IDEAL CONDITIONS DIVERSE AS TO DETAIL

Just what would constitute the details of ideal employment conditions it is impossible at this time to say.  These will have to be worked out painstakingly, carefully, and with a true appreciation of the fundamental principles involved, by wise and competent employers and employees.  It is altogether likely that different conditions will be found to be ideal in different industries and probably in different units of the same industries.  One man will maintain ideal conditions by the virtue of his own magnetism and forceful personality, tying his men to himself with the strong bonds of mutual admiration, mutual respect, mutual loyalty, and mutual love.  Another will create ideal conditions principally by the magnificent exploits of his organization.  It is human nature for a man to like to belong to a winning team, to be proud of his connection with a championship organization.  Still, another institution may maintain ideal employment conditions by the good judgment, efficiency, and sincere motives with which it conducts its welfare work.  Still another may approach the ideal by means of profit sharing, bonuses, and other such emoluments.  We have seen and studied organizations in this country and in Europe which very nearly approached the ideal for each of these reasons.  We have also seen some which took advantage of several or all of these.

THE EMPLOYER’S IDEAL

As time goes on, more effective methods of profit sharing will, no doubt, be evolved, methods in which there is greater justice for both employer and employee.  New ideas will be developed in welfare work as the result of scientific methods of employment.  Employer and employee will learn to understand each other better.  The success of all of these methods of organization, when they are adopted, will cause their spread throughout the industrial world, and thus gradually, but surely, we shall approach that ideal organization where every employee is looked upon as a bundle of limitless latent possibilities; where training, education, and development along lines of constructive thought and feeling are held to be of far more importance than the invention of new machinery, the discovery of new methods, or the opening of new markets.  This is the reasonable mental attitude.  Some obscure employee, thus trained and educated, may invent more wonder-working machinery, discover more efficient methods, and open up wider and more profitable markets than any before dreamed.  Even if no such brilliant star arises, the increased efficiency, loyalty, and enthusiasm of the whole mass of employees, lifted by its improved relationships, will yield results far beyond any won by mechanical or commercial exploitation.

THE EMPLOYEE’S IDEAL