In the second place, if the worker discovers that he is being observed secretly, he will feel that he is being spied upon and is not being treated fairly.  The stop watch has too long been associated with the idea of “taking the last drop of blood from the worker.”  Secret observations will tend strongly to lend credence to this idea.  Even should the worker thus observed not think that he was being watched in order to force him, at a later time, to make higher outputs, after he has once learned that he is being watched secretly, his attention will constantly be distracted by the thought that perhaps he is being studied and timed again.  He will be constantly on the alert to see possible observers.  This may result in “speeding him up,” but the speed will not be a legitimate speed, that results to his good as well as to that of his employer.

Worst of all, he will lose confidence in the “squareness” of his employer.  Hence he will fail to co-operate, and one of the greatest advantages of Scientific Management will thus be lost.

It is a great advantage of micro-motion study that it demands cooeperation of the man studied, and that its results are open to study by all.

AN EXPERT BEST WORKER TO OBSERVE.—­The best worker to observe for time study is he who is so skilled that he can perform a cycle of prescribed standard motions automatically, without mental concentration.  This enables him to devote his entire mental activity to deviating the one desired variable from the accepted cycle of motions.

The difficulty in motion study and time study is not so often to vary the variable being observed and studied, as it is to maintain the other variables constant.  Neither skill nor appreciation of what is wanted is enough alone.  The worker who is to be measured successfully must

    1. have the required skill.
    2. understand the theory of what is being done.
    3. be willing to cooeperate.

EVERYONE SHOULD BE TRAINED IN BEING MEASURED.—­Accurate measurement of individuals, in actual practice, brings out the fact that lamentably few persons are accustomed to be, or can readily be, measured.  It has been a great drawback to the advance of Scientific Management that the moment a measurer of any kind is put on the work, either a device to measure output or a man to measure or to time reactions, motions, or output, the majority of the workers become suspicious.  Being unaccustomed to being measured, they think, as is usually the case with things to which we are unaccustomed, that there is something harmful to them in it.  This feeling makes necessary much explanation which in reality should not be needed.

The remedy for this condition is a proper training in youth.  A boy brought up with the fundamental idea of the importance of measurement to all modern science, for all progress, accustomed to being measured, understanding the “why” of the measuring, and the results from it, will not hesitate or object, when he comes to the work, to being measured in order that he may be put where it is best for himself, as well as for the work, that he be put.