
Drill Press Factory
100
»
»»
Cotton cloth folding
220
»»
Unloading pig iron
Other handling of pig iron
500
300
66
60
69
60
Shovelling
270
54
>»
Riveting
Sulphate Pulp Mills
69
100
not given
»
not given
»
Tobacco Pouch Factory .
100
»»
i»
16
MOVEMENT STUDY
ment. It was in connexion with brick-
laying that modern motion study was
first applied, trebling the number of bricks
laid per man per hour, without increase
of effort. When one considers that for
centuries bricklayers have continued stoop-
ing down and picking up bricks and mortar,
when one thinks of the amount of needless
work involved in thus lowering and raising
through some two feet about one-and-a-
half hundredweight of trunk and head
so many times a day — whereas one could
easily save fatigue and increase output
by arranging the bricks and mortar in
more convenient positions and in con-
venient quantity and quality for the work
— one realises how deeply rooted and how
difficult to change are archaic, inefficient
methods of work. There must be few
factories at the present day where it would
be impossible to reduce fatigue by abolish-
ing needless stooping and by devising
proper seating accommodation with sliding
c 17
MIND AND WORK
seats, back-rests, foot -rests, etc. This has
already been done in various workshops,
especially in America, and has effected a
considerable saving of fatigue and increase
of output.
Another principle of motion study is
to try to combine separate movements
into a single movement, one uninterrupted
(circular) movement being generally less
fatiguing than two separate (angular)
movements. Yet another principle is to
combine, as far as possible, similar move-
ments of the two hands at the same time.
It requires much more effort to raise first
one hand and then the other, than to raise
them both together ; a good deal of saving
has been effected by this method of simul-
taneous symmetrical movements of the
two hands. Another principle of move-
ment study— this list does not pretend to
be exhaustive — is based on attention to
rhythm of movement. Obviously it is
much less fatiguing to perform an act
18
MOVEMENT STUDY
rhythmically than by an irregular series
of jerky movements; of course, every
person has his own best rate of repetition
of movement, a rhythm peculiar to himself.
Having alluded briefly to the advantages
of the system of trained movements,
let us now turn to one of its principal dis-
advantages, leaving a discussion of the
others until the consideration of industrial
unrest is considered in Chapter VI. The
great disadvantage which has been urged
against movement study will probably
have occurred already to the reader. It
is the monotony of always employing
one and the same method. But of this
one cannot well judge as an outsider, with-
out inquiring from the workers themselves
as to whether they find the effects of move-
ment training monotonous. To the un-
initiated, angling, when unrequited, appears
so boring and senseless a sport as hardly
to be fit for a sane person. So, too, an
apparently monotonous occupation may
19
MIND AND WORK
to some prove full of interest. At the
foundry already mentioned, practically
no evidence could be obtained of workers
objecting to the monotony of the processes.
It is true that there were two persons,
of the fourteen specially questioned, who
spoke about their work being monotonous ;
but when one came to cross -question them,
they appeared to be people who would
also have found the previous conditions
of work monotonous. There are, of course,
wide differences in individuals, but there
can be no doubt that a large number of
factory workers, like the majority of domes-
tic servants, prefer the even tenor of their
way. In every social stratum there are
many folk who do not care to use their
brains much ; they just want to carry on,
week after week, doing the same things,
day-dreaming perhaps during their day's
work. That is to say, a more or less
monotonous occupation is actually wel-
comed by some people, just as there are
20
MOVEMENT STUDY
others who cannot exist without variety.
Whether or not such mechanical occupa-
tion is good and should be encouraged,
and how far preference for it is acquired
by stress of circumstances (cf. p. 189), need
consideration. But the fact remains that
all occupations involve a certain amount
of drudgery, and where the drudgery is
necessarily great, the possibility of com-
pensation by shorter hours or higher wages
and the selection of those who prefer a
humdrum life, also demand consideration.
We must remember that the worker,
whether trained in motion study or not,
will ultimately fall into some habitual
method of procedure. The training of a
new worker merely shows him one of the
most economical methods and prevents
in him the formation of bad habits. It
need not turn him into a machine any more
than if he Were left to his own devices.
All must depend on how the fruits of
motion study are applied, whether in a
21
MIND AND WORK
psychological or in a mechanical spirit.
Shorthand reduces fatigue and increases
efficiency, but there are various methods
of shorthand just as there are various
first-class styles of golfing or violin-playing.
It is psychologically most improbable that
any one good method or style can ever
be the best for all persons, and it remains
for psychological research to determine
the relation between individual physical
and mental differences and the different
methods needed to satisfy these differ-
ences. While the employee should be
trained from the start in what has been
proved to be one of the best methods, he
should be at full liberty to substitute
another, if he prefers it and can show that
it is as effective. To aim at pressing all
workers into the same mould is not only
to destroy individuality and to encourage
needless monotony, but also to run counter
to known psychological principles. It is
the outcome of so-called " scientific "
22
MOVEMENT STUDY
management, mechanically formulated by
the engineer, in which the mental factors
of personality, sentiment and sympathy
are sacrificed to purely physical considera-
tions.
Moreover, when a worker has been
trained in a good method, he will, if he
is worth anything, and if sufficient incen-
tive is held out to him, take an interest
in discovering a still better method; in
a properly organised factory he will be
rewarded — and adequately rewarded — for
his discovery.
In any case, monotony may be guarded
against by a proper system of promotion.
An intelligent factory worker will wish to
be trained in part of his time for a higher
post, and in return will be prepared to
train some one else to take his place.
Another way in which better facilities
for change can be created is for the worker
to be allowed to gain proficiency not merely
in one little job but also in other jobs,
23
MIND AND WORK
so that he may vary his work and be trans-
ferred, in cases of illness or of seasonal
fluctuations in demand, from one job to
another. Again, if one man be teaching
another, and it is found that he is a good
instructor and interested in instruction,
he can be made to undertake that work
par excellence.
But more important than any of these
various methods of warding off monotony
is the encouragement of the worker to take
an intelligent interest in the factory as a
whole ; and so far very little has been
done in this respect. The worker must
be educated in the general work and aims
of the factory. He can no longer be
considered a mere piece of machinery.
Especially where the worker is allowed some
voice or representation in matters on which
he is competent to express an opinion,
motion study cannot fail to bring the
worker into closer contact with manage-
ment. Moreover, it alters the whole
24
MOVEMENT STUDY
system of apprenticeship and the tradition
of craft knowledge. This so-called system
cannot but change after the exposure
of its futility and the lessons we have
learnt during the war. It will be discussed
in Chapter VI.
With regard to the details of scientific
motion study, much research must be
done in a special laboratory. Motion study
has as yet been scarcely touched by the
psychologist. It has hitherto been mainly
the purview of the industrial " efficiency
expert." But there is obviously a vast
field of promising scientific research here.
The present methods are largely empirical
and guesswork. The efficiency expert
pays a visit to a factory where he sees
a worker making a series of seemingly
needless movements. He believes that
time will be saved by training the worker
to another, an apparently "shorthand,"
method. He tries it, and, We will suppose,
he finds that time is saved by its adoption.
25
MIND AND WORK
He assumes that, because a speedier
method has been devised, there is no
increase, or there is a decrease, of fatigue.
He assumes that because this method
is found to suit one worker, it is therefore
the one and best method, necessarily to
be adopted for all purposes by all workers.
Or he arrives at the " best " method by
combining the quickest movements
observed in one worker in one element
of the job with the quickest movements
observed in another worker in another
element of the job, and so on — a psycho-
logically unwarrantable and vicious pro-
cedure.
Clearly there are numerous problems
for systematic experiment here, by which
the applied science of Industrial Psychology
will be advanced to surer ground. We
need, moreover, to ascertain how far
movements necessarily differ when the
same job is performed slowly and when it
is performed at the proper speed, and
26
MOVEMENT STUDY
whether it follows that in training move-
ments, more stress should be laid on poor
quality of work at the standard speed
than on better quality at a slower speed.
Similar scientific work is needed to yield
reliable information in regard to other
matters which are intimately connected
with motion study, e.g. the optimal load
and posture, the optimal rate and duration
of lift, etc., in persons of different muscular
power, age and sex.
It is obvious that the movements of
the workers can only be scientifically
studied and trained with their full consent
and co-operation. In this respect there
was an egregious failure in the early stages
of so-called " scientific " management in
America. For example, F. W. Taylor,
the great founder and leader of the move-
ment, would sometimes go into factories
with a sham note-book specially devised
to contain a stop-watch inside it, so that
the times of the workers' movements
27
MIND AND WORK
could be studied without their being aware
of the fact. Nothing could be more disas-
trous to the whole subject than this.
Taylor was, of course, a most capable
and brilliant worker in the administrative,
technical and mechanical details of indus-
trial management; but such tactlessness
as this, especially when perpetuated by
less competent disciples, helped to put
back the clock of progress of motion study
a great many years. If it were thus intro-
duced into another country, the whole
system would stink in the nostrils of trade
unions and the workmen generally. In
actual practice, indeed, the stop-watch
should never be introduced until the full
confidence of the workers has been
obtained. Otherwise they suspect that
its object is to speed them up unduly,
instead of to detect and to eliminate use-
less, wasted effort. Much motion study
can be done without a stop-watch. When
the latter is first used, it should be applied
28
MOVEMENT STUDY
in private— to one or two selected employees
— or in the laboratory.
In certain favourable conditions, an
instrument more refined than the stop-
watch may be desirable. With the develop-
ment of the cinematograph, that instru-
ment has been applied so that an actual
picture is taken of the movements which
are being investigated. It is often diffi-
cult, when one has merely a record of
times, to know precisely what are the
movements to which the times refer. At
first, a clock was photographed at the
same time, so that the position of the clock
hands at any one phase of movement in
any one photograph afforded data for
time study as well as for movement study.
But there are certain objections to the
cinematograph, and for these reasons the
" chronocycle graph " was devised. In
the first place, some obtruding part of the
body is often apt to conceal in the cinemato-
photograph an important phase of the
29
MIND AND WORK
movement. In the second place, when a
photograph is taken, it is limited to the
angle from which the camera views the
subject, whereas in the chronocyclegraph
this is avoided. Lastly, the cinemato-
graph is an awkward means of providing
instruction, and also an awkward instru-
ment for analysing the different move-
ments. In the chronocyclegraph a wire
model of the actual movements (Figs. 4-6)
is ultimately made. This is a very much
simpler method, both for analysing the
movements and for instructing the person,
because he sees the whole of the movement
before him; he can see any part of it
at any moment he chooses, instead of
having to unravel the film; and he can
look at the wire model of the movements
from different directions, which is impos-
sible in a film taken by means of a cinemato-
graph camera.
Fig. 2 shows the beginning of Gilbreth's
chronocyclegraphic method, illustrating the
30
FIG. 2. — Record of a champion golfer's swirg (Gr-lbreti',.
[To face p. 30.
MOVEMENT STUDY
movements of the American amateur ex-
champion golfer, Francis Ouimet. The
method may be described roughly as
one of photographing a rapidly moving
lamp. The end of Ouimet's club bears
a small glow lamp, which thus shows
the movement of his drive. It is a fine
graceful movement, characteristic of the
practised artist.
Fig. 3 shows the gradual development
of the chronocyclegraph. In A, as in
Fig. 2, there is a continuous (here black)
line of light. Gilbreth's next step was
to introduce into the electric circuit
a tuning-fork vibrating 50 or 100 times
a second, so that instead of a single
line of light he obtained a number of
31
MIND AND WORK
interruptions of light owing to the current
being interrupted, let us say, 100 times
per second. Then he pointed these dots
of light (as in B), which he effected
by breaking the current in such a way
that the light glowed less as it dis-
appeared than when it first began. The
object of this was to have an indication
of the direction of the movement in the
photograph, the forwardly pointed ends
showing at once that the movement in
the photograph was, say, from left to right,
not vice versa. Lastly, if one knows the
distance between the squares in a wire
screen (see C) photographed on the film
beforehand, one has all the information
wanted for motion study. Having ob-
tained such a photograph, which itself
went far beyond the long continuous
line shown in Fig. 3 A (and in Fig.
2, the photograph of the golfer), Gilbreth
now went further. Instead of a single
photograph of the movements, he took
32
FIG. 5. — Model of left-hand movements in folding handker-
chiefs (Gilbreth).
[To face p. 33
tion, from chronocyclegraph, of wire
model -of ief£#and movements in working a drill
press (Gilbreth).
T o face p. 33.
MOVEMENT STUDY
a double one so as to obtain the move-
ments in relief; and having secured that
stereoscopic effect, he then proceeded to
construct a wire model of the movements.
Fig. 4 shows the construction of the
wire model. The expert is shown looking
down a stereoscope, building up a wire
model from the chronocyclegram. He has
a screen in front of him, which tells him
exactly the dimensions. Finally, the wire
model is painted, as in Fig. 5.
Fig. 4 is a wire model of the movements
of the left hand in working a drill press.
Fig. 5 is a wire model obtained from the
movements of a girl's left hand during the
operation of folding handkerchiefs. The
model is painted in white, and it is shaded
through grey into black in order to show
the direction of the movements.
Fig. 6 is of interest, as showing the effect
of practice on the movements illustrated
in Fig. 4. I am informed that the worker
had previously been practised, but had
MIND AND WORK
not got back into his old form. On the
second (second from the left) attempt, he
improved; on the third he was better
still; and, finally, he was at his best, and
this stage corresponds almost exactly to
the original (cf. Fig. 4), which is considered
a perfect model.
The writer is indebted to Major Gilbreth
for his kind permission to publish his
photographs (Figs. 1, 2, 4, 5 and 6).
REFERENCES
DRURY, H. B. : Scientific Management. New York :
Columbia University. 1918.
GANTT, H. L. : Work, Wages and Profits. New
York : Engineering Magazine Co. 1912.
GANTT, H. L. : Industrial Leadership. New Haven :
Yale University Press. 1916.
GILBRETH, F. B. and L. M. : Applied Motion Study.
London : Routledge & Sons.
GILBRETH, F. B. : Motion Study. London : Con-
stable & Co. 1911.
GILBRETH, F. B. : Primer of Scientific Management.
2nd ed. London : Constable & Co. 1915.
GILBRETH, F. B. and L. M. : Fatigue Study. Lon-
don : Routledge & Sons. 1917.
McKiLLOP, M. and A. D. : Efficiency Methods.
London : Routledge & Sons. 1917.
34
FIG. 6. — Models of drill press movements showing practice
effects (Gilbreth).
[To face p. 34.
MOVEMENT STUDY
Muscio, B. : Lectures on Industrial Psychology.
2nd ed. London : Routledge & Sons. 1920.
MYERS, C. S. : A Study of Improved Methods in an
Iron Foundry. Report No. 3 of the Industrial
Fatigue Research Board. London. 1919.
SYMES, W. : " Time Study in an Engineering Works,"
Engineering and Industrial Management, March
4, 1920, p. 297.
TAYLOR, F. W. : The Principles of Scientific Manage-
ment. New York and London : Harper &
Brothers. 1916.
TAYLOR, F. W. : Shop Management. London : Hill
Publishing Co. 1911.
35
CHAPTER II
FATIGUE STUDY
The four aspects of fatigue — The ergograph —
Fatigue and increased output — Mental fatigue —
Boredom and weariness — Methods of estimating fa-
tigue : factory methods ; apparatus ; tests of nervous
and mental efficiency — Factors affecting the work
curve — Holiday and Monday effects — Variations in
work curve — Physiological fluctuations — The load
lifted — Needless standing and stooping — Effects of
illumination, noise9 ventilation, temperature, humidity,
etc. — Importance of rest pauses — Effects of reducing
hours of work.
CHAPTER II
FATIGUE STUDY
FATIGUE has long been a subject of re-
search both by physiologists and by psy-
chologists. The physiologist has generally
investigated it under the simplest experi-
mental conditions. For example, he has
removed a single muscle with its nerve
from the body, and has studied the pheno-
mena of fatigue produced in it by electrical
stimulation, observing the effects of vary-
ing the strength and frequency of stimu-
lation, the surrounding temperature, the
weight lifted by the muscle, etc. He has
also investigated the effects of muscular
exercise on the general metabolism of the
organism. The psychologist, on the other
hand, has conducted exclusively " human "
experiments, treating the organism as a
39
MIND AND WORK
whole in place of using " muscle nerve "
preparations. He has approached the
problem from the standpoint of mental,
as well as from that of muscular, fatigue.
He has devised " tests " of mental fatigue,
constructing " work curves " of mental
output, and analysing the psychological
factors which determine the forms of those
curves, such as spurt and practice. He
has studied the effects of drugs, e. g. of
tea, coffee, strychnine, and alcohol, on
mental and muscular fatigue. He has ex-
amined the effects of rest pauses of differ-
ent length, introduced after varying periods
of work, on mental efficiency. He has
shown the unreliability of certain inter-
polated tests as evidence of muscular or
mental fatigue; he has shown the im-
portance of a rigorous, precise training
in the methods of experimental psychology
in order to avoid the pitfalls incidental
to human experiment; and he has so
prepared the way for a systematic in-
40
FATIGUE STUDY
vestigation of the problems of industrial
fatigue that future success must depend
on intimate psychological and physio-
logical co-operation.
There are several physiological views
conceivable of the nature of fatigue. One
is that living matter becomes fatigued
when it has used up all the stuff available
for its activity, and that it then needs
rest for the manufacture of fresh stuff
for its subsequent use. This conception
applied to muscular fatigue, as being due
to the exhaustion of consumable fuel, is
probably in fact never seriously realised.
There are at least three other kinds of
" fatigue " which step in and prevent our
muscles being reduced to such an impasse.
The nerve fibres which carry impulses
from the central nervous system to the
voluntary muscles terminate in the latter
in delicate " end plates " ; these end plates
are themselves " fatigued " before the ex-
haustion of the muscular tissue can occur.
