BY ERNEST M. HOPKINS, Manager of the Employment Department of The Curtis Publishing Company, Philadelphia
A paper read at the Annual Meeting of the Society, December 5, 1914
The development of machinery and the later discovery of the sources of power, which made necessary the centralization of machinery within factory walls, imposed upon the industrial world a multitude of problems, which had to do, at first largely with machines and afterwards with the plant—that is, the structure of the building and its arrangement within. Meanwhile, the laborer was taken for granted, and if thought was given to him at all, it was with the promise that he was of lesser concern and that such discontent as he might have could better be quelled than removed. Along with this, there unquestionably has been the assumption that gradually industry was getting to the point where it would be less dependent upon the human factor.
IMPORTANCE OF THE INDIVIDUAL WORKER
Something of the same sort, as regards the importance of the individual, has proved true in industry. The functions of the individual workman have changed but dependency upon him remains. The day of large profits is passing. The time has already passed when knowledge and skill were confined to a few. Machinery and methods of production alike are becoming standardized. One does not see, to any large degree, manufacturing processes carried on in the type of building common fifteen or twenty years ago. Now, attention is centered on the status of the individual worker, and the individual worker is coming into his own as a supremely important subject for study and for development. Industry has become a science. When there is no advantage to one over another in plant, machinery methods, price of raw materials, or opportunity for distribution, varying grades of success will be determined by the intelligence of selection of the personnel and the reasonableness of the adjustments with it.
The production corps as a mass is a necessity of industry, and cannot be done without. No man, however great his capacity, could be omnipresent enough to cover the attendance at numberless machines, or to execute the variety of processes of the modern factory, mill or shop. The efforts of the mass need co-relation and direction, to be sure, and for this the executive exists, but it is not considered now as in some times past, that the executive is the sole necessary adjunct of the institution, and that the productive force exists but to supplement his efforts. The cold logic of the proposition is rather the reverse.
THE SUPERVISOR OF PERSONNEL
Now if that be so, it should not be in any institution that department heads should be called upon to superimpose upon their other duties the necessity for choosing their employees. A man capable of directing the running of a machine, or of a hundred machines to maximum capacity is not necessarily the man who knows best how to get at the available labor supply of the given city or town and to pick from it. That is a separate and distinct function, and must be developed on its own lines. Thus it has become generally accepted that the selection of personnel is work for a special functionalized officer, a man who has made a study of this problem, and who goes at it with the same scientific attitude as that of the man who builds the plant or selects the mechanical equipment.
It should be said that it is true in every concern, unfortunately, that there are a few foremen and sub-managers who feel that in some subtle way their authority and discipline are impaired unless they independently seek their people, interview the applicants originally, and make their own arbitrary selection from them. To these, the establishment of an employment department is an offense and all its operations are anathema. The economic loss of detaching their attention from the operations on which they are specialists on the one hand, or of assigning the interviewing and selection to a subordinate in the department, on the other hand, never appeals to them. It is generally the type of foreman or manager which would most resent any suggestion that another might know anything of his business which most quickly resents the suggestion that a specialist on employment might be useful in sending to him a preferred group of applicants, saving him, at least, the weeding-out process. In the main, however, foremen and managers work heartily in accord with the employment manager and make his work pleasant.
NO FIXED “SYSTEM” FOR SELECTING WORKERS
The waste of money involved in unwise selection and consequent change is beyond the belief of those who have not investigated this. It is not enough that a position should be filled with one who will not botch his work; it needs the best available candidate, and changes as infrequent as may be.
I do not undertake to say that some of the widely advertised methods of judging human characteristics are not all that are proclaimed for them, but I do believe that cause and effect have been mixed under some of these—that the superficial attributes which are accepted as an index may have been developed by past achievement, or lack of it, and that while accurate in regard to this, the index may fail sometimes in determining potentiality.
There is, in my estimation, no “open sesame” which will do for all employment work. It is a matter of records, carefully gathered and scientifically kept, in regard to the sources of supply, special requirements of different departments and individuals, and respective successes and failures. It requires hard work, common sense, and good-natured persistence, wherein it is like most other work.
The position of the employment manager in the organization is of vital importance to the success of the work. He should have a rank which will at least make his work respected for the importance attached to it by the management, while he is gaining respect on the basis of accomplishment. He should report to the general manager or to the officer who fulfills the functions of general manager, whatever his title. I have always emphasized this when asked by a company for suggestion as to the establishment of such a department, or when asked by an individual in regard to going to a company for employment work. If the human element is not considered of enough importance by a concern for its representative to have ready access to its corporate ear, there had best be no pretense of undertaking work having to do primarily with its personnel.
THE HEALTH OF THE PROSPECTIVE EMPLOYEE
If the employment department is to have the fullest possible knowledge of the fitness of the candidate for the position for which he is under consideration, it must have assurance in regard to his physical condition. Therefore, the health work naturally falls into this department. The prospective employe should certainly be capable of the physical or mental effort required for his particular work, and he should be free from any taint that might contaminate his fellows, if he were to be put to work. There are some difficult questions that arise in connection with this, but I know of no safe basis for settlement of these except consideration of the greatest good for the greatest number of the employes. It obviously is not necessary to require examination until an applicant has satisfied other requirements, but it should be required then. Health work is capable of extension far beyond this. It has aroused opposition in some cases because of abuse on the part of employers, who have utilized paid nurses illegitimately in seeking information in the homes.
