It used to be the invariable custom in stores—­it is so still in a few—­to lay off many clerks during the dull seasons.  Now the best stores find that they can better afford to give all their employees vacations with pay.  A clerk coming home after a vacation can sell goods, even in dull times.  More and more employers are coming to appreciate the money value of the Saturday half-holiday in summer.  Hearn, in New York, closes his department store all day Saturday during July and August.  The store sells more goods in five days than it previously sold in six.

THE FILENE SYSTEM OF DEVELOPING EFFICIENT WORKERS There is one department store which has demonstrated that it is profitable to pay higher wages than its competitors, and that it pays to allow the employees to fix the terms of their own employment.  This is the Filene store in Boston, which has developed within the past ten years from a conservative, old-fashioned dry-goods business into an extremely original and interesting experiment station in commercial economics.

The entire policy of the Filene management is bent on developing to the highest possible point the efficiency of each individual clerk.  The best possible material is sought.  No girl under sixteen is employed, and no girl of any age who has not graduated with credit from the grammar schools.  There are a number of college-bred men and women in the Filene employ.

[Illustration:  A DEPARTMENT STORE REST-ROOM FOR WOMEN]

Good wages are paid, even to beginners, and experienced employees are rewarded, not according to a fixed rate of payment, but according to earning capacity.  Taken throughout the store, wages, plus commissions, which are allowed in all departments, average about two dollars a week higher than in other department stores in Boston.

No irresponsible, automatic employee can develop high efficiency.  She does not want to become efficient; she wants merely to receive a pay envelope at the end of the week.  In order to develop responsibility and initiative in their employees the Filenes have put them on a self-governing basis.  The workers do not literally make their own rules, but the vote of the majority can change any rule made by the firm.  The firm furnishes its employees with a printed book of rules, in which the policy of the store is set forth.  If the employees object to any of the rules, or any part of the policy, they can vote a change.

The medium through which the clerks express their opinions and desires is the Filene Co-operative Association, of which every clerk and every employee in the place is a member.  No dues are exacted, as is the custom in the usual employees’ association.  The executive body, called the Store Council, and all other officers are elected by the members.  All matters of grievance, all subjects of controversy, are referred to the Store Council, which, as often as occasion demands, calls a meeting of the entire association after business hours.