41
MIND AND WORK
Another physiological conception of
fatigue is that it arises from the working
parts of the organism becoming choked
with the products of their own decom-
position. For example, muscular tissue
during contraction breaks down to yield
carbonic acid, lactic acid, and other sub-
stances. If these are allowed to accumu-
late in the muscles faster than they can
be removed therefrom by the lymphatics
and the blood stream, they impede more
and more the activity of these muscles.
But any serious effects arising from this
second conceivable source of muscular
fatigue are likewise usually safeguarded
by the action of the nervous system. For
when a muscle is voluntarily contracted,
it sends impulses up certain nerve fibres
to a nerve centre in the spinal cord, the
effect of which is increasingly to inhibit
(i. e. to suppress) the nervous impulses
which would normally travel down other
nerve fibres and produce further contrac-
42
FATIGUE STUDY
tions in that muscle. This is what occurs
when a single muscle is exercised to lift and
lower a given weight by a series of willed
rhythmical contractions. The contrac-
FIG. 7.
tions become less and less, until at length
the inhibition set up by them is so great
that no amount of voluntary effort can
produce further movement in the muscle.
The ergograph enables us to study the
43
MIND AND WORK
onset and course of " fatigue " in a single
muscle of the living body. It yields a
record of the extent of successive con-
tractions. In Krapelin's form of the ap-
paratus (Fig. 7), the hand is immovably
fixed by the clamps A and B, palm down-
wards, with the middle finger alone left
free. This finger is connected to the
wire N by means of a metal box E, into
which the finger fits, and by means of
the steel ribbon H attached to the box
and to the spirally grooved cylinder J.
The wire passes round the cylinder and
then over a pulley (fixed several feet above
the board X), and a weight W is attached
to the other end of the wire. As the finger
is voluntarily bent and extended to the
rhythm of a metronome, the cylinder
winds the wire round it and the weight is
raised. At the same time, a diagram of
the extent of each flexion of the finger is
recorded by the lever L, which is attached
by the cord T to the cylinder J and is
44
1 FIG. 8.*— Ergdgram, showing the onset and
progress of "muscular fatigue."
[To face p. 45
FATIGUE STUDY
brought to bear on a travelling smoked
surface. In this way an ergogram (Fig. 8)
is obtained, showing the extent and the
number of the contractions until the stage
of absolute impotence is reached.
This instrument is not to be regarded
as an indication of muscular fatigue. It
is rather a record of the capacity to work
under given conditions. For, supposing
that the weight to which the finger has
become completely " fatigued " is 5 kgs.,
a new ergogram can be at once obtained
by reducing the weight to 4 kgs. Or if
an electric current be applied to the nerve
supplying the " fatigued " muscle, the
latter will again contract.
The " fatigue " occurring in ergographic
work is, as we have seen, not truly mus-
cular fatigue. It is the result of nervous
inhibition, due not so much to merely
excessive as to excessive monotonous
work, and relievable by changing the
conditions of work. The " fatigue " arises
45
MIND AND WORK
from nervous impulses ascending to the
spinal cord from the muscle, and there
preventing (by " inhibiting ") further mus-
cular activity. Nor does fatigue — whether
occasioned by the action of a single
muscle as in ergographic experiments, or
by the action of a great number of
simultaneously or alternately contracting
muscles, as in everyday life, or by mental
activity— necessarily give rise to general
inefficiency at the moment. When a person
is actually fatigued, or feels fatigue, he
may temporarily do far better muscular or
mental work than when he is not. For at
a certain stage, fatigue (like alcohol) may
produce general excitement and instability
owing to the action of its poisons on the
higher regions of the nervous system
which normally control the lower. Hence
may arise a temporary extravagance in
the expenditure of energy, the organism
living recklessly, as it were, on its capital
(cf. pp. 163-165). Conversely, the fact
46
FATIGUE STUDY
that a person feels fresh does not ensure
that he will be able to do the best work.
At a certain stage (again like alcohol),
fatigue may produce a feeling of ability
to work well, but the work may fall very
short in quality, if not in quantity, of
the work done under normal conditions.
Therefore, fatigue and the feelings of
fatigue or freshness afford no indication
of the work that can be immediately
performed.
We have shown that through the control
of the spinal cord local inhibitory processes
are set up, which prevent the evil effects
of excessive monotonous muscular excita-
tion. In monotonous mental work a some-
what similar local protective function can
be observed. When we are engaged on
any one piece of mental work, other mental
processes are at first inhibited which are
incompatible with it; but the onset of
local cerebral fatigue is safeguarded by
the gradual failure of these processes of
47
MIND AND WORK
inhibition. The inhibited mental pro-
cesses sooner or later refuse to be sup-
pressed. Other mental activities accord-
ingly intrude, and by their inhibitory and
disconcerting action make the continuance
of the monotonous mental work impossible.
The constant effort of the self to over-
come these intruding inhibitions of local
muscular or mental monotony is usually
accompanied by feelings of " boredom "
as interest— i. e. the pleasurable incentive
in the work— wanes, and later by feelings
of " weariness " as that effort is invoked
with greater difficulty. The weariness of
any monotonous occupation is thus a
warning against the continuance of that
occupation. It betokens an impairment
in the efficiency of those processes which
enable us without undue conscious effort
to concentrate on a single activity.
In practice the need for conscious con-
centration is greatly lessened by habit.
But even when an often-repeated action
48
FATIGUE STUDY
has become so automatic as to be performed
better without conscious attention, never-
theless, a special " attitude " has always
unconsciously to be preserved, and fatigue
sooner or later arises in the inhibitory
processes required to maintain that atti-
tude. Hence even in such monotonous,
routine industrial occupations as labelling,
adding, or letter sorting, feelings of bore-
dom and weariness arise; and finally
indeed such warning " neurasthenic " ex-
perience as, "I could shriek. I feel as if
I want to hit somebody."
Boredom therefore occurs during work
in the absence of interest. It may arise
quite early and apart from fatigue, when
interest was initially weak, as when we
have yielded to join in a game of cards
from which we gain no amusement. Or
it may arise late when the interest, though
intense at the outset, finally wanes through
the fatiguing intrusion of competing in-
terests. Moreover, boredom may be inde-
E 49
MIND AND WORK
pendent not only of cerebral fatigue, but
also of muscular fatigue. Not only may
we be bored soon after starting a game in
which we take no interest, but we may
become physically fatigued in a game
which has aroused no feelings of boredom
whatever.
Boredom can be alleviated by increased
interest, and any ill effects of it may be
prevented by a change of occupation.
But where serious effort of the will has
been made to keep the attention concen-
trated— when boredom has given way to
weariness — change of interest or of occu-
pation is no remedy. Higher control is
actually fatigued and cannot be immedi-
ately employed for concentration in another
direction ; for the synapses (i. e. the points
of contact between adjacent nerve cells
and their processes) concerned in self effort
are most sensitive to fatigue, and this
fatigue enters into and affects all other
subsequent self effort.
50
FATIGUE STUDY
The probability is that when fatigue
acts on the synapses in the brain we have
to do with a central nervous fatigue not
in the sense of an exhaustion, but as the
result of a chemical poisoning. This leads
at first to a more or less useful change of
action — e. g. to a central blocking, or in-
hibition of central nervous impulses— but
later to a serious disorder of central nervous
function, involving inco-ordination and
loss of higher control (cf. p. 164). The
nervous system is to be regarded as a
system of relays of nerve arcs, the higher
controlling the lower; the higher being
the more recently acquired and the more
susceptible to the effects of drugs and the
products of metabolism.
We conclude, then, that monotonous
application for long hours at relatively
light work induces an incapacity as serious
as employment for shorter hours at more
strenuous work. Indeed, in certain cir-
cumstances the incapacity may be more
51
MIND AND WORK
serious— e.g. when the lighter work is
mainly of a mental character, watching
and controlling a small piece of machinery
that does everlastingly the same job, and
when the heavier work is mainly of a
mechanical character, say, lifting huge
weights of iron. In the latter case the
main source of fatigue arises, as we have
seen, from the accumulation of waste
products in the muscles, and especially
from the spinal inhibitory processes arising
from unchanging muscular exercise. Such
nervous inhibition, however, has its seat in
lower and far less important nerve centres
than in the former case, and probably
differs from it in nature. The volitional
efforts made to overcome such muscular
incapacity are much less baneful than those
made to overcome the boredom and weari-
ness arising from mental work. Hence
the pathological expression of continued
fatigue — i. e. overstrain — is far less preva-
lent in muscular than in mental exertion.
52
FATIGUE STUDY
The foregoing account indicates the
difficulty of measuring fatigue. We can
hardly expect to measure anything unless
we have a certain means of recognising
it. We might at first feel disposed to
define fatigue by its effects— as a diminished
capacity for work induced by previous
activity. But we should thereby ignore
the fact (cf. p. 46) that fatigue does
not necessarily produce an immediately
diminished output. However, despite the
complex factors (local and general, higher
and lower, metabolic and inhibitory, bore-
dom and weariness) that affect output
and are inseparable from fatigue, we seem
forced (but only with approximate ac-
curacy) to assume that " fatigue " is
generally proportional to the reduction
in output.
The best means, on this assumption, of
determining fatigue (whether the fatigue
be of experimental or of industrial pro-
duction), is hence afforded by the study
53
MIND AND WORK
of the quantity and quality of output
during equal successive intervals of the
day. A less reliable method industrially
available consists in observing the machine
power hourly used. Yet another is afforded
by a study of the amount of spoiled work,
the assumption being that as fatigue in-
creases there must occur more and more
spoiled work. Again, the number of acci-
dents arising through inefficiency affords
some index of the degree of fatigue of
the workers. In the London Docks, for
instance, more than 25 per cent, of the
accidents are said to occur between 11 a.m.
and noon, and between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m.
That is to say, towards the end of the
morning they are more frequent than at
the beginning, and towards the close of
the afternoon they again become far more
frequent, which agrees with the course
which fatigue may be expected to follow.
But in the factory we must take into
account the reduced number of the machines
54
FATIGUE STUDY
at work, and also the frequent presence of
a "spurt" towards the end of the day,
which may mask any underlying fatigue.
These and other complicating factors, e. g.
the increase in the number of accidents
with the increase of output (in the absence
of fatigue) and with the inexperience of
the worker, inevitably enter into the
problem. Thus, if fatigue is present, the
number of accidents will not fall in pro-
portion to the diminution of output to-
wards the end of the day but will rise,
and it will rise earlier in the day far more
than would be expected from any rise in
output. Lastly, the amount of lost time
and sickness may serve as an indicator of
fatigue, or at all events of inefficiency.
A test of industrial fatigue has been
devised in the form of a " dynamometer,"
which is in effect a spring balance; the
average strength of pull, obtained from a
number of muscles in different parts of
the body, being used as the basis for the
55
MIND AND WORK
estimation of fatigue. This spring balance
is pulled against by the forearm, wrist,
leg, etc., and the subject uses all his
strength to resist the increasing traction
of the spring applied by the examiner.
There is, however, always a danger of
inaccurate results when such a test as
this is " interpolated " at various hours in
the course of a man's daily work. There
is always (a) the possibility of conscious
limitation of efficiency at the test by the
subject, (b) the difficulty of applying the
test in exactly the same way on each
occasion, (c) the effect of practice, and
(d) the certainty of a change of interest
(e. g. keenness, boredom or annoyance) in
passing from the day's work to the test;
the results of such change of interest being
favourable or unfavourable to the test.
If a brief test must be interpolated, it
should be one that is not under the sub-
ject's control. Tests which have been
suggested with this object refer to changes
56
FATIGUE STUDY
in the blood circulation (e.g. in blood
pressure, pulse, return of normal colour
to the skin after momentary pressure
thereon) and in the respiratory gaseous
exchange. But these, uncertain as they
are at present, can hardly be expected
to measure accurately the most important
kind of " fatigue," namely that due merely
to changes in the central nervous system.
Possibly the reflex actions or the electrical
resistance of the skin may prove valuable
in this direction. But in attempting to
establish tests of fatigue which are beyond
the subject's voluntary control, we still
run the risk of the disturbing effects of
involuntary, e. g. emotional, influences upon
them. The subject may be alarmed at
the apparatus, or irritated or pleased at
the interruption in his work. Tests of a
purely physiological nature must be thereby
affected.
Various " mental " tests have also been
devised, but the dangers of change in
57
MIND AND WORK
interest and emotional state, which have
been just mentioned (apart from the effects
of practice and other factors which will be
mentioned in the next paragraphs), are still
more important here— in such tests, for
instance, as depend on speed of reaction
to prescribed signals, memory, arith-
metical calculations, keenness of vision
and hearing. Therefore, if mental tests
are adopted, it is better that they should
constitute a " continuous " or " perform-
ance " test, say for half-an-hour or an
hour, the fatigue being estimated by the
diminishing output during that period*
One mental test of this kind consists in the
addition of long columns of single figures,
each successive pair of figures being added
and the results written down, with a view
to seeing how much work of this kind can
be performed minute by minute. As the
subject grows mentally fatigued, so the
mental work curve of output may be ex-
pected to fall. Another similar test is
58
FATIGUE STUDY
a kind of proof-correcting, consisting in
crossing out as many (say) e's in a minute,
the number in each minute being recorded.
McDougalPs dotting test may be also
mentioned, in which small circles, printed
in irregular positions on a long narrow
strip of paper, have to be dotted at their
centre, while they pass, as in a telegraphic
tape machine, rapidly before the view of
the worker. These and other tests in-
volving attention and precision have proved
of value.
In all such tests, of course, the factor of
practice enters; and where its effect is
considerable (as in fact it nearly always is,
even when the conditions of the test very
closely resemble industrial conditions),
the work curve actually rises instead of
falling. Considerable practice in any test
is therefore necessary, before it can be
successfully employed as an index of
fatigue.
In all tests there is noticeable an " initial
59
MIND AND WORK
spurt ?! when the subject starts fresh.
A similar, but more voluntary, " end spurt "
occurs towards the close of the test. An
effort similar to that of an end spurt occurs
when the piece of work given to the opera-
tive is of such a length that he can hope-
fully and confidently anticipate its com-
pletion. " Intermediate " spurts may also
occur through unconscious or conscious
influences. In the factory such spurts
arise, e. g. through an endeavour to make
up for the delay previously caused by the
non-arrival of material; especially when
accompanied with annoyance at interfer-
ence with the piece rate earnings, they
may prove an important factor in subse-
quent fatigue. In the industrial curves
of output, even a 72 per cent, increase in
output observed during the last hour has
been ascribed to end spurt; and as wage-
days or holidays approach, a well-marked
spurt is likewise generally found. In a
certain munitions factory the work of
60
FATIGUE STUDY
about 100 women engaged in turning fuse
bodies was observed to increase by from
6 to 10 per cent, just before Christmas,
but there was a fall of 16 per cent, im-
mediately after the holidays, although
after a while the output rose to 12 per cent,
above the pre-Christmas maximum.
This fall after a holiday is partly due to
a further factor in the work curve technic-
ally known as " incitement." It occurs in
the mental tests above described if the
subject is taken away from his test even
for two or three minutes. When he goes
back to it, he has " grown cold," so to
speak, and, like a machine, needs " warm-
ing up " again before he can get going as
before. Allied to this is the factor of
" settlement," the ability to settle down
in spite of various distracting influences.
Hence when a worker is taken away from
his work for a while, he loses incitement
and settlement, as well as practice; but
he gains as regards fatigue, and he also
61
MIND AND WORK
gains because of the initial " spurt " with
which a return to work is often accom-
panied. The well-known " Monday effect "
has been shown to be due, not necessarily
to dissipation over the week-end, but to
the loss involved in the matter of settlement
and incitement.
It is, of course, to be expected that the
curve of industrial output must vary con-
siderably with the kind of work done.
When the work involves merely strenuous
muscular exertion, we may expect a rapid
and early rise in the work curve to a
maximum, followed by a fairly definite
fall during the morning spell, and after
dinner a fair recovery followed by a pro-
gressive, well-marked fall throughout the
afternoon. When, on the other hand, the
work is characterised by skill and dexterity,
we find a slower, more gradual rise to the
maximum, followed by a less obvious fall,
a less complete recovery after dinner, and
a much smaller drop at the close of the
62
FATIGUE STUDY
afternoon. When, as in machine work,
the output is largely independent of the
human factor, the curve of output may
be expected to reach a maximum at about
the third hour of the morning spell, then
to fall slightly, and during the afternoon
to maintain so high a level that the output
may exceed, or at least equal, the morning's
output. Lastly, when, as in lathe machine
work, the factor of rhythmic action is
added to skilled and strenuous movement,
not only will the afternoon's output remain
high, but also no fall may occur in the last
hour of the day ; while the morning output
will start at a low level and increase
enormously during the first three hours of
work, falling towards the end of the morn-
ing less than in purely muscular work, but
more than in merely dexterous work. We
have already (p. 18) called attention to
the economic, fatigue-saving effects of
rhythmical action.
Clearly we are only on the outskirts of
MIND AND WORK
the vast realm of knowledge on this sub-
ject which awaits discovery. We now know
that, even in the resting state, the human
organism shows definite variations in effi-
ciency throughout the day, such variations
corresponding apparently to those in the
normal curve of output under working
conditions, though, of course, the output is
at a higher level. Obviously, therefore, it
is a thoroughly unscientific principle to
set or to expect a constant rate of output
throughout each hour of the working day.
The effects of physiological fluctuations
and of the influences especially of settle-
ment, incitement and fatigue, must be
taken into account. Otherwise at one
time slackness, at another overstrain is
encouraged. It also follows that since
the output even in the resting state is
lower towards the end of the morning or
afternoon, we must be very cautious
in our interpretation of the work curve,
whether afforded by performance tests
64
FATIGUE STUDY
or by industrial output, as indicative of
industrial fatigue.