The effects of health work in great plants have been more clearly shown in the decrease of tuberculosis, perhaps, than in the case of any other specific disease. Of course, the whole tendency toward this disease has been much lessened under modern factory standards. The light and air and all around cleanliness have been the foundations upon which health work should be built. If, now, there is added to these features the prevention of the disease being brought in by the new worker, a still further advance has been made in the general safety. If there can be added to this some system of periodical examination of the employes at work, looking toward the early exclusion of any who may be developing traces of disease, the matter will be as thoroughly safeguarded as possible. It must be recognized, however, that the introduction of a system of periodical physical examination is likely to bring trouble among the older employes. This, however, to a large extent can be eliminated, if it is generally understood that the company proposes to help in the case of any individual whom it finds necessary to lay off because of physical condition. What very naturally arouses strong feeling in the minds of working people is the idea that some impairment of their physical vigor may be discovered and that, in consequence, they will lose their positions, no matter how they may have struggled to keep up their standard of work. If a concern is to undertake the conservation of health among its employes, it needs to act with the utmost discretion and broad-mindedness.
THE ADVANTAGES OF EDUCATIONAL WORK
In any discussion of so-called educational work, which is another phase of the employment department’s responsibility, it is necessary to lay down premises which would have caused much dispute a few years ago but are accepted now, except in the cases of employers who have failed to keep step with modern movements. One of the greatest curses of industrialism now is the settled conviction on the part of many that classes are practically fixed and that employers have every desire to keep the wage earner always a wage earner. It would be worth almost anything to capital if this conviction could be shown to be false.
The mathematics of the proposition is that there is always such a plentiful supply of labor of the lower grades and that the supply rapidly becomes so much smaller as the requirements of intelligence increase, that a company can afford to do very extensive training work itself in developing its lower grades of employes to the point where they are capable of accepting better positions. It must be borne in mind, in this connection, that many an employer and many a manager will oppose this statement in the beginning, who would readily concede its truth, if he should be enough interested to investigate the interest of his business as a whole. It must be remembered that the employer who desires a stable personnel, but the grade of whose work is such that there is constant shifting of employes in his department, is very naturally reluctant to see any system introduced which will bring discontent with their station to his people and will constantly take away from him his more ambitious employes, as they qualify themselves for higher grade work.
Nevertheless, it is becoming all the time more generally conceded that in the long run the concern benefits itself specifically as well as industry in general when it gives every assistance to the individual worker for qualifying to better his position, whether such betterment means transfer from one department to another, or transfer from the particular concern to one doing work of higher grade and, therefore, capable of paying higher wages.
THE EMPLOYMENT DEPARTMENT A MEANS OF BETTERING THE RELATION OF EMPLOYER AND EMPLOYE
In the final analysis, the employment department should be a great service department, representing the interests of employers at all times and especially in the selection of the best available working force, but standing ready, also to see that the interests of employers are further safeguarded to the extent that they should always know the point of view of their working people. Now, anything is capable of various interpretations and, in my belief, the convictions and aspirations of the working people have been all too seldom interpreted sympathetically to the employers. Many times a sympathetic interpretation would have won recognition and usually this interpretation is thoroughly justified. I have always felt that the employment department stood toward the employes engaged through it somewhat in the position of the man who guarantees a note. The department represents the concern to be certain definite things. All machinery of present day industrialism is designed toward holding the worker up to his job. It is not only simple justice but it is for the best interests of capital that some department should make it its prime interest to hold the employe up to desirable standards, as far as his relations with his people go. It is for this reason that the welfare department ought to be classed as a phase of employment work.
Having secured the employe and placed him at his work, it is the desire in any well regulated concern to retain him. He should, therefore, be convinced that the company is interested in doing the fair thing by him as well as getting the utmost from him. It is highly desirable that he should feel contented to the extent that will make him wish to stay with the company rather than to go elsewhere, and also that there should be an esprit de corps which will give him maximum enthusiasm and loyalty.
In regard to the matter of wages, the whole trend of things is toward a more liberal attitude on the part of capital. We grew, a long time ago, away from the theory of “caveat emptor” in trade, and it is recognized to-day that there can be advantage to both the buyer and the seller of a commodity—that it is not necessary for the one to have advantage, that the other should suffer disadvantage. I believe that we are coming to something of the same sort in the buying and selling of labor. The theory is pretty well discarded already that the price of labor can fairly be determined by supply and demand, especially if the demand come from the modern aggregations of capital and the supply be considered wholly as individual units in the negotiations.
THE PLACE OF WELFARE WORK
Welfare work is, of course, variously interpreted in different concerns. In some, it has to do simply with superfine things, while in others it exists as a free-lance proposition, with full liberty to interest itself in everything which its name could be conceived to cover. It is a certainty, however, that it ought to interest itself in fundamental things before it goes in for the luxuries; for instance, it is highly undesirable to ignore the matter of safety devices, prevention of occupational diseases, safeguards against fire hazards and like matters of concern, and meanwhile, provide such luxuries as flower gardens, concerts or lecture courses.
SANITATION OF THE FIRST IMPORTANCE
One of the most frequent causes of irritation complained of has to do with the matter of lavatories, toilets, locker rooms, etc. When you bring in a working force of three, five or ten thousand people and force them into cubby holes to get their street clothes off and their working clothes on, then jam them into crowded elevators of which there is an insufficient supply to carry them to their work, so that it is necessary for them to add from half an hour to an hour on each end of their day in getting to their assigned places and getting away from their work, you will find irritation and discontent more than sufficient to wipe out appreciation of other benefits which may be conferred.
I know one of the most progressive concerns in this country which has given the most radical acquiescence to the claims of its employes in general, but which has so ignored this problem as to have but an ineffectual and thoroughly irritating checking system, which is troublesome in