Of the factors to be taken into account
in industrial fatigue and in the main-
tenance of efficiency, one of the most
obvious, in the past, has been the load a
worker should lift or carry. Although in
these days of increasing application of
machinery, this factor is becoming of less
importance, it is worth while to mention
some striking investigations made some
years ago on men who were engaged in
loading railway trucks with pig iron. Each
piece, or " pig," of iron weighed 92 Ibs.,
and the men had been previously engaged
on the work without any selection. It
was found by experiment that, lifting pigs
of this weight, the men should not be
under load for more than 43 per cent, of
the day; that is to say, in a 9-hour day
the time under load should be 3f hours.
Accordingly the men were set to work for
7 minutes, and after each such period they
F 65
MIND AND WORK
were given a rest of 10 minutes. At the
same time the expert selected his men,
having noted that some of them (12| per
cent.) were far better suited to the work
than others. On this basis of work and
rest and selection, instructing the men
how best to raise the pigs from the ground,
how fast to walk, etc., he found that,
instead of lifting, as they had done before,
12| tons per day, they lifted 47| tons per
day (equivalent to about a 300 per cent,
increase in output), and that there was
certainly no more fatigue involved than
by the old method. In addition, wages
were higher by 60 per cent., and there was
a 66 per cent, reduction in the costs.
Another source of fatigue, as has been
already noted (p. 17), is needless stand-
ing. This can often be lessened by ar-
ranging the work -bench at a proper
height, so that the employee may sit
wherever possible, needless stooping beinj
at the same time avoided.
66
FATIGUE STUDY
Illumination must also be taken into
account, both in regard to the abolition
of glare from polished surfaces, and in
regard to the opposite defect of too little
light. The close connexion between eye-
strain, headache, and efficiency hardly
needs mention. In a certain factory the
lighting was increased from 4000 to 12,000
foot-candles, and at the end of a month
the output was increased by from 8 to
27 per cent., the only change being the
better lighting. Yet at the present day
in this country many operatives, e. g.
silk weavers, are to be seen working in an
artificial light, sometimes gas, even on the
brightest days. It has conclusively been
shown that miners' nystagmus, which con-
sists in an involuntary tremor of the eyes,
is due to the miserably poor light (often
of a quarter- or a half-candle power) of
the miner's lamp.
Noise is another factor causing wastage
of energy and detrimental to maximal
67
MIND AND WORK
output. There is a case on record in
which an increase of 25 per cent, in output
was obtained by moving certain employees
to comparative quiet, away from the noise
of a yard. Despite its well-known powers
of adaptation to noise, the human or-
ganism works best under the most restful
conditions. Vibration of machinery also
well repays investigation in regard to its
effect on the output of workers within its
influence.
Ventilation, humidity, and temperature
are important matters to take into account.
Experiments have been conducted on ani-
mals subjected to different degrees of
temperature and humidity, in order to
observe the degree of exhaustion produced
under the following conditions :—
Temperature. Humidity.
69° F. 52 per cent.
75 „ 70 „ „
91 „ 90 „ „
On the assumption that at 69° tem-
perature and 52 per cent, humidity the
68
FATIGUE STUDY
work done was 100, it was found that as
the temperature and humidity were in-
creased as above, the amount of work
done fell to 85 and 76 respectively. In
recent investigations into the tin-plate in-
dustry, it has been calculated that at
least 12 per cent, more output would be
obtainable by efficient ventilation.
An obviously psychological factor which
helps to increase output is security against
danger. In dangerous trades, the workers
show a tendency to neurasthenia. This is
especially marked among coal miners ; of
the cases of nervous breakdown occurring
during the late war, a disproportionately
large percentage was found among soldiers
who had been miners. Other obvious
factors conducive to an increased output
and to the reduction of fatigue are proper
food, cleanliness, canteen and club com-
forts, library facilities and other similar
improvements now generally comprised in
welfare work.
69
MIND AND WORK
A great deal more investigation is re-
quired as regards the effect of continuous
night-work. During the war it was found
that the best effects of night-work in
certain occupations were obtained if the
workers did not work at night for more
than a fortnight " on end," and were then
turned over to day-work; but how far
this result is generally applicable remains
uncertain. There can be no doubt that
night-work can never be really efficiently
carried on, unless proper dormitories are
provided for the night operatives so that
they may be sure of getting a rest in the
daytime. It is possible without much
difficulty to imagine the kind of sleep
that an ordinary operative must get when
he or she goes home to rest after night-
work amid the social conditions under
which most of the workers live. Again,
nothing was shown more clearly during
the war than the advisability of avoiding
bef ore-breakfast work and overtime. Even
70
FATIGUE STUDY
in peace time, before-breakfast work had
been shown to be practically worthless;
and as regards overtime, the worker simply
" saved " himself during the day when he
knew that he had to work late. This
saving is largely involuntary, due to the
organism physiologically setting up an un-
conscious defence against the prospect of
excessive hours (cf. pp. 116, 117).
A good deal of preliminary work has
been done in the psychological laboratory
towards determining what is the most
favourable rest pause. It is clear that
when all the various opposing factors
influencing the work curve — practice, fa-
tigue, spurt, incitement, settlement— are
taken into account, there must be a rest
pause of a certain length after a given
period of work which will be more favour-
able to subsequent work than a pause of
greater or shorter length. Work in the
laboratory on this subject is being con-
tinued and is capable of almost endless
71
MIND AND WORK
extension and of invaluable application
to industrial problems.
In America some investigations have
been carried out as to the effect of intro-
ducing a 10 minutes' rest in each spell of
a 10-hour day. There occurred a 3 per
cent, increase in output during the first
period under observation, and this increase
progressed during the second and third
periods, when it reached 17 and 26 per
cent, respectively. (To this gradual in-
crease of effect we shall return presently.)
In a bleaching factory a 20 minutes' rest
was introduced after each spell of 80
minutes' work, whereupon a 60 per cent,
increase in output was recorded, accom-
panied by a 50 per cent, increase in wages.
In one of our own munitions factories, a
15 minutes' rest was introduced after
every 45 minutes' work; the employees
in this factory were paid by piece rate, and
they grumbled at first at the enforced rest
periods because they thought they would
72
FATIGUE STUDY
lose money through them; but there was
a very distinct increase in their output
and consequently in their earnings. A
5 minutes' rest period, introduced into
every hour's work save the last, enabled
a Lancashire firm employing girls to in-
crease the daily output by 6*4 per cent,
in one group of girls, and by 10-9 per
cent, in the remainder.
Another interesting case on record is
that of two rival groups of soldiers engaged
in seeing which of them could dig the
greater number of yards of trench at the
front in a given time. The officer of one
group divided his men into three sections,
so that he was able to give each section
10 minutes' rest after every 5 minutes'
work. Thus one of the three sections
was continually working in relays. The
other officer worked his men in the ordinary
way and employed no system at all; they
dug their hardest until they were tired,
rested for a spell and then dug again.
73
MIND AND WORK
The first group won easily, solely through
the systematic rests which were intro-
duced. The experiment has been since
applied with similar success to bottle-
making, three teams (each consisting of a
man and two boys) being employed for
two machines, each team working for
40 minutes and resting for 20 minutes, so
that one team was always resting. These
results demonstrate the necessity for fur-
ther investigation into the question of
introducing rests. By enjoying a regular
and definite rest period, the workers avoid
fatigue, and the work lost during the rest
period is more than made up by the in-
creased output which they produce after
each rest. At the same time something
must be lost in the process of " warming
up " or " incitement " after each rest
period; and it is only by careful investi-
gation of the figures of output before and
after, and by experimentally varying the
time of introducing the rest period and its
74
FATIGUE STUDY
length, that reliable information as to the
best procedure can be obtained.1
With regard to the effects of reduced
hours, some striking results were obtained
in our own munitions factories. In the
case of men engaged in the heavy work of
sizing fuses, which is dependent solely on
their own efforts and independent of
machinery, the hours actually worked
were reduced from 58*2 hours to 50*6 hours
per week — a reduction of about 13 per
cent.— with the result that the hourly
output was increased by 39 per cent. But
hourly output is not of so much interest to
the employer as the total output; here
the total output was increased by 21 per
cent. A reduction in hours from 63J to
54 per week was found approximately to
halve the lost time due to irregular atten-
dance. In the case of women engaged in
1 Moreover, there can be no doubt that different
individuals demand different treatment, some, for
example, working best in short explosive " bursts,"
others in longer, steadier spells.
75
MIND AND WORK
the moderately heavy work of turning fuse
bodies, which is partly dependent on the
speed of machinery, the hours were re-
duced from 66 to 48*6 per week — a reduc-
tion of about 26 per cent. — and the result
was a 68 per cent, increase in hourly output
and a 15 per cent, increase in total output.
In a tin-plate factory the introduction
of a 6-hour shift increased the hourly out-
put by 8*3 per cent., and the introduction
of a 4-hour shift increased it by 11*5 per
cent., as compared with the hourly output
of an 8-hour shift. In an iron works the
reduction of hours from 53 to 48 per week
reduced lost time from 2 -46 to 0'46 per
cent, of working hours.
Two apple-growing estates in Australia,
separately managed by two brothers, re-
ceived a large and urgent order. Their
staffs were paid by piece rate. One of the
brothers kept his employees working as
before at 8 hours a day, whereas the other's
staff asked to be allowed to work 10 hours
76
FATIGUE STUDY
a day. At the end of a week the daily
output of each worker of the former's
staff averaged from five to six cases of
apples more than that of the latter's.
In a bicycle-ball factory in America the
hours of work in detecting defects in the
balls manufactured were reduced from
10J to 10 per day, and then by successive
steps to 9J, 9 and 8| per day. Although
the daily rate of pay remained constant
as each reduction in hours took place, the
output was found to increase.
Careful observations have proved that
the full effects of reduced hours of work
may not be manifest until several months
have elapsed. Alteration in hours in-
fluences the unconscious, as well as the
conscious, factors that determine output.
The human organism, after becoming
adapted to certain hours of work, requires
time, when that adaptation is disturbed,
before it can give its maximal response
to improved conditions (cf. p. 72). It
77
MIND AND WORK
appears that when such gradual adaptation
to improved conditions is effected, if the
old conditions be then restored, the output
immediately reverts to its previous amount.
If this statement is confirmed by further
investigations, it shows the fallacy of
introducing overtime work, as apparently
another long period of adaptation is needed
after overtime has been abolished.
The advantageous effects of rest periods
and of reduced hours are most clearly
manifested when the work involves the
44 human " factor most. If it is mainly
dependent on machinery which moves at
a fixed unchangeable rate, clearly any
improvement in the freshness of the
workers cannot so materially affect the
output. But even here rest will reduce the
quantity of spoiled work, and it will
effect improvement in the worker's atten-
tion and hence in the speed of feeding of,
and in the rate of removal of the manu-
factured product from, the machines.
78
FATIGUE STUDY
Much, of course, must depend on how
any increased period of rest is spent. A
ten minutes' pause may be profitably
occupied in taking light refreshment.
An hour's earlier release from a factory
or business may wastefully result in an
hour's more exacting, worrying or harmful
occupation elsewhere.
REFERENCES
Report of British Association Committee on the
Question of Fatigue from the Economic Stand-
point. Transactions of Brit. Ass., 1915.
Interim and Final Reports of the Health of Munition
Workers Committee on Industrial Efficiency
and Fatigue. Cd. 8511, 9065. 1917, 1918.
Report on the Comparison of an Eight-hour Plant
and a Ten-hour Plant. U.S.A. Public Health
Bulletin, No. 106. Washington, 1920.
FLORENCE, P. S. : Use of Factory Statistics in the
Investigation of Industrial Fatigue. Columbia
University Studies in History, etc. New York :
Longmans, Green & Co. 1918.
GILBRETH, F. B. and L. M. : Fatigue Study. Lon-
don : Routledge & Sons. 1917.
GOLDMARK, JOSEPHINE : Fatigue and Efficiency.
New York : Survey Associates, inc. 1913.
79
MIND AND WORK
McKiLLOP, M. and A. D. : Efficiency Methods.
London : Routledge & Sons. 1917.
LEE, F. S. : The Human Machine and Industrial
Efficiency. New York and London : Longmans,
Green & Co. 1918.
LEVERHULME, LORD : The Six-hour Day. London :
Allen & Unwin. 1918.
Muscio, B. : Lectures on Industrial Psychology.
2nd ed. London : Routledge & Sons. 1920.
Muscio, B. : "Fluctuations in Mental Efficiency,"
British Journal of Psychology, 1920, vol. x.
pp. 827-344.
MYERS, C. S. Text-book of Experimental Psychology.
Cambridge: University Press. 1911.
SMITH, MAY : "A Contribution to the Study of
Fatigue," British Journal of Psychology, 1916,
vol. viii. pp. 327-350.
SPOONER, H. J. : Wealth from Waste. London :
Routledge & Sons. 1918.
VERNON, H. M. : The Influence of Hours of Work
and of Ventilation on Output in Tin-plate
Manufacture. Report No. 1 of Industrial
Fatigue Research Board. 1919.
VERNON, H. M. : The Speed of Adaptation of Out-
put to Altered Times of Work. Report No. 6
ditto. 1920.
WESTON, H. C. and S. WYATT. Some Observations
on Bobbin Winding. Report No. 8 ditto. 1920.
Also : "A Performance Test under Industrial
Conditions," British Journal of Psychology, 1920,
vol. x. pp. 293-309.
80
CHAPTER III
SELECTION STUDY
Genius and talent — Excessive labour turnover —
Individual differences — Vocational guidance — Reac-
tion times — Tests of telephone operators — Other mental
tests — Physical and sexual differences — Army, Air
Service and Admiralty selection tests — " General
impressions" — " Phrenological "and" physiognomic "
tests — Classification and use of mental tests — Blind-
alley and unsuitable occupations — Pre-vocational and
vocational training — The future of vocational guidance
and selection.
CHAPTER III
SELECTION STUDY
SOME people, e. g. distinguished inven-
tors, ministers, painters, poets, musicians,
have been driven to take up their calling
because of the irresistible impulse of their
genius ; but most men and women are
gifted only with talent, which permits of
a certain choice of occupation. Of the
latter some, of course, choose occupations
for which they are best fitted. But many,
subject perhaps to the advice of friends
and relatives, are apt to choose the wrong
occupation. Some act merely on tradi-
tion, following the occupation of their
father and grandfather. Others are actu-
ated by expected influence, or are attracted
by interest and imagination to occupations
(e.g. to the stage, the sea, or the army)
for which they have no real aptitude.
83
MIND AND WORK
With these various and often detrimental
factors at work, it is hardly surprising
that an enormous wastage of effort and
expense arises through people choosing the
wrong occupation. It was astonishing
during the war, when inquiring of men what
they had done in civil life, to discover
how many had passed from occupation
to occupation until they had at length
found something which suited them. Even
within the compass of a single mill or
factory, operatives will not infrequently
wander from one department to another
until at length they find the job that
really fits them. This wasted effort seri-
ously affects the employers also, for the
amount of time thus thrown away in
training workers is needlessly great. In
a munitions factory in the United States,
it appears that during six months, only
10 per cent, of 10,000 employees who left
the works left for reasons known to the
employers. This occurred during the war;
84
SELECTION STUDY
but in proof that such wastage is not con-
fined to the war period, the pre-war
statistics of a munitions factory in this
country may be quoted, in which it was
found that of 1000 women entrants into
the firm, 658 left after six months. During
the war this figure rose only to 671. A
50 per cent, turnover of women labour is
indeed not uncommon, and even 300 per
cent, has been recorded in the year.1 Among
women the factors of marriage, sickness,
and maternity are largely responsible for a
big turnover. A highly important factor
determining such wastage in both sexes
consists in unsatisfactory conditions of
employment; but the special cause to be
considered in this chapter is the unsuit-
ability of the workers for the particular work
they adopt, together with the remedy for it.
For each individual, it may be said, there
is one occupation which is more suitable than
1 That is to say, in order to maintain a staff of
100 at its full strength, 300 employees had to be
engaged during the year.
85
MIND AND WORK
any other, and in every occupation some
succeed better than others. This arises
from the wide physical and mental differ-
ences distinguishing individuals from one
another. For example, in some the con-
structive instinct, in others the acquisitive,
in others again the submissive instinct is
paramount. Some are predominantly of the
hunting type, others are rather of the pas-
toral or agricultural type, with appropriate
instincts of aggressiveness, tenderness, etc.,
peculiar to each. Individuals also differ
innately in manual dexterity, span of
apprehension and memory,1 etc. Thus in
a pencil factory, where twelve pencils have
to be picked up from a pile with one hand,
some fail after many attempts, while others
are successful at once; and in a printing
establishment, some linotype operators
1 Span of apprehension is measured by the
number of different objects which can be simultane-
ously perceived upon momentary presentation ; span
of memory by the number of objects retained after
a single (non-momentary) presentation.
86
SELECTION STUDY
never pass beyond the 2500-em class (the
em being a measure of output), whereas
others, with no greater effort, can manage,
it is said, to set 5000 ems.
Obviously much can be done to prevent
the " round peg " from getting into the
" square hole " by means of vocational
guidance offices for lads and girls on
leaving school. A great deal could be
effected there merely by sympathetic inter-
views aided by school records and a
knowledge of the special requirements and
openings in different occupations. Such a
procedure would at least help in coming
to a broad decision as to whether a given
boy or girl is better fitted for mental work
or manual employment, for indoor work
or outdoor work, for a settled or a roving
life, for direction or dependence, etc.
But the scientific study of vocational
guidance must be founded on something
more than " general impressions " (un-
deniably valuable though they be). It
87
MIND AND WORK
must undertake a careful physiological and
psychological analysis of (i) the require-
ments of different occupations, and (ii) the
individual mental and physical differences
among those intending to work at them.
For the groundwork of the latter task, and
for methods of procedure, we are indebted
to the experimental psychology of the
laboratory. Some of the earliest psycho-
logical investigations, those on reaction
time, were devoted to a study of the nature
of the individual differences observed.
It was found that, when instructed to
react as rapidly as possible to a prescribed
signal, some persons were naturally of the
quicker, less reliable, so-called " muscular "
type, attending predominantly to the
movement by which they had to react,
while others were naturally of the slower,
more reliable, " sensorial " type, attending
predominantly to the signal which they
were expecting to receive. The advan-
tages of choosing employees for certain
88
SELECTION STUDY
occupations according to their reactions
have been shown in a certain bicycle-ball
factory (to which reference has been al-
ready made on p. 77), where after the
selection of the best workers on the basis
of reaction tests, it was found possible to
increase the output by over 240 per cent,
and to increase the accuracy of the work
by two- thirds.
Similar success has followed the applica-
tion of other psychological tests, e.g. in
the selection of applicants for telephone-
exchange work in the United States. It
is obvious that acuity of hearing, clearness
of speech, ability to interpret indistinct
words, span of memory for figures, memory
for the order of instructions received,
speed and dexterity of reaction to signals,
are all readily capable of experimental
estimation, and that the tendency to
nervous breakdown in such a trying occu-
pation can be largely avoided by the
selection of suitable applicants.
89
MIND AND WORK
Psychological tests of foresight have
been applied in investigations upon motor
tram-drivers. A close inverse relation has
been found to obtain between the degree
of a driver's success at the laboratory tests
and the number of accidents recorded
against him during his everyday work.
The value of such investigations needs no
comment.1
Tests of the accuracy and speed of
reasoning have also been devised. Tests
of general information have been fre-
quently employed. These and other tests
are now introduced into Columbia Uni-
versity, New York, as an alternative for
the matriculation examinations, so as to
select those who can best profit by a
University career.
Among other available tests may be
mentioned those of sensory discrimina-
tion, manual dexterity, mechanical skill,
aesthetic appreciation, rate of reading,
1 Care, however, must always be taken that the
test is one of special ability,not of general intelligence.
90
SELECTION STUDY
spelling ability, tests which reveal the
subject's special interests, his muscular or
mental fatigability, his accuracy, steadi-
ness, and neatness, his memory for names,
figures, faces or facts, the breadth or detail
of his observation, his improvability, dis-
tractibility, suggestibility, etc. Their ap-
plication to those who offer themselves
for different occupations, e. g. for machin-
ist's or assembler's work, designing, clerical
or secretarial work, salesmanship, etc.,
is obvious.
On the physical side, tests of muscular
strength and endurance are of great
importance for certain occupations.
Length of arm reach, and the span and
shape of fingers may be likewise of value ;
in one industry, for example, it has been
stated that an increased output of from
6 to over 9 per cent, may be expected by
taking such factors into account in the
choice of girls for the different depart-
ments. Again, in regard to sexual differ-
ences, it is clear that there is great scope
91
MIND AND WORK
for research by appropriate tests to deter-
mine the occupations which are best fitted
to men and to women.
Tests have been devised to measure the
worker's rate of feeding a machine, and
success in these tests has been proved to
be correlated closely with the known fitness
of the worker for a fast- or a slow-running
machine in the factory. The value of
such tests for selection is confirmed by the
observation that some workers who are
distinctly below the average on a slow
operation may be very much above it in
work requiring speed, and vice versa.
Certain tests which have been applied to
measure dexterity and rate of assembling
have been found to be closely correlated
with workshop ability, and sometimes
indeed have proved the foreman's original
estimate of the workers' ability to be wrong,
as his judgments agreed far more closely
with the results of the tests after he had
come to know the workers more intimately.
92
SELECTION STUDY
During the war such psychological tests
were developed with great success. In
the United States a staff of experts was
engaged (i) in applying tests for estimating
the educational level and intellectual
ability of each recruit, (ii) in recording the
men's pre-war experiences and in devising
and applying appropriate tests to prove
their special qualifications, and (iii) in
devising and applying tests for the selection
and training of telegraphists, gunners and
others. Among the objects of the first
of these groups of tests were (a) the allot-
ment of a mental rating to each soldier,
so as to help the personnel officers in the
formation of organisations of equal or of
appropriate mental strength ; (6) the assist-
ance of regimental company and medical
officers, rendered by careful examination
and report on men who were not responding
satisfactorily to training, who were other-
wise troublesome, or who, in accordance
with their degree of mental deficiency,
93
MIND AND WORK
should be recommended for discharge,
development battalions, labour organisa-
tions, etc.; (c) the discovery of men of
superior ability who should be selected
for non-commissioned officers, for officers'
training camps, for promotion or for
assignment to special tasks. It is gener-
ally agreed that such tests saved many
months of needless camp life and that by
means of them the right man was far more
often put in the right place.
During the war, certain candidates for
our own Air Service were tested carefully
from the psychological aspect before they
were finally accepted. Their vision was
examined as regards stereoscopy (the per-
ception of objects in relief) and the rate of
adaptation of their eyes to darkness.
They were also tested for their speed of
recovery of their balance by manipulating
lever-movements when the seat on which
they were placed was tilted. Tests were
also applied to ascertain how faint a
94
SELECTION STUDY
sound they could hear, and how accurately
they could localise it — abilities which were
important in listening for hostile aircraft.
The result of these and many other psycho-
logical and physiological tests was to
effect an enormous improvement in the
class of men selected for special training.
Similarly successful work was also
carried out for our Admiralty at the
Crystal Palace in the selection of candi-
dates for training in hydrophone-listening
for hostile submarines. Appropriate tests
were devised for keenness of hearing,
accuracy of sound discrimination, memory
for pitch, rhythm and quality of sound,
power to discriminate between different
pitches, rhythms and qualities, general
accuracy, general information, ability to
grasp complicated instructions, etc. The
result of the application of these tests
was that the training authorities at Port-
land reported that the first batch of lads
thereafter sent them from the Crystal
95
MIND AND WORK
Palace was far away the best they had
ever received, and that the next batch
was even better still !
Many of the mental characters hitherto
mentioned can be readily and speedily
tested on groups of fifty or more persons
simultaneously. But an objection may
be raised that such tests throw no light
on the higher, moral qualities of the
candidate, such as honesty, courage,
loyalty, perseverance, promptness, punctu-
ality, resourcefulness, imagination, organis-
ing ability, self-control, and presence. In
point of fact, however, several of these
qualities are revealed by many existing
tests or by others that can be devised for
the purpose, whilst full light can be readily
thrown on the rest in the course of indi-
vidual examination and cross-questioning.
None but those who have had experience
in psychological tests can realise what a
wealth of information in regard to the
general " character " of a subject is inci-
96
SELECTION STUDY
dentally gained from a few tests system-
atically and individually applied during
an interview.
Indeed the object of these tests is not
to replace, but to supplement, the " general
impressions " which an interview can
afford. Their application to a group of
people simultaneously is often unsatis-
factory for the very reason that it does not
permit of adequate individual observation
and conversation. Such information, how-
ever, as is afforded by general impressions
is apt to be too " general " to be of suf-
ficient use. Loyalty, perseverance, and
punctuality, for instance, may be required
for a variety of different occupations; an
ordinary interview may detect them, but
it will not detect the more special abilities
or determine whether the candidate is
more suited for one department of the
works rather than for another. Our
general impressions are formed intuitively
from a variety of often more or less uncon-
H 97
MIND AND WORK
scious influences, dependent on facial ex-
pression, speech, bodily movements, dress,
etc. Attempts have been made of late
to reduce such impressions to an exact
science, based on the shape of the candi-
date's face and head, the colour and
prominence of his eyes, the texture and
colour of his skin, etc. But they are
devoid of scientific basis. The mental
characters of an individual are not associ-
ated, e. g.9 with the form of his brain, and
the form of his brain does not exactly
correspond with that of his skull. To act
on the teachings of this " school " — for
instance, that aggressiveness, quickness of
action, cheerfulness and fickleness are char-
acteristics of the blonde, that submissive-
ness, slowness of action, pessimism and
constancy are characteristics of the brun-
ette, that logical people have high narrow
foreheads and sloping shoulders, that ambi-
tion is associated with height of head,
energy with an elastic skin, with a long
98
SELECTION STUDY
high nose and with width of head, im-
pulsiveness with a receding chin — can only
result in failure.
General impressions are notoriously un-
reliable, besides being, as already ex-
plained, insufficient. The object of psycho-
logical tests is, so far as possible, to sub-
stitute scientific methods of universal
validity in place of individual, intuitive,
often capricious and prejudiced opinions.
Enough has been already said of these
tests to indicate that they may be classified
under two heads. On the one hand, we
may adopt a test which is more or less
exactly comparable to the conditions under
which the subject will be working; e.g.
we may test his powers of typewriting
by actual typewriting, we may test his
ability to assemble a machine by giving
him some parts to put together, or we may
supply him with an apparatus which will
compare with the rapid feeding of a
machine. On the other hand, we may test
99
MIND AND WORK
him for isolated mental characteristics,
e.g. dexterity, speed of reaction, span of
apprehension, appreciation of differences
in visual form, and we may utilise and
combine the results of his various per-
formances in the following way. First of
all, we ascertain what special psychological
processes are required for success in the
occupation for which the tests are needed.
Next, we ascertain how closely success
or failure at the tests which we have
devised in order to measure these pro-
cesses is correlated with known success or
failure at the occupation in question ; that
is to say, we compare the order of excellence
of a large number of trained (good, bad
and indifferent) operatives at each of the
tests with their order of excellence in the
workshop as determined by the estimates
of foremen, by piece rate earnings, etc.
Then we proceed to " scrap " the tests
which show insufficient correlation, and
we " weight " the useful tests according
100
SELECTION STUDY
to their different proved degrees of correla-
tion. Finally, we are able to apply the
tests to the actual examination of candi-
dates whose capacity for the work we are
desirous of estimating. By this means
the relative, as Well as the absolute, value
of each test is accurately ascertained before
it is employed in actual practice, and the
likelihood of the candidate's success in any
particular occupation can be expressed
in the well-known quantitative terms of
probability.
It is clear that central laboratories
co-ordinated by a National Institute of
Applied Psychology and Physiology are
needed in order to devise tests and to
collect standards. Standards or averages
are clearly necessary in order to discover
to what extent a given person departs
from them. In such laboratories it will
be necessary to train testers, to advise
" educationists," employers and trade
unions. This is only a step towards having
101
MIND AND WORK
psychological laboratories in the larger
factories, and in advisory bureaux con-
nected with labour exchanges and employ-
ment committees, where employees and lads
and girls leaving school can be adequately
examined, tested and advised, in regard
to their fitness for different occupations.
Such central laboratories will be con-
cerned with the investigation not only of
human beings in their relation to voca-
tions, but also of vocations in their rela-
tion to human beings. There are many
occupations which cannot be called voca-
tions at all. They are " blind-alley "
occupations, involving no craftsmanship
and offering little or no chance of variety
or promotion. Into these boys and girls,
on leaving school, are specially prone to
enter, tempted by the relatively high
wages which are offered them, and heedless
of the future when they will have to leave
that employment and swell the ranks of
unskilled workers. There are other occu-
102
SELECTION STUDY
pations that have no right to exist — for
example, the lowly work of carrying heavy
loads which can and should be performed
by machinery.
It will also be the duty of a National
Institute to encourage the provision of
what has been termed " pre- vocational
training " in the highest standards of our
elementary schools. By their fourteenth
year boys and girls should have received
special instruction at school, illustrated by
lantern slides, etc., in the demands, attrac-
tions, dangers and rewards of the chief
available trades and professions, so that
they may be better enabled to make their
ultimate choice, instead of aimlessly ac-
cepting the " first job that comes along."
Vocational guidance must also be en-
couraged during the period of continua-
tion schools, at the " works " or outside,
due regard being paid to the development
of special tastes or capacities after the
school-leaving age.
103
MIND AND WORK
In these ways the future application of
psychological methods and principles to
vocational guidance and selection cannot
fail to yield results of inestimable value
for the advance and well-being of mankind.
Because tests are in their youth, it would
be ridiculous to urge that therefore they
must be put aside until they reach fuller
maturity. We might as well have banned
surgery and medicine a hundred years ago
because they had not then reached their
present stage of advancement, or ban them
to-day because they are not so efficient as
they will be a hundred years hence.
Applied sciences can only grow by use.
Their success must largely depend on the
skill with which they are applied. Like
any other instruments which man em-
ploys, they may be rightly or wrongly
used; but this does not mean that voca-
tional selection is unscientific. Medicine
or surgery might as well be similarly
decried because of their dependence on a
104
SELECTION STUDY
judicious application by the physician or
the operator. Judgment and intuition are
just as essential in the use and interpreta-
tion of vocational tests. Tests are not to
be regarded as the master, but as the
servant, of such valuable " general im-
pressions " as may be gained by a con-
versational interview. They bring to light
special abilities which a mere interview
is powerless to elicit or to measure. They
will be viewed with disfavour by the
employee who fears that, if he be found
unsuitable for his present work, he may be
transferred to lower or less congenial forms
of employment or be thrown out of em-
ployment altogether. Such fears are
reasonable (a) where vocational selection is
forced upon an already engaged employee,
instead of on an applicant for employment,
(b) so long as the worker is not guaranteed
against unemployment through no fault
of his own, and (c) until he is given some
voice in works management. Vocational
105
MIND AND WORK
tests will be viewed with disfavour by the
foreman who has been selected merely for
his driving power, who is an ignorant man,
scarcely capable of speaking, reading,
writing, or thinking intelligently, who is
hence suspicious of higher ability among
those under his charge and only willing to
recommend men of his own stamp for
promotion. They will be viewed with
disfavour by the employer who is opposed
to the introduction of the systematic
methods of science, who prefers to be ruled
by guesswork and intuition or by the long
and wasteful process of trial and error.
Vocational guidance and vocational selec-
tion have therefore a brilliant future before
them.
REFERENCES
HOLLINGWORTH, H. L. : Vocational Psychology.
New York : Appleton & Co. 1919.
KEMBLE, W. F. : Choosing Employees by Test.
LEE, F. S. : The Human Machine and Industrial
Efficiency. New York and London : Longmans,
Green & Co. 1918.
106
SELECTION STUDY
LINK, H. C. : Employment Psychology. New York :
The Macmillan Co. 1920.
MUNSTERBERG, H. : Psychology and Industrial
Efficiency. London: Constable & Co. 1913.
Muscio, B. : Lectures on Industrial Psychology.
2nd ed. London : Routledge & Sons. 1920.
ROWLAND-ENTWISTLE, A. : " Employment Manage-
ment," Engineering and Industrial Management,
Nov. 13, 1919, p. 622.
YOAKUM, C. S., and YERKES, R. M. : Army Mental
Tests. New York: Holt & Co. 1920.
107
CHAPTER IV
RESTRICTION OF OUTPUT
Restriction by the employer: deliberate; unconscious
— Restriction by the employee : deliberate ; uncon-
scious— Examples of employees' restriction of output
— Methods of detection — Artificial uniformity of out-
put— Need of efficiency records — Coal output — Brick-
laying— American and British productivity — Effects
of increased use of machinery.
CHAPTER IV
RESTRICTION OF OUTPUT
OUTPUT may be restricted by the em-
ployer or by the employee ; either of them
may restrict it deliberately or more or less
unconsciously.
Deliberate restriction of output by the
employer may come about through at
least three causes, viz. (i) the dearth of
raw material, (ii) the fear of flooding the
market, coupled with the desire to main-
tain an artificially high price for his manu-
facture, and (iii) the need for co-ordinating
the requirements of different departments
of his factory. More or less unconscious
restriction of output by the employer may
arise (i) through bad organisation and
out-of-date equipment of his factory (cf.
pp. 3-6), (ii) deficient training of his
ill
MIND AND WORK
employees in the best methods of work
(cf. pp. 6-15), (iii) ill-considered arrange-
ments of the working hours (cf. pp.
75-77), (iv) inadequate rest pauses (cf.
pp. 71-75), and (v) defective selection
of his employees for the task for which
they are best fitted (cf. pp. 83-85).
The prime causes of deliberate restric-
tion of output by the employee at the
present day are discontentment, suspicion
and jealousy (cf. Chapter VI). An im-
portant cause also lies in the fear that
with increased output the scale of piece
rate or task rate payment will be reduced.
The rate has been not infrequently cut
when men begin to earn more than the
employer had thought possible when set-
ting the rate. There is a good instance on
record of a girl paid by piece rate, who was
shown by a passing expert a more efficient
method of working by which she could
earn far higher pay. Later, however, she
was found to have returned to her old
112
RESTRICTION OF OUTPUT
method, and the reason she gave the
expert was that she knew her employer
would cut the rate if his girls earned more
than a certain sum per week. A worse
example — indeed one of almost unparal-
leled industrial barbarity — has been re-
corded in the United States, where a
bonus of 25 per cent, was paid if a job
was completed in a set time. A special
bonus was at the same time given by the
employer to the time setter, this bonus
being based on the number of workers
failing to earn the bonus, so that the more
workers who failed to earn the bonus, the
larger the bonus for the time setter.
Consequently the time setter set so short
a time for the job that very few workers
could earn the bonus. A further refine-
ment in cruelty was introduced, the fore-
man being given a special bonus on the
number of men who earned the bonus.
Thus the workpeople, while given a task
by the time setter so severe that few
i 113
MIND AND WORK
could do it, were at the same time driven
by the foreman to do their very best at
this almost impossible task.
Although such extreme cases have not
occurred in this country, yet there are
many instances — far more numerous than
is generally supposed — in which the rate
has been cut here, and it is undoubtedly
an important cause of the deliberate restric-
tion of output by the employee. One of the
absurdest cases on record occurred where
the earnings were originally based on the
performance of a certain task in 5 hours.
The workers finished it in 4 hours, where-
upon the time rate was cut to 4 hours.
The workers then managed to finish
it in 3| hours, whereupon the time rate
was at once cut to 3J hours. The
workers then finished the job in 3 hours,
and the time rate was further cut to
3 hours. But by this time the workers
had learned wisdom. They now took
7 hours for the job. The time rate was
114
RESTRICTION OF OUTPUT
raised to 4 hours, but without effect,
then to 5 hours; whereupon the workers
finished the job in 3J hours. Once again
the time rate was cut, and once again the
job took 7 hours to accomplish !
The remedy for such senseless warfare
is perfectly obvious : systematic investi-
gations in time study must be conducted
at the outset with the approval and co-
operation of all concerned, so as to fix a
fair piece or time rate, satisfactory to all
concerned, which will honestly be main-
tained so long as the working conditions
are not materially changed.
Another cause of deliberate I'estriction
is the fear of disloyalty to less capable
fellow- workers. This can only be safe-
guarded (i) by the establishment (based
on scientific study) of a recognised range
of individual differences of output, within
which workers may feel secure in their
employment (cf. p. 145), (ii) by a proper
selection of workers at the outset according
115
MIND AND WORK
to their special abilities, and (iii) by a
guarantee against loss from unemploy-
ment when arising not through any fault
of the worker.
It may here be pointed out that the re-
striction of output by workers has been
shown in the United States to occur in what
are there called " open shops," i. e. where
there is no trade unionism, as well as in
shops where the men are members of a
trade union. Restriction of output, there-
fore, is not limited to trade unionists.
Output is unconsciously restricted by
workers as the result of a physiological
process of adaptation, protective against
undue fatigue at the end of the day.
The worshipper in church or the child at
school cannot be expected to give un-
remitting attention to his prayers or
lessons; the shorter the period of his
attendance, automatically the better main-
tained will be his attention over that
period. So, too, the worker unconsciously
116
RESTRICTION OF OUTPUT
proportions his efficiency to the length of
his working spell or shift. It is owing to
changes in such unconscious adaptation
that reduced hours have so often yielded
as great an output as was obtained before
reduction, or even an increased output
(cf. pp. 75-77). The unconscious nature of
this process is doubtless indicated by the
fact that the reduction in working hours
may not show its full effect until many
weeks after the change (cf. pp. 77, 78).
Such delay would not occur if previously
there had merely been a deliberate Restric-
tion in output. Shorter hours do not owe
their beneficial effects to increased spurts.
Beyond certain limits, spurts, like drug
stimulants, are in the long run harmful to
efficiency. Riveting competitions and the
like, where work is carried out under
abnormal conditions of volitional tension,
yield no information whatever of the
proper daily output that may be expected
from the worker, nor of restricted output.
117
MIND AND WORK
More or less unconscious restriction of
output by the workers also arises from
general slackness, on the part either of
management or labour, from tradition
("it has always been the custom to turn
out so much "), or from the general
factory routine which would be disturbed
if an increase in production occurred in
any one department.
A few examples of undoubted restric-
tion of output by the workers are here
given. Night after night in a munitions
factory of the United States the output of
sixteen women drilling holes was found to
be 3600 precisely. If the machines stopped
for any reason, they evidently put on a
spurt afterwards, because the output re-
mained constant over the period of ex-
amination; indeed, it Was found that this
spurt was capable of effecting a temporary
increase of from 75 to 90 per cent, (else-
where even from 136 to 142 per cent.) in
speed of production. In another instance,
118
RESTRICTION OF OUTPUT
six women were gauging fuses. Five of
these women, day after day, gauged 1315
fuses exactly. A man, whose output was
observed for 45 nights, while employed in an
operation on fuses, finished, save on one
night, exactly 1000 fuses per night, while
three others, similarly employed, turned out
this number on 47 nights out of 50, 40 out
of 49, and 46 out of 51 nights, respectively.
In the shops of a certain factory in this
country 5000 of a certain article Were
produced weekly. The management de-
cided to open a new shop, in which the
mechanical conditions Were practically the
same as before, excepting that inex-
perienced operatives Were engaged, who
were unfettered by tradition, knowing
nothing about the work. At the end of
six months' practice this new shop pro-
duced 13,000 of the articles per week,
whereas each of the older shops, with its
restriction of output, continued to produce
only 5000.
119
MIND AND WORK
Another case on record concerns six
units of machinery, each of which pro-
duced 2500 articles per week, the total
output being therefore 15,000. It was
decided to remove some of the machinery,
unit by unit, to another factory, and at
the same time to give a bonus on output
to the workmen on the remaining units.
When the first unit was removed, the total
output of the remaining five still kept at
15,000 per week; when the second, third
and fourth units of machinery were suc-
cessively removed, the total output of
the remaining units nevertheless reached
15,000 per week— a final increase in output
of 200 per cent, being thus attained.
A valuable method of detecting restric-
tion of output is to take the average output
of a number of workers on the same job
over a determined period, and to observe
to what extent the output of individual
workers falls short of or exceeds this
average. Excessive uniformity of output
120
RESTRICTION OF OUTPUT
among different workers thus compared is
a sure indication of restriction. The forms
of the individual daily work curves show-
ing the output during each consecutive
hour of the day, are also highly instruc-
tive. If the output rises considerably
during the last few hours of the day, there
is good reason (apart from the effects of
end spurt, cf. p. 60) to suspect that
there has been restriction earlier in the
day. At the same time, it is difficult to
lay down any general rules as to the
effects of restriction on the work curve of
different individuals. While some workers
may prefer to restrict their output earlier
in the day and to make it up, if necessary,
towards the close, others may push hard
at the beginning of the day and slacken
towards the end. But any such depar-
tures from the normal will generally be
revealed by a systematic study of the
individual curves of hourly output.
Where several workers contribute jointly,
121
MIND AND WORK
by team work, to a given job, there is apt
to be uniformity and restriction of output.
This is especially likely to be the case
(i) when a flat uniform day rate is paid,
or piece rate earnings are shared by the
team, in a prevailing atmosphere of dis-
contentment or want of interest, or
(ii) when a uniform task is exacted
throughout each hour of the day. In
one such works the daily output was
fixed at 100 items, and during each hour
of the day a constant output was main-
tained. The daily curve of hourly output
was therefore a straight line. This purely
artificial condition, imposed on the workers
by the management, may have involved
undue effort at the beginning and end of
each spell, but it almost certainly provoked
some restriction of output during the
middle hours of it, for no one can main-
tain a uniform output throughout the day
under natural conditions.
Uniformity of output among different
122
RESTRICTION OF OUTPUT
workers is certain to occur where an exces-
sive number of men are engaged in team
work upon a job. A case of this kind is
on record where men employed in loading
coal at one centre were paid a certain
rate, while those engaged at another centre
on similar work were only being paid two-
thirds of that rate. Seven men left the
latter centre to go to the former because
of the higher rate there, but in two months'
time they returned, saying that they could
not earn so much money at the higher
rate on account of the slackness prevailing
through the large number of men employed
on each truck.
The value of hourly and daily curves of
output has already been emphasised. Effi-
ciency records should be kept of every
machine, showing their variability accord-
ing to the particular machine, the quality
and supply of material, and the skill and
experience of the operative. Records of
this kind, carried out in a Yorkshire cloth
123
MIND AND WORK
mill, have shown that the average pro-
duction per loom per annum (allowance
being made for cleaning time and for
serious stoppages) was only 53 f per cent,
of its possible efficiency; for shorter
periods and for different materials, the
efficiency varied from 75 to 86 per cent.
In many cases it is impossible to deter-
mine how far the management or the
workers are responsible for such restric-
tion of output. It is obvious that where
machinery and transport are deficient,
or where employment is irregular and spas-
modic, the mentality of the workers must
be affected adversely. In the coal mining
industry, for example, the yearly output
in tons per employee in the United States
has been given as 400 in 1887, and as 660
in 1912, rising to 900 during (the spring
of) 1919. In this country, on the other
hand, the figures are 312 for the year 1887
and 244 for 1912. Correspondingly, the
monthly output in this country is given as
124
RESTRICTION OF OUTPUT
19* 4 tons in 1916 and as from 15*4 to 14 tons
for the summer of 1919. There is, natur-
ally, no agreement between mine owners
and miners as to their respective shares of
responsibility for this progressive reduc-
tion in output. But in making com-
parisons, it must be remembered that the
methods of coal mining in the United
States and in this country are far from
being really comparable. In the former
the seams are thicker and more accessible,
the mode of working is much more waste-
ful, and there is about half the number of
workers above surface in proportion to
those below, as compared with this
country.
Between wasteful working, spoilt work
and restriction of output it is difficult to
draw any hard and fast line. An esti-
mated saving of £100,000,000 could be
effected in this country by the standardisa-
tion of wagons and locomotives, by the
establishment of centralised coal depots
125
MIND AND WORK
and electric supplies, by the substitution
of electric traction for steam locomotives,
by the elimination of purely wasteful
competition and overlap, by increased
factory specialisation, and by the proper
utilisation of the waste products of coal
consumption.
Another instance of lessening output in
Great Britain is afforded by the number
of bricks laid in plain walling per worker
per day. In 1885 the number was from
1200 to 1500 per day (the men being paid
by piece rate); but in 1912 it had fallen
to from 500 to 600 per day, and by 1920
to 300 or less per day. This reduction is
largely due to the unsatisfactory conditions
of employment in this industry. Under
the most favourable conditions as revealed
by scientific motion study (cf. p. 17), it
has been found possible to lay 350 bricks
per hour !
According to the British and American
censuses of production for 1907, in 26
126
RESTRICTION OF OUTPUT
leading trades there are roughly 4 British
to 5 American wage earners. Yet the
total production of the two countries is as
1 : 2* 64, the horse power they employ is
as 1 : 3, and the value of output per wage
earner is as 1:2-1. Such differences are
mainly due to bad organisation, restriction
of output, and to deficient supply or abuse
of machinery.
As an example of the abuse of mechani-
cal contrivances, the fact may be cited
that in most engineering shops steel cut-
ting-tools of very different qualities are to
be found side by side, and often indis-
tinguishable from one another, despite the
enormous difference in their cutting speed .
The best carbon tool steel has been found
to have a cutting speed only one-fifth of
that attainable by the best heated air
hardening steel; soft steel can be cut one
hundred times as fast as semi-hardened
steel or chilled iron.
Output can be enormously increased by
127
MIND AND WORK
making fuller use of machinery. It has
been just pointed out that the United
States uses three times as much power per
worker as we in this country. To give
another instance, 50 per cent, of the coal
mined in America is cut by machinery, as
compared with 8 per cent, in Great Britain.
Although, as has been already indicated,
coal cutting in America and Great Britain
has been run on very different lines, it is
difficult to resist the conclusion that a
great deal more could be done towards
increasing the output by the greater use of
machinery in this country, and towards
relieving mankind of occupations which
are so monotonous or so uninteresting that
they are only fitted to be performed by
machinery or by beasts of burden.
In the production of yarn, it has been
calculated that 25 men and 50 boys
now produce by machinery the total
amount of yarn which was produced by
hand 200 years ago, the present working
128
RESTRICTION OF OUTPUT
hours being from six to seven less per
day. The introduction of machinery into
the cotton industry has produced remark-
able results in increased employment.
Before the times of Crompton and Ark-
Wright, there were, it has been stated,
only 8000 operatives in the British cotton
industry; twenty-seven years later there
were 300,000; eighty years later there
were 800,000; and if those engaged in
machine manufacture in connexion with
the industry are included, about 2,500,000
workers are now engaged in it.
Unfortunately most workers hold the
view that the introduction of machinery
must necessarily involve reduced employ-
ment, and it is often overlooked how the
wider spread of motor cars, bicycles,
gramophones and many other things —
simply because, owing to improved machin-
ery, they are now made more cheaply and
in far greater number— has led to increased
employment. The reduced cost at which
K 129
MIND AND WORK
such articles can be obtained is in itself
an equivalent to increased wages, and
their more general use by the community
results in a higher standard of living.
The opposition of workers to the further
introduction of machinery may be also
considered by inquiring what would happen
if, instead of increasing the amount of
machinery, we reduced it. The cost of
hand-made goods would rise to such a
prohibitive figure that few could afford to
buy them ; factories would therefore close
down, and the small market available
could only be met at the cost of a large
reduction in wages. Nevertheless, the
immediate effect of reducing machinery
would result in a demand for an increased
number of workers. So too, conversely,
the immediate effect of increasing machin-
ery must be to throw a large number of
workers out of employment. When, for
example, the linotype was first introduced,
many compositors were reduced to a con-
130
RESTRICTION OF OUTPUT
dition bordering on starvation, although
later, of course, the number of workers
required with the spread of cheaper
printing was enormously increased.
Such fears of temporary unemployment,
well grounded as they therefore are, can
only be met by a guarantee against loss
of wages when it thus occurs through no
fault of the worker. Otherwise there must
always be vigorous opposition to the in-
troduction of improved mechanical devices
leading to increased output. Objections
will still be raised that the increased output
is attained at the cost of good workman-
ship and with a loss of human interest in
the work. But the consideration of this
last factor must be reserved to a later
chapter (Chapter VI).
REFERENCES
ATKINSON, HENRY : A Rational Wages System.
London: George Bell & Sons. 1917.
GANTT, H. L. : Work, Wages and Profits. New
York : Engineering Magazine Co. 1910.
131
MIND AND WORK
GILBRETH, F. B. : Primer of Scientific Manage-
ment. London : Constable & Co. 1915.
HALLIDAY, E. : " The Production of Looms :
Factors that contribute to Maximum Output,"
Journal of the Department of Textile Industries.
Bradford Technical College. 1918.
HICHENS, W. L. : Some Problems of Modern In-
dustry. London : Nisbet & Co. 1918.
Interim Report, Health of Munition Workers
Committee on Industrial Efficiency and
Fatigue. Cd. 8511. 1917.
LEE, F. S. : The Human Machine and Industrial
Efficiency. New York : Longmans, Green
& Co. 1918.
LEVERHULME, LORD : The Sice-hour Day. London :
Allen and Unwin. 1918.
Memorandum No. 18, Health of Munition Workers
Committee. Cd. 8628. 1917.
Report on the Comparison of an Eight -hour Plant
and a Ten-hour Plant. U.S. Public Health
Bulletin No. 106. Washington, 1920.
TAYLOR, F. W. : The Principles of Scientific Manage-
ment. Harper & Brothers. 1916.
TURNER, S. : From War to Work. London : Nisbet
& Co. 1918.
WEBB, SIDNEY : The Works Manager To-day.
London : Longmans, Green & Co. 1918.
WYATT, S. : Individual Differences in Output in
the Cotton Industry. Report No. 7 of the In-
dustrial Fatigue Research Board. 1920.
132
CHAPTER V
SYSTEMS OF PAYMENT
Time rate and output rate — Opposition to payment
by results — Differential piece rates, premium and
bonus systems — Scale of recognised individual differ-
ences in output — Advantages and objections of day
rate — Graded day rate — Collective piece rate and
bonus — Profit sharing — Co-partnership — Present
tendencies.
CHAPTER V
SYSTEMS OF PAYMENT
FROM early times two systems of pay-
ment have existed; the worker being
paid either a fixed time rate for his toil, or
a variable wage according to his output.
These two systems have continued to this
day, despite the profound changes wrought
by the introduction of machinery and by
more complex factory and business organ-
isation. They have, however, been subject
to various modifications and complications,
usually in attempts to combine the advan-
tageous features and to abolish the draw-
backs of each.
The majority of employers and, perhaps,
of individual workers in this country prefer
the system of payment by results to that of
135
MIND AND WORK
payment by day rate, the former because
it affords a stronger incentive to increase
of output and facilitates recognition of the
more industrious workers, the latter be-
cause, under fair conditions, it is capable
of yielding higher wages. Nevertheless,
certain employers, many workers, and some
of the most important trade unions (e.g.
those concerned in engineering, building
and woodwork) are strongly opposed
(through past, often unfortunate, experi-
ence) to payment by results. They urge
that this system creates suspicion, selfish-
ness and dishonesty in the factory and
that it lowers the quality of the output.
Doubtless, with increased care and super-
vision, these dangers may be to some ex-
tent overcome ; but, carelessly introduced,
these remedies may in themselves react
injuriously on the mental atmosphere of
the worker. Under the system of pay-
ment by results, the worker is apt to
think himself regarded as a piece of
136
SYSTEMS OF PAYMENT
machinery, revolving so many times a
minute and capable of being driven still
faster with the prospect before him of
increased earnings. He may prefer a
uniform rate of payment which is less
dependent on fluctuations in his health
and energy or on periods of good and bad
trade. For these reasons a guaranteed
minimum day rate should be combined
with payment by results.
Payment by results has also been opposed
by the worker on the grounds that those
who show the possibility of increasing
output become unpopular with their less
efficient or less industrious comrades, and
that increased output has often resulted
in a repeated lowering (" cutting ") of the
piece rates (cf. pp. 112-115), sometimes
through sheer greed and unscrupulous-
ness on the part of the employer, sometimes
through a fear of the results of excessive
wage earning, to which we shall presently
again refer. Hence a general demand
137
MIND AND WORK
has arisen (i) that the workers shall be
assured that a piece rate, once established
under given conditions, will not be lowered
unless those conditions are admittedly so
changed that the work is performed more
easily and rapidly than before, (ii) that
the weaker workers shall be guaranteed
against unemployment, and (iii) that no
worker shall suffer loss of earnings through
hitches arising from defects in raw material,
tools or machinery over which he has no
control. With these demands unsatisfied,
it is not surprising that in some instances
the introduction of piece rate systems has
resulted in reduced, instead of in increased,
output ; the workers' aim being to restore
the day rate which assured them a definite
wage, and their lack of ambition or their
corporate spirit overcoming any desire for
individual independence.
Other things being equal, the employer
can really afford to pay his workers a
higher rate as their output increases, for
138
SYSTEMS OF PAYMENT
the same overhead charges are now spread
over a larger quantity of manufactured
articles and so the cost of production
becomes materially reduced.
To avoid subsequent rate-cutting, the
employer has come to recognise that before
a rate is fixed, he must have accurate
knowledge of the output which a normal
man should produce. He is beginning
to realise the unreliability of hidebound
tradition, purely theoretical calculation,
rapid guesswork, or an ill-trained fore-
man's estimate. Accuracy can only be
attained by time study systematically
applied (and reapplied at necessary in-
tervals) by expert investigators with the
consent and co-operation of all concerned.
Only by this means can collective bargain-
ing, as it has been termed in the past, be
placed (and maintained) on a scientific
basis, and open dishonesty abolished on
the part both of employees and employers
in regard to output and earnings.
139
MIND AND WORK
Some employers have given practical
recognition to the evil consequences of
undue competition among the workers
and of unwise efforts to increase produc-
tion, arising under the system of payment
by results. In certain cases they have
found that the quality of the Work suffers,
that the amount of spoiled work increases
and that the physical health of the workers
deteriorates. Accordingly, in place of the
" straight " piece rate system, they have
introduced a " differential piece 5! rate
system, in which the scale of payment
is so regulated that the rate per piece
diminishes when production passes beyond
a desirable limit. Or they have introduced
an additional bonus, based on the quality
of the output and on the amount of spoilt
work. In some instances a differential
piece rate, of the kind just mentioned, has
been introduced on the ground that the
greatest effort is involved in the initial
stages of output, and that subsequent
140
SYSTEMS OF PAYMENT
output, being easier to produce, merits less
reward.
In many industries, on the other hand,
the effects of undue hurry or pressure to
secure greater output have not been ob-
served, or perhaps have been disregarded.
Consequently some employers have intro-
duced a differential piece rate based on a
principle diametrically opposed to that
just described. They maintain that in-
creasing output deserves an ever-increasing
rate of reward, inasmuch as the worker's
efforts increase out of all proportion to the
increasing amount of output. Indeed in
some cases, two piece rates have been
introduced, a lower and a higher rate, the
latter only starting when a certain quantity
of output has been produced, the former
being so low that no indolent or inefficient
worker could afford to remain on the job.
It is not only for the immediate benefit
of his own pocket that the employer
tends to cut the piece rate, but also because
141
MIND AND WORK
he finds that large earnings tend to bad
time-keeping on the part of those who
receive them, and to discontent among
other workers who, owing to the nature
of their employment, cannot be paid so
liberally or according to the same system.
In some cases the employer has even
abandoned payment by results, because
his workers kept such irregular times after
having earned sufficient for their weekly
needs ; this, however, argues an incapacity
or unwillingness to consider less drastic
remedies. The dissatisfaction felt by the
less fortunately placed workers in a factory
where some are engaged on a very profit-
able piece rate while others, such as
labourers, clerks and tool makers, can only
be paid by day rate, has been effectively
met by the grant of an adequate bonus to
the latter, all being then jointly concerned
in the productivity and efficiency of the
factory.
It is not surprising, then, that while
142
SYSTEMS OF PAYMENT
the straight piece rate is usually preferred
by the workers to any other form of pay-
ment by results, most employers favour
either (i) the differential piece rate system,
or (ii) some form of bonus or premium
system, in which extra earnings are added
to the day rate and are dependent either
upon the time saved in performing a
standardised task, or upon the percentage
of efficiency attained in relation to a
standardised rate of output. The advan-
tages of the differential piece rate and of
the various bonus and premium systems
have been strongly urged by the pioneers
of " scientific management " in the United
States. There such systems have been
sometimes admittedly devised not only
to incite the worker to produce his maxi-
mum, but also to prevent him from earning
what the employer considers would be an
excessive Wage, and to make it impossible
for the less efficient worker to earn an
adequate living. In America, however,
143
MIND AND WORK
there is (or has hitherto been) a plentiful
supply of immigrant labour, and trade
unionism is, by at least two generations,
more backward than in Great Britain. In
this country, the inhuman, mechanical
features of " scientific management," which
marked the inception of the movement,
have led to its identification with in-
dustrial tyranny and servitude. Properly
applied, however, the bonus and premium
systems are conducive to smooth working,
although they are not unnaturally apt
to rouse in the worker a suspicion that his
bonus or premium represents but a fraction
of the legitimate profits of his work.
Systems of payment by results, other
than the straight piece rate system, have
been opposed by the worker also on the
ground of their unintelligibility. The
remedy for this complaint rests with the
employer; a clear, comprehensible state-
ment should accompany the payment of
all earnings, setting forth how the amounts
144
SYSTEMS OF PAYMENT
payable have been determined. The
worker objects, too, that the rising differ-
ential piece rate system and similar systems
are unfair and disappointing to the opera-
tive whose daily output may happen just
to fall short of the amount necessary for
him to gain a higher rate, and that conse-
quently they lead to dishonest juggling
on his part with the output.
Both employer and operative must
ultimately come to see that low output,
so far as it results from inefficiency on
the part of the worker, can be largely
safeguarded by proper physiological and
psychological tests applied at the outset
of an individual's career (cf . Chapter III) ;
that a range of individual differences in
normal output must be established within
which employment may be continued and
below which change to a more suitable
employment must be effected ; that special
arrangements must be made by the com-
munity to provide a livelihood for those
L 145
MIND AND WORK
of its members who are mentally or physic-
ally incapable of attaining the normal
limits of efficiency in any sphere of work ;
and that a satisfactory wage must be
allowed for those who, through no fault
of their own, are thrown out of employ-
ment.
But it is possible to take the view that
innate differences in mental or physical
ability should not determine the reward for
work, so long as each worker makes the
same effort in using his ability; or that
every man deserves the same pay, what-
ever his natural capacity, just as every
man exercises the same vote whether he
be of unusually great ability or whether he
only just escapes certification as being of
unsound mind. Certain trade unions, as
we have observed, are strongly opposed to
any system other than a uniform day rate,
even making it impossible for a worker
to receive additional rewards for extra
skill or application. Such an attitude is
146
SYSTEMS OF PAYMENT
the inevitable consequence of the evil
labour has suffered in the past at the hands
of unscrupulous employers, especially of
employers who are conducting small in-
dustrial concerns or who have risen to their
positions after passing through the ranks
of labour themselves. For (with out-
standing exceptions) those who are in
command of small units or who have
risen from the ranks make notoriously
the worst officers. It is not surprising,
then, that trade unions regard such systems,
however excellent when properly applied
under sympathetic management, as un-
favourable to the principles of collective
bargaining and to the good comradeship
and organisation of their members.
Under ideal conditions, the day rate
has undoubtedly much to recommend
it. Indeed in certain circumstances and
occupations, where e.g. the highest quality
of work is essential, where measurement
of output is impossible (owing to its
147
MIND AND WORK
nature, its variable character, etc.), or
where sufficiently thorough inspection of
the work is impossible, it is the only
satisfactory method of payment. Day
rate has also the great advantage of allow-
ing a greater variety of work to be per-
formed during the day, thus lessening the
ill effects of monotony. But it makes no
differentiation between the good and the
indifferent worker, and therefore tends to
a standard of mediocre uniformity in output
and quality of production, unless other
interests besides those of payment can
be fostered. The participation of the
workers in management may prove to be
one of those interests ; although it must be
confessed that, save in times of national
danger, the participation of our citizens
in democratic government has not evoked
a much deeper interest in the welfare
of the country, nor has there been an
adequate increase in the amount of unselfish
work they are ready to perform on its
148
SYSTEMS OF PAYMENT
behalf. To a small number participation
in industrial management may afford a
sufficient additional interest ; with growing
education and knowledge, its influence
may be expected to increase. But for
ages to come there must remain among us
a considerable number of brute men for
whom the reward of larger income and of
shorter hours proves the main inducement
for adequate effort, or whom nothing will
stir so long as they are earning a bare
sufficiency for their daily living. Under
present conditions of humanity and society,
day rate needs consequently to be com-
bined, whenever possible, with some form
of graduation of pay according to individual
efficiency. Honesty, quality of output,
amount of spoiled work, length and
punctuality of service — all need to be
taken into account, besides the mere
quantity of work produced. There is
already at least one trade union in which
men are graded according to ability, where
149
MIND AND WORK
if a man considers he ought to be in a higher
grade he applies to his employer; should
the employer not agree, the man can appeal
to his union for an examination; and if
he fails to pass it, he pays the fee, whereas
if he passes the examination, the employer
pays the fee.
There can be no doubt, then, that under
present conditions, a flat day rate for all
is psychologically unsound, unless there be
grades of day rate, rewards for exceptional
performances and adequate opportunities
for promotion to higher grades and for
reversion to lower. A flat day rate can
be combined, as we have already indicated,
not only with a graded pay rate, but also
with a piece rate or bonus system; and
the latter may be dependent not merely on
individual effort but on the total output
or profits, or on the total saving in cost to
the works. This should not only urge
all to do their best, but it should prevent
the jealousy, suspicion and unhealthy
150
SYSTEMS OF PAYMENT
rivalry among Workers, engendered by the
system of payment by individual results.
Indeed the advantages of pooling the
results have been so far recognised that in
certain cases workers and trade unions
have insisted that piece rates and bonuses
should be divided among the workers in a
given shop according to its output. The
results of such " collective," " group " or
" gang " piece rate or bonus systems are
differently appraised, probably according
to the workshop " atmosphere " of con-
tentment or dissatisfaction prevailing. In
some instances it is claimed that the more
efficient workers in the group, feeling that
they are producing for the benefit of their
less expert or less industrious comrades
who will equally share in the results,
content themselves with doing only a
moderate amount of work. In other
instances, on the contrary, it is asserted
that the abler workers exercise a most
beneficial influence on the less efficient,
151
MIND AND WORK
by inciting them to greater activity, by
instructing them in better methods of
craftsmanship, and by generally helping
their Weaker comrades where they need
assistance. Indeed everywhere the work-
shop or office " atmosphere " seems of far
greater importance than the system of
payment in vogue, although doubtless the
latter to some extent reacts on the former.
It is probably not untrue to say that there
is no well-recognised system that cannot
be satisfactorily installed by a sympathetic
management in which the workers have
full confidence.
The method of a general pooling of indi-
vidual results has been extended to the
development of " profit sharing " schemes.
In many instances, however, such schemes
are merely another name for " tips 5!
bestowed on the workers according to the
success of their efforts. The " shares 5!
are usually distributed every six or twelve
months, and the reward is consequently
152
SYSTEMS OF PAYMENT
remote and relatively ineffective in the
case of those who are only capable of
taking a short view of the fruits of labour.
It is also generally very small, averag-
ing in this country only about 6 per
cent, of the wages earned. For these and
other reasons, profit sharing does not
satisfy the individual worker ; he suspects
that an undue share of the profits still
passes into the pockets of the capitalist;
for he is not allowed, and is perhaps in-
competent, fully to understand the basis
on which the rewards received are allotted,
he has no effective voice in the management
of the works to which he belongs, and the
rise or fall of his share may be due to
conditions quite beyond his control, and
may bear no relation to his own effort or
responsibilities.
Profit sharing, therefore, can only be
successful when it is carried out on lines
which are explained to the workers and are
understood and accepted by them ; it must
153
MIND AND WORK
be a true and just sharing of profits, and
must be associated with a share of labour
in the management. So, too, when profit
sharing is extended to " co-partnership,"
the co-partnership must be one which is
true and just, a co-partnership in intellect
and feeling as well as in stocks and shares.
If, as so often, it assumes the form of a
condescending gift on the part of the
directors, if (as in some cases) it involves a
close prying into the home life of the
workers in order to see if they deserve
it, if the workers are debarred from exercis-
ing any efficient voice in management,
co-partnership becomes a system of doles
and acquires all the evils of a charity
scheme. Such schemes do not satisfy
the trade unions because they fear that
they will lose their powers of collective
bargaining and, in particular, that the
share-holding workers will refuse to strike
in aid of their less fortunate comrades in
other factories. Indeed this has sometimes
154
SYSTEMS OF PAYMENT
been avowedly the object of employers in
establishing schemes of co-partnership.
It is therefore not surprising that hither-
to most profit sharing and co-partnership
schemes have met with little permanent
success. But that is no reason why, if
conducted on improved lines, they may
not be successful in the future. Their
psychological value is too obvious to need
indication. There are some who think
that ultimately we shall have profit sharing
not among individuals, not among groups
of individuals, not even among firms, but
in the form of industrial profit sharing, the
profits passing to the industry as a whole
and their allocation being determined by
a joint council representative of all con-
cerned in their formation and acting in the
capacity of co-partners in the industry.
But whatever our ultimate destination,
progress must necessarily be slow until
unselfishness and social service play a far
more prominent part than at present,
155
MIND AND WORK
overriding the narrowness of personal
egotism and the primitive, non-moral eco-
' nomic forces of supply and demand. Of
one thing there can be little doubt, that
the unlimited profits hitherto absorbed by
capital will be regulated by law. When
capital has been paid a due reward for
its services, the remaining profits must be
equably divided among all concerned in
its production. Thus capitalism and em-
ployment will come to be rigorously dis-
tinguished— employment including both
management and labour. To this end
we are clearly approaching, the division
being no longer between management and
labour, but between capitalism and em-
ployment.
REFERENCES
ARMITAGE, H. C. : " Wages and Bonus Systems,"
Engineering and Industrial Management, March
and April, 1920.
DRURY, H. B. : Scientific Management. Columbia
University Studies in History, etc. New York :
Longmans, Green & Co. 1918.
156
SYSTEMS OF PAYMENT
FREY, J. P. : Scientific Management and Labour.
GILBRETH, F. B. : Primer of Scientific Manage-
ment. London : Constable & Co. 1915.
GILBRETH, L. M. : The Psychology of Management.
New York : Sturgis & Walton. 1918.
HOXIE, R. F. : Scientific Management and Labour.
New York and London : Appleton & Co.
LEVERHULME, LORD : The Six-hour Day. London :
Allen & Unwin. 1918.
McKiLLOP, M. and A. D. : Efficiency Methods.
London : Routledge & Sons. 1917.
PROSSER, J. E. : Piece-rate, Premium and Bonus.
London : Williams & Norgate. 1919.
TAYLOR, F. W. : Shop Management. London :
Hill Publishing Co., Ltd. 1911.
TURNER, S. : From War to Work. London : Nisbet
& Co. 1918.
157
CHAPTER VI
INDUSTRIAL UNREST
Industrial overstrain and the war — Overstrain and
loss of higher nervous control — Loss of higher mental
control — "Defence mechanisms" — The extremist em-
ployer and employee — Labour's attitude to Scientific
Management — The worker's envy — The appointment
of a works psychologist — Educational experiments —
Labour and management — Security against unemploy-
ment, and share in management — The introduction
of vocational guidance and selection — The introduc-
tion of motion study — Motion study, craftsmanship,
and trade secrets — Vocational training and its organ-
isation— Functions of a National Institute of Applied
Psychology and Physiology.
CHAPTER VI
INDUSTRIAL UNREST
THE present condition of industrial un-
rest has been widely attributed to the
recent war. When the life of a nation is
at stake, overstrain is to some extent
inevitable ; and when " peace " has been
signed, the effects of such overstrain
cannot fail to manifest themselves. The
writer is himself acquainted with the
managing director of a factory who, with
his works manager, burst into tears when
the latter came to him with the news of
the armistice. The editor of an important
London newspaper complained that his
assistants were breaking down one after
the other when the strain of warfare was
at an end, and were so sensitive that even
the mildest rebuke provoked an outburst
M 161
MIND AND WORK
of emotion. We have ample evidence,
from official inquiries, that during the
war, the factory workers complained of
feeling " stale," " nervy," " done up,"
44 fairly whacked," especially during the
earlier years when excessively long hours,
with Sunday labour and a large amount
of overtime, were so widely adopted. It
is now realised that those conditions of
work were economically unsound, and
that a far greater output would have
been — as indeed in the later years of the
war it was — secured by the proper regula-
tion of working hours, the dangers of
overstrain being correspondingly lessened.
To some extent, as has been just stated,
overstrain was inevitable during the war.
For all classes were harassed by the
demands of military service, by the un-
certainties and sorrows inseparable from
the battle-field, by the restriction of food
and lighting, by the fear of attacks from
hostile aeroplanes, etc.
162
INDUSTRIAL UNREST
Such overstrain must produce a loss of
" higher "' control (cf. p. 46), leading to
the short-circuiting of " lower " nervous
processes, whereby their energy is waste -
fully dissipated. Thus arise that irrita-
bility, restlessness and insomnia, so
characteristic of " neurasthenia." There
is a shortage of reserve force : the brain
feels tired; headache and weakness of
vision are complained of; there is a
general loss of muscular tone throughout
the body— in the muscles of the blood-
vessels, the heart and other visceral organs,
as well as in those of the limbs. The
functions of the viscera are impeded owing
to disturbance in the normal impulses
passing along the vagus and sympathetic
nerves. Those nerves control the organs
of "internal secretion," e.g. the adrenal
bodies, the thyroid gland, etc. Disturb-
ance of the functions of these glands, as
is well known, causes disorder of the
emotions; they (and other mental dis-
163
MIND AND WORK
orders) are also caused by disturbance
of the vascular and digestive system.
Thus disorders on the bodily side of the
organism become reflected in disorders on
the mental side.
Far more important, however, is the
converse relation which the mental dis-
orders more directly induced by overstrain
exert on bodily processes. The failure
of the higher intellectual processes results,
on the psychical side, in a loss of control
over the unpleasant conflicting experiences
of the past, the memories of which, through
such higher control, have hitherto — it
may be unconsciously — been inhibited or
repressed from consciousness. Fatigue
impairs this inhibition, and bygone con-
flicts, together with repressed unsatisfied
impulses and cravings, are now free to
surge forth from the unconscious to which
they have been previously banished. Thus
the mind becomes tormented with the
emotional experiences of the past. YThese
164
INDUSTRIAL UNREST
may be either domestic or industrial. On
the industrial side, the desires and instincts
connected with acquisitiveness, creative
construction, self-assertion, etc., which have
been so strongly repressed among workers
in modern industry and commerce, escape
from bondage. Neither over the worries
of the past, nor over those of the present,
has the self any adequate mastery; and
it has no longer the power to view them
in proper perspective. They are like
restive horses which have escaped from
control and bolt away, bearing their driver
along with them. The emotional experi-
ences thus engendered are accompanied
by over-stimulation of certain organs of
internal secretion, exhaustion of which
reacts in turn harmfully on the organism.
A shortage of psychical, as well as of
physical, reserve force arises.
Thus the overstrained person becomes
unduly irritable, and sensitive, and lack-
ing in self-confidence. He attaches in-
165
MIND AND WORK
ordinate importance to trifling lapses of
morality on his part or to small injuries
received from others. He hugs his fancied
or exaggerated sins, grievances, sorrows
or disappointments, and is unable to
dismiss their worries from his mind.
Nature may come to his aid by sub-
jecting his emotions to the process of
" projection." Instead of continuing to
reproach himself, he may (quite involun-
tarily) come to believe that it is others
that are speaking ill of him; thus are
formed delusions of persecution or sus-
picion. Another way in which the self
may be secured from the effects of undue
depreciation and the feeling of inferiority
is by the process of " inversion " ; undue
shyness may become inverted into bois-
terousness, subservience into defiance,
cowardice into foolhardiness, the desire
for the opposite sex into hatred of it, and
so on. Yet another escape from " facing
the facts " is offered by " rationalisation,"
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INDUSTRIAL UNREST
in which the true causes of one's emotional
conduct are replaced by reasons which are
invented subconsciously but are accepted
with full belief that they are genuine
explanations and excuses for one's feelings
and behaviour.
Such " defence mechanisms," as they
have been called, may come into play
in any insoluble emotional situation. In
some degree they are responsible for the
present pathological condition of industrial
unrest. Each knowing that he has much
to reproach himself for, both employer and
employee unconsciously seek to escape
from consequent self-depreciation by fixing
the blame on the other. In all branches
of industry and commerce, both on the
side of management and of labour, un-
certainty and distrust, irritability and
defiance prevail. Output becomes re-
stricted, and a vicious circle is completed
by the atmosphere of unrest in turn pro-
duced by conscious restriction of output.
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MIND AND WORK
Thus unrest arises not so much from
merely physical overstrain as from the
effects of worries and mental conflicts of
all kinds, e. g. the unsatisfactory conditions
of modern industrial employment and its
failure to satisfy the natural instincts
and emotions (cf. pp. 86, 165), which have
consequently to be suppressed. Home
troubles, dating often from early child-
hood, become another frequent source of
worry. Such worries produce their effect
especially when sown on a favourable soil.
This soil has been called the " psychopathic
disposition " — an innate tendency to
mental instability, sensitivity and dis-
contentment, and to erratic mental
development.
However provoked, such mental in-
stability provokes industrial unrest, not
only general but also individual. The
mentally unstable employee is an irritant
to his fellows, and a nuisance to the
management. His kind is responsible for
168
INDUSTRIAL UNREST
much of the existing unemployment and
labour turnover. Ever restless himself,
he is continually being discharged from
one job to another as a worthless worker.
He becomes more and more unfitted for
a normal environment, and finally joins
the ranks of the unemployable, the alco-
holic, the criminal or the insane.
We now know that, by the timely
application of psychotherapeutic measures
(based on the recent developments of
abnormal psychology), and by a judicious
selection of environment, such workers
can, like early tuberculous patients, be
prevented from going downhill; many
of the emotionally unstable can be healed ;
and many of those with insane " ego-
centric " tendencies or with defective in-
telligence can be prevented from becoming
a danger to themselves or to society.
It would be absurd, then, to attribute
the present industrial unrest merely to the
strain of warfare. Such unrest existed,
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MIND AND WORK
though by many unrecognised, long before
the war. It was becoming more intense
during the period immediately preceding
the war. Employers and employees had
by then become definitely solidified into
separate groups, each imbued with what
has been termed its own " herd spirit,"
each developing purposely or instinctively
its own defences, each resolved to defend
his own position and to demolish that of
the other " herd."
The weapons of defence and attack used
in such industrial warfare may be well
seen in a comparison of the standpoints
of the extremists on the two sides to-day.
The extremist employer, refusing to " face
the facts " of modern industrial conditions,
insists on keeping labour " in its proper
place." He claims the right to deal as he
pleases with the men whom he employs . He
resents interference from outside sources.
He denies any responsibility for the wel-
fare of his workers; their duty being to
170
INDUSTRIAL UNREST
work, his to pay them wages. If he has
been " through the mill " himself, he
argues that " what was good enough for
me when I was a lad is good enough for
you now." He objects to any improve-
ments in education or other social con-
ditions, on the ground that they make the
worker more discontented with his lot.
He regards labour as inevitable drudgery,
and as a commodity purchasable accord-
ing to the strict laws of supply and demand.
His aim is frankly to "score off " it whenever
possible, and to break up the trade unions
which oppose his unfettered progress at
every step. " Let others rise as he has
risen " is his motto— and " the devil take
the hindmost." He looks on the trade
unions as hostile associations bent on
getting for their members as high wages
for as little work as possible, and on
robbing him of what he considers the just
fruits of his enterprise. He argues that
if the workers pursue their present policy
171
MIND AND WORK
of restriction in output, he has the same
right to restrict their pay and their control
over industry. He may long ago have
achieved the ideal from which he set out —
of making a fortune; his continuance as
an employer now being due to an un-
quenchable thirst for industrial adventure,
greater power and fresh conquests.
The extremist employee, armed with
" defence mechanisms " against his feel-
ings of inferiority or self-reproach (cf.
p. 167), smarting under injustice, imagined
or actual, presents a similarly " impossible "
attitude. Why, he asks, should I increase
my power of production, if so large a share in
the resulting profits goes to the capitalist ?
Why is it necessary for the capitalist to
reap enormous interest on his capital
without serious risk, if he is willing to
lend money to the State at the rate of
5 per cent. ? Why should I be in favour
of motion study, if it is going to force me
into a monotonous routine method of
172
INDUSTRIAL UNREST
work and to transfer all craft knowledge
and skill from my possession to the
department of management ? What is
the use of talking to me of vocational
selection, until my " unfit " comrades are
secured from unemployment, and until
true vocations have been established
throughout the world of labour ? Does
the textile industry, for example, offer
a properly organised vocational system,
when 50 per cent, of the boys who enter
it are said to leave it before they reach
the age of twenty -two ? Do you call the
work of a postman or a porter a vocation ?
What chances are offered in such occupa-
tions for escape from a soulless life of
unrelieved monotony ? Are high produc-
tivity, good wages and short hours the
ultimate objects of human existence, or
should not the worker rather aim at a
fuller, more interesting and intellectual
life, and at the exercise of the higher duties
of citizenship ? Is it inevitable that rulers
173
MIND AND WORK
and ruled should continue to exist as
two distinct and opposing classes, and that
the former should be in a position to skim
off from the latter all the cream of leader-
ship and ability in the schools, factories
or businesses, for admission into their
own class and for desertion from the ranks
into which they were born ? As a worker,
I demand an adequate share in the control
of the work in which I am engaged, just
as I have a vote in the government of
my country. I refuse to remain a mere
" hand " ; I want to use my brain. Only
then am I prepared to consider the applica-
tion of scientific organisation and manage-
ment. Before this can be done, the whole
social fabric needs reconstruction.
There is undoubted truth in the positions
of both extremists. In all ranks of society
there are men who merely desire to go
through life reaping the maximum reward
for the least possible effort— men of brute
intelligence, working selfishly for their
174
INDUSTRIAL UNREST
own ends, caring nothing and indeed
incapable of appreciating the needs and
the position of others. Alike among em-
ployers and among trade unions there are
some who have shown an unreasonable
spirit of narrow-mindedness and selfishness.
But in many instances this has arisen
largely from avoidable mismanagement
and misunderstanding in the past, from
efforts to protect their weaker comrades
or to preserve the existence of their own
" herd." The question is, how far will
it disappear with the spread of higher
morality, increased responsibility, im-
proved education and the advancement
of science ?
There can be no doubt that Labour is
rightly opposed in this country to the
introduction of the early American methods
of scientific management. It was at first
conducted there with far too little regard
of the worker's standpoint. The organisa-
tion of Labour in America is still far behind
175
MIND AND WORK
that in this country. Moreover, methods
which may have obtained success in one
part of the world cannot be imported
wholesale into another where conditions
are different. The impartial observer
cannot regard with satisfaction the huge
profits reported from the early use of
scientific management in America and,
at the same time, the relatively insigni-
ficant advance in wages paid therefrom
to the workers. The impartial observer
cannot countenance motion study if its
ideal is to encourage types of workers who
44 more nearly resemble in their mental
make-up the ox than any other type," or
if the worker is to be told — " You know
just as well as I do that a high-priced man
has to do exactly as he's told from morning
till night." Nor can he deny the justice
of the worker's demand for greater in-
dustrial control in these days of govern-
ment by consent, of increasing democratic
spirit in education, and of growth of
176
INDUSTRIAL UNREST
personality and responsibility. Especially
after the experience of the war, for good
or evil, class distinctions are everywhere
breaking down, and the former hard-and-
fast line of cleavage and opposition between
management and labour must disappear
in the course of social evolution. Leader-
ship and management must continue to
exist, but " respect " must be transferred
from mere social position to personal
ability and efficiency.
It is of little use for the employer to
point out to the worker that more than
two-thirds of the profits of capital goes into
the pockets of the employed, or that if the
whole of those profits were divided among
the inhabitants of the United Kingdom,
each individual would get only about a
shilling a day. Whether such statements
be true or not — whether account is, or
should not be, taken of the profits arising
from royalties, and the private ownership
of land and raw material — the worker still
N 177
MIND AND WORK
resents the huge earnings of individual
absentee directors and shareholders. He
is filled with envy at the sight of his
employer's luxurious motor car, the rich
furs and rare jewels of his employer's wife,
the splendid educational opportunities of
his employer's children, when he contrasts
these with his own conditions at home,
when he compares his own intelligence,
or his own insecurity of employment, with
that of his employer, when he realises how
inefficiently management is organised by
the firm employing him. It is but the
natural result of spreading education and
increasing responsibility that he begins
to resent dependence on his employer,
especially if he be so situated that he
sleeps on his employer's property, that
his children are educated in his em-
ployer's schools, and that the very streets
in which he walks are owned by his
employer.
Experience has shown that vocational
178
INDUSTRIAL UNREST
selection and motion study cannot be
begun without the full knowledge and
consent and co-operation of all concerned.
They must be introduced gradually but
not by stealth, little by little but not
unconsciously ; otherwise suspicion and
misunderstanding are bound to arise. The
following instance will serve to illustrate
the difficulties which are to be encountered
and the manner in which they may be
met, in a firm the directors of which were
desirous of appointing an expert worker
in industrial psychology to their factory.
The workers5 representatives were asked
to consider the appointment; and after
its objects had been explained to them in
a lecture delivered by a trained psychol-
ogist, they met and framed the follow-
ing questions which they put to their
directorate. — Will the directors consent
to the formation of a committee of six
persons, half of them to be appointed by
the workers, half by the management,
179
MIND AND WORK
to control and to direct the activities of
the expert ? Will the committee be em-
powered, in case of matters seriously
affecting any section or department of
the works, to meet the sectional or de-
partmental council, and to discuss the
proposed action ? Will the expert not
begin any inquiries or put into force any
fresh methods, until they have been sub-
mitted to the committee ? The directors
agreed that the committee should decide
the sphere of work within which the
expert investigator should work; they
also agreed that if any step proposed by
the expert were considered detrimental to
the interests of the workers, the committee
should be empowered to discuss the
question with the sectional or depart-
mental council before action was taken.
The workers' representatives further asked
—Will the piece rates be cut if there is
increased output ? How will the men on
day rates be affected ? If changes in
180
INDUSTRIAL UNREST
working methods occur, what will happen
to any man who may be thereby displaced ?
To these questions the directors replied
that if a process was revolutionised as a
result of study, a new piece rate would
have to be agreed on, the workers receiving
at least as much for the same amount of
effort as before, and the absolute weekly
wage never being reduced. The directors
also pointed out that if the whole saving
due to motion study were given to
the workers immediately concerned, the
workers in those departments which at
the present time are so efficient that little
or no improvement can be made, would
be penalised and dissatisfied unless the
saving was more widely distributed (cf.
p. 151 ). If motion study were undertaken,
there could never be more than a few men
displaced at any time, as it could be
applied only to one or two processes
simultaneously ; there should consequently
be no difficulty in absorbing such men in
181
MIND AND WORK
a business which is rapidly growing in
efficiency.
In general the trade unions have raised
no opposition to motion study so long as
the workers have been satisfied in the
particular factory in which it has been
introduced. But the satisfaction of the
workers can only be secured by perfect
understanding and by full confidence
between them and their employers ; and
this again can best be obtained by the
co-operation of both in industrial control.
In this connexion it is surely noteworthy
that several educational enthusiasts claim
unqualified success from the introduction
into schools of class-room committees and
courts of justice, appointed from among
the school children by themselves and
responsible for all disciplinary punish-
ments and regulations. Is not this a
possible indication of what may be success-
fully effected in the factory or office ?
An " advanced " teacher divided his class
182
INDUSTRIAL UNREST
into two, pitting one side against the
other in school work as in sport, and
allowing the members of one side to ex-
amine and to " score off ™ those of the
other. Without supposing that scholastic
and industrial conditions are identical, or
that these " advances " are free from
danger, especially under inefficient master-
ship, may we not infer that industry and
commerce have something to learn from
educational experiments of this kind ?
May we not hope for similar experiments
in regard, say, to the abolition of irritating
restrictions and ineffective punishments
and for a method of widely publishing
their results ? If, for example, the worker
be allowed to smoke during his hours of
employment, will he indulge to such a
degree that his work suffers or that his
non-smoking fellow-workers complain ?
The little information we possess rather
indicates that, perhaps after a brief period
of initial excess, he will smoke less than
183
MIND AND WORK
may be expected, owing to the very know-
ledge that he may smoke if he so wishes,
and that he will work better and in greater
peace of mind, no longer running off at
odd moments of the day to obscure places
where he may light a " fag " in secret. Or,
again, is it certain that the present system
of fines and exclusions has any real effect
in reducing bad time-keeping, or that the
practice of "clocking off" at the end of
the day's work is really beneficial to
industry and commerce ?
How and to what extent labour will
take part in management, is by no means
easy of solution. There are extremist
employers who would " die in the last
ditch " rather than admit their workers
to the least share in management. There
are extremist employees who consider
that co-operation between employer and
worker is impossible under present social
conditions, that it would not result in any
permanent benefit to the worker, that the
184
INDUSTRIAL UNREST
workers must appoint the government of
their industry just as they determine the
government of their country. But if,
with the prospect of steering a middle
course between obstinate conservatism and
wild revolutionism, we look at the present
system of parliamentary election, we may
perhaps better realise whither steady pro-
gress will bring us. In the early days of
the House of Commons, its activities and
responsibilities were far more restricted
then now. So any Board of industrial
management on which the workers are
first represented may be expected to grow
more and more " democratic " with in-
creasing age and experience. Despite
popular suffrage, the real control of the
country has suffered only gradual change.
Electioneering bribery is far from being
extinct, although its cruder methods have
long ago disappeared. Many of the same
men — representatives of the same families —
are elected time after time ; ministers are
185
MIND AND WORK
appointed who know practically nothing
of their " jobs 5! and are dependent
principally on the expert advice they
receive from their permanent staff. The
changes towards a true democracy that
have occurred are of a slow evolutionary
character. In a popularly controlled in-
dustry, a similar history may be antici-
pated. Clearly it is a prime necessity that
a body of workers, selected by and from
among themselves, should be forthwith
chosen, who may be trained for the higher
duties of the directorate. Otherwise (un-
less, like many a present director, he is
to sit as a " sleeping partner ") any
representative of the workers, upon being
elected to the board, must spend his first
eighteen months or two years in learning
the complex details of his new environ-
ment; throughout this period he must
repress his instincts to self-assertion and
keep silence owing to his ignorance ; and
then at the lapse of those two years it may
186
INDUSTRIAL UNREST
well happen that the workers will elect
another inexperienced representative in
his place. Whereas if the representatives
were chosen from a popularly elected,
properly qualified body of workers, the
difficulties arising from ignorance and
inexperience would be enormously reduced.
At the present time a large factory or
business may be likened to the Army
or any other Government Service. The
managing director can know as little of his
thousands of employees individually as a
commander-in-chief knows of his soldiers.
The foremen are too often chosen because
of their driving power— their power to
enforce discipline, and their ability to get
the most work out of their workmen.
They are therefore apt to lack the necessary
sympathy and breadth of view. They
become the N.C.O.'s of the factory. As
soon as they are promoted " from the
ranks," they tend to lose what spirit of
comradeship they once shared with their
187
MIND AND WORK
fellow- workers , and to be regarded by
them with the same suspicion and distrust
as they feel so commonly towards their
employers. Like the N.C.O.s', the fore-
men's job is to " get a move on." They
are responsible to their superiors for this
and for the preservation of discipline. It
may lie in their power to give a favourite a
soft job and summarily to dismiss any
worker who has " got up against " them. If
the worker has the right of appeal against
dismissal, the managing director can seldom
(save in cases of most palpable injustice)
reverse the decision of his foreman without
risking loss of discipline among his men
and reducing the foreman's prestige in the
future. The foreman is not going to be
bothered with suggestions from the man
under him. As in the Government
Services, so in industrial concerns, the
easiest line to take in regard to a recom-
mendation is to "turn it down." If he
passes it on to his immediate superior, he
188
INDUSTRIAL UNREST
will himself be considered a nuisance.
Thus all interest and keenness tend to be
smothered under the deadening weight
of mechanical uniformity. The spirit of
interest and initiative in the employee, as
in the private, is too often " broken."
It is not surprising that one so seldom
meets with the complaint of monotony.
There are other conceivable analogies
which may also hold between large firms
and a Government Department, e.g. the
uniformity of pay among different workers
of the same rank despite their different
abilities, the difficulty of removing in-
competent but influential superiors, the
reluctance of lower officials to accept
responsibility for new actions demanded
by new situations, the ignorance of the
lower-grade workers of the meaning of
orders transmitted to them, the implicit
unquestioning obedience expected from
them, the frequency of inter-departmental
jealousies and squabbles, etc. Let us
189
MIND AND WORK
ignore the attitude of the " extremist "
employees who stake all hopes of progress
in violent social revolution. Let us
remember that the extremists form but
a small fraction of employers and em-
ployees—though, it must be confessed,
their influence is out of all proportion
to their numbers. Let us rather turn
to what is likely to satisfy the majority
of those engaged in industry and com-
merce, wrho retain their faith in orderly
progress and in the possibility of recon-
ciliation, and let us examine how some of
the difficulties that confront us may be
met.
There are two fundamental conditions
demanded by the workers which must be
satisfied at the outset, viz. security against
unmerited unemployment and a share in
management; and unless these are estab-
lished, further appreciable progress is im-
possible. Assuming that this has been
done, let us proceed to consider some of
190
INDUSTRIAL UNREST
the remaining changes needed and the
difficulties to be encountered.
Vocational selection is bound to come.
Properly conducted, it must prove an
immense help both to management and
to labour, for it avoids the waste and
torture that result from placing the " round
peg in the square hole." But it needs
applying with judgment and sympathy.
It would be useless to compel an individual
to adopt any calling which the selection
expert considers suitable, and it would
be vain to prevent him from taking up
the work which he insists on attempting.
Vocational psychology can only be ad-
visory, not compulsory, save when it is
applied to select the best applicants for
a vacant job.
So, too, in regard to motion study.
Once an improved method of working has
been established, it would be folly to
demand that all operatives must adopt
that method, if they can show that by
191
MIND AND WORK
another method they can produce the
same quality and quantity of output
without more fatigue. To maintain that
there is but one best method, suitable for
all purposes and adapted to all types of
worker, is a psychological fallacy of the
first exponents of so-called scientific
management (cf. pp. 22, 26), and only
justifies the workers' fears that motion
study will convert them all into blind,
soulless machines. Just as there are
different first-rate styles of piano- or
tennis-playing, just as it is difficult to
know which of these first-rate styles is the
best, so undoubtedly in methods of work,
there are several best styles which are
best suited to different individuals; and
it rests with industrial psychology to
investigate the nature of these differences.
Habitual action is to a varying extent
inevitable in all manual work. The object
of motion study is to arrive at the best
methods of work, and to see that the new-
192
INDUSTRIAL UNREST
comer acquires the habit of using a good
method instead of one which he has picked
up by accident or tradition. For " mud-
dling through " and hide-bound custom are
the worst enemies of progress.
The workers fear that motion study will
rob them of all craftsmanship and will
result in all craft knowledge passing into
the hands of management. They fear
that they will be deprived of " craft skill "
and reduced at most to the possession of
" job skill." Such fears are reasonable
if the study is applied solely in the interests
of management. The deplorable history
of the welfare movement shows what may
happen when a scheme which will largely
benefit the workers is imposed on them
without their co-operation or by persons
improperly trained for the work. Ample
causes must arise for complaint, and a
(generally baseless) suspicion is engendered
that the employer is introducing the
" welfare " movement in his own interests,
o 193
MIND AND WORK
so as to throw dust in the eyes of his
workers which shall blind them to a view
of their helplessness and dependence, or
so as to administer a narcotic which shall
lull them with a sense of false security.
It is therefore essential that the applica-
tion of motion study shall be controlled
by the workers. With the improvement
of their economic position in industry,
craftsmen will no longer find it essential
or even desirable to keep their methods of
work secret. There was a time when the
methods of medicine and surgery were
secret and were transmitted orally from
master to apprentice. But in these days,
only bone-setters and the vendors of
quack medicines conceal their craft know-
ledge; new discoveries are published in
the medical press as they are made, and
they are communicated to students in
the course of training. Is it not obvious
that the secrets of industrial and com-
mercial craftsmanship must sooner or later
194
INDUSTRIAL UNREST
become similar public property ? Not only
the workers but also the employers require
education in this direction. A visitor
may enter a factory where, as a special
privilege, certain trade secrets are shown
him by the employer. He may then
proceed to a neighbouring factory, only
to find the same secrets common know-
ledge and in full practice. In this respect
America is far ahead of this country.
Not long ago, a University lecturer on
industrial organisation approached several
British firms for details of their methods
of planning, routing, costing, etc.; and
he received the invariable reply that such
methods were secret and could not be
communicated. He wrote thereupon to
various firms in America and at once
obtained the information he desired for
his lectures.
The fears of the ill effects of motion
study can only be met by improving the
education and the outlook both of em-
02 195
MIND AND WORK
ployers and of workers; by exhorting
employers to take their workers more
into their confidence ; by providing the
workers with wider economic, literary,
athletic, aesthetic and scientific " continua-
tion ': instruction ; and by instituting
adequate incentives (moral and intel-
lectual, as well as financial) which will
enable them to show keener interest,
instead of apathy and lethargy, in their
work and to take greater pride in the
well-being of the factory or business to
which they belong. They must be pro-
vided with a truly vocational training,
which will fit them for promotion to
various higher posts and enable them to
change from one type of work to another,
so that they may be released from the
soul-starving tedium of monotonous
routine, induced to devise and to com-
municate further improvements, and better
enabled to give play to self-expression and
creation in their work. There was a time
196
INDUSTRIAL UNREST
when a locomotive builder knew all about
the locomotive as a whole ; now all his
life may be spent in making one small
engine part, and he may be ignorant of
any other process or of the relation of his
work to the whole. Clearly the evils of
such specialisation must be combated.
Every occupation must be so far as possible
raised to the dignity of a true vocation by
systematic instruction.
To secure such changes the co-operation
of trade unions is essential. If a brick-
layer is to be trained in some other occupa-
tion which will enable him to work during
times when he would otherwise — through
adverse weather or through industrial
fluctuations — be thrown out of employ-
ment, if the compositor is to be permitted
to relieve the monotony of his work by
an exchange of job with his comrade
engaged in a different kind of printing,
small trade unions must combine with
larger unions, and they will require
197
MIND AND WORK
guarantees that no suffering will occur
through unemployment resulting from such
change or interchange of work. There
are hopeful indications already of the
combination of trade unions, and of their
recognition that higher functions devolve
on them besides looking after the mere
material interests of their members.
Hitherto training has not been ade-
quately organised, either on the side of
capital or labour. Neither management
nor labour has hitherto received any
systematic instruction in the duties it
has to perform. Each picks up his know-
ledge anyhow. The foreman, on being
appointed, settles down to his new work
as best he can. The apprentice may have
the good fortune to be taught by a com-
petent worker who can and will teach, or
he may fall into the hands of a competent
worker who is incapable of teaching or of
one who is wholly inefficient. His oppor-
tunities for learning are largely a matter of
198
INDUSTRIAL UNREST
accident. He may suffer through circum-
stances which are obviously remediable,
and for which he is wholly irresponsible.
These various remedies for individual
unrest depend, for their efficient appli-
cation, on the assistance of an independent
National Institute of Psychology and
Physiology applied to commerce and
industry, established under conditions
receiving the approval and justifying the
confidence both of employers and em-
ployed. Conducted without profit by im-
partial scientific experts, such a National
Institute, which in fact has just started
on its labours, will confer incalculable
benefits by resolving the many difficulties
pertaining to Mind in Work.
\
REFERENCES
ABLER, A. : The Neurotic Constitution. London :
Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. 1918.
ABLER, H. M. : " Unemployment and Personality
— a Study of Psychopathic Cases," Mental
Hygiene, 1917, vol. i. pp. 16-24.
199
MIND AND WORK
ALLBUTT, CLIFFORD : " Neurasthenia," System of
Medicine, vol. viii. London : Macmillan & Co.
BRIERLEY, S. S. : " The Present Attitude of Em-
ployees to Industrial Psychology," British
Journal of Psychology, 1920, vol. x. pp. 210-17.
COBB, S. : " Application of Psychiatry to Industrial
Hygiene," Journal of Industrial Hygiene, 1919,
pp. 343-7.
CRADDOCK, E. A. : The Class-Room Republic.
A. & C. Black. 1920.
HART, B. : The Psychology of Insanity. Cambridge :
University Press. 1916.
JONES, ERNEST : Papers on Psychoanalysis. 2nd cd.
London : Bailliere, Tindall & Cox. 1918.
LEVERHULME, LORD : The Six-hour Day. London :
Allen & Unwin. 1918.
McDouGALL, W. : An Introduction to Social Psy-
chology. London : Methuen & Co. 1919.
SIMPSON, J. H. : Adventures in Education. London :
Sidgwick & Jackson. 1917.
SMITH, G. ELLIOT, and T. H. PEAR : Shellshock and
its Lessons. Manchester : University Press.
1919.
TEAD, ORDWAY : Instincts in Industry. London :
Constable & Co. 1919.
TROTTER, W. : Instincts of the Herd in Peace and
War. London. 1916.
WEBB, SIDNEY : The Works Manager To-day.
London : Longmans & Co» 1918,
INDEX
ACCIDENTS, 54, 55
Acuity, sensory, 89, 94
Adaptation to hours of work,
71, 77, 78, 116
Assembling, movement study
in, 4-6
vocational selection in, 91,
92,99
Bef ore-breakfast work, 70, 71
Bicycle ball factory, reduced
hours in, 77
selection study in, 89
Bleaching factory, rest pauses
in, 72
Blind-alley occupations, 102
Bonus payments, 8, 9, 113,
140, 142-144, 150, 151
Boredom, 48-50, 62, 56
Bricklaying, motion study in,
15, 17
output in, 126
Capitalism, 156, 172, 177-182
Chronocyclegraph, 29-34
Cinematograph, 29
Coal mining output, 124, 125,
128
Co-partnership, 154, 155
Correspondence department,
motion study in, 16
Costing, 4
Cotton folding, motion study
in, 16
industry, output, etc., in,
128, 129
Craftsmanship, 24, 25, 102,
103, 173, 193-197
Day rate, 136-138, 146-151
Dexterity, tests of, 90, 100
Discipline, 182
Dishonesty and piece rates,
136, 139, 145
Distrust. See Suspicion.
Dynamometer as fatigue test,
55,56
Earnings. See Day rate,
Piece rate, etc.
Education, 103, 175, 178, 195,
198. See also Training.
Efficiency, hourly fluctuations
in, 64
of machinery, 123
Emotion, affecting fatigue
tests, 57, 58
affecting overstrain and un-
rest. See Chapter VI.
affecting restriction of out-
put, 112, 122
Ergograph, 43-47
Excitement affecting output in
fatigue, 46
Exhaustion. See Fatigue.
Extremist employers and em-
ployees, 170-174, 190
Fatigue. See Chapter II, also
Boredom, Load, Over-
strain, Reduced hours,
Standing, Tests, Work
curves,
affecting normal inhibition,
46, 163-166
as studied by psychology
and physiology, 39, 40
201
INDEX
Fatigue, caused by defective
illumination, 67
conceptions of, 40-43, 46-51
ergographic measurement of,
43-45
excitement affecting, 46, 53
feelings of, 46
humidity and temperature
affecting, 68, 69
in relation to accidents, 54,
55
piece rate, 140
lost in rest, 71-78
mental tests of, 57-59
noise in relation to, 67, 68
other factors affecting, 69
physiological tests of, 55,
56
spurts in relation to, 60
Foremen, 92, 106, 187-189
Foresight, tests of, 90
" General Impressions," 87, 97,
99, 105
Habit, 15, 21, 48, 49
Herd instinct, 170, 175
Hours of work. See Reduced
hours.
Humidity and fatigue, 68, 69
Illumination and fatigue, 67
Incitement, 61, 71, 74
Individual differences, 20, 22,
86, 88, 115, 121, 145. See
also Chapter III.
Inhibition as cause of
" fatigue," 42, 45, 47-49,
52
Instincts, individual differ-
ences in development of,
86
in industry, 165, 168
Intelligibility of payment
systems, 144, 153
Interest, 23, 48-50, 56, 83,
131. See also Boredom.
Internal secretion, organs of,
163-165
Inversion, 166
Jealousy, 112, 142, 150, 178
Laboratory research, 25-27,
71, 88, 101, 102
Load, 27, 65, 66, 91
Lost time, as indicative of
fatigue, 55, 75, 76
in relation to earnings, 142
Machine Co., The Ferracute,
motion study in, 14
Machinery, use of, 124-131
Machinists, test for, 92
Management, in factories and
businesses, 156, 177, 185-
190
voice of Labour in, 24, 148,
149, 153, 174, 184-187,
190, 193, 194
Material and tools, arrange-
ment of, 3-18
Memory tests, 58, 89, 91
Mental tests. See Chapter III.
" Monday effect," 62
Monotony. See also Motion
study.
in industry, 128, 189
in mental work, 47-52
in muscular work, 45, 49-
52
Motion study. See also Load,
Stop-watch.
chronocyclegraph in, 29-34
cinematograph in, 29
early training in, 15
examples of, 6-18
in the laboratory, 25-27
introduction of, 178-182,
191-198
monotony in, 19-25, 172
principles of, 15-19
rate of movement in learn-
ing, 26, 27
202
INDEX
Motion study, " the " beat
method, 22, 26, 192
Moulding, movement study in,
6-13, 20
Movements, combination of, 18
rhythm of, 18, 19, 63
symmetrical, 18
Movement study. See Chapter
Munitions factories, observa-
tions in, 72, 75, 76, 84, 85,
118, 119
Muscular strength. See Load,
Physical tests
National Institute of Industrial
Psychology and Physi-
ology, 101-103, 199
Neurasthenia, 49, 69, 89, 163,
165-169
Night work, 70
Noise in relation to fatigue, 67,
68
Output, as test of fatigue, 46, 53
deliberate restriction of, 111-
115
detection of restriction of,
120, 121
examples of restriction of,
118-120, 122, 123
in relation to accidents, 55
day rate, 147, 148
holidays, 61
large earnings, 142
machinery, 126-130
overtime, 71, 78
piece rate, 137-141
unconscious restriction of,
71, 111, 116-118
Overstrain, 52, 161-169
Overtime, 71, 78
Physical tests, 91
Piece rate, collective, 151, 152
differential, 140, 141, 143,
145
Piece rate setting, 112-115,
137-139
Planning of factory, 3, 4
Practice, 59, 71
Premium systems, 143-145
Profit sharing, 152-154
Projection, 166
Psychotherapy, 169
Rate cutting, 112-115, 137-
139, 180, 181
Rationalisation, 166, 167
Reaction times, 58, 88, 89, 100
Reasoning, tests of, 90
Reduced hours, 8, 75-78
Representation of Labour in
Management. See Manage-
ment.
Rest pauses, 65, 66, 71-75
Rhythm of movement, 18, 19,
63
" Scientific Management," early
errors of, 22, 23, 25-29,
144, 175, 176
Selection. See Vocationa
selection.
Settlement, 61, 62
Sexual differences, 91
Smoking, 183, 184
Spoilt work, 54, 78, 125, 140,
149
Spurts, 55, 59, 60, 62, 117, 118
Standing and stooping, need-
less, 15, 17, 18, 66
Stenography, test for, 91
Stop-watch, use of, 7, 27-29
Suspicion, 136, 144, 150, 153,
166, 167, 179, 188, 193
Sweet factory, motion study
in, 15
Telephone exchange operators,
selection of, 89
Temperature and fatigue, 68, 69
Tests of efficiency, 145. See
also Chapter III.
203
INDEX
Tests of fatigue. See Fatigue,
Work curves.
Time keeping, 184. See also
Lost time.
Time study, 27-29, 113, 114,
139
Tinplate industry, effects of
improved ventilation in,
69
effects of reduced hours in, 76
Tools and material, arrange-
ment of, 3-13, 127
Trade secrets, 194, 195
Trade unions, combination of,
198
their attitude to motion
study, 12, 182
systems of payment, 136,
146, 164
Training of the worker, 103,
112, 113, 186, 187, 195-
199. See also Chapter I.
Tram-drivers, selection of, 90
Turnover of labour, 84, 85
Unemployment, in relation to
industrial psychology, 105,
116, 146, 181, 182, 190,
198
in relation to use of ma-
chinery, 129-131
Unrest, industrial See Chap-
ter VI.
Variety of work. See Mono-
tony.
Vocational selection and guid-
ance, 191. See also Chap-
ter III.
Vocational tests, correlation of,
100, 101
criticism of, 96, 104, 105
description of, 87-97
their use in Columbia Uni-
versity, 90
industry and commerce,
87-92
vocational selection, 96-
106
warfare, 93-96
Vocations, development of,
102, 173, 196, 197
Wages. See Day rate, Piece
rate, etc.
Wasteful work, 125. See also
Chapter I.
Weariness, 48. See also Bore-
dom.
Work curves, detecting restric-
tion in output, 120, 121
ergographic, 45
incitement factor in, 61, 71,
74
industrial, 53, 54, 121
mental, 40, 58
practice factor in, 59, 71
settlement factor in, 61, 62
spurt factor in, 59, 60, 62,
117
value of, 123
variations in, 62, 63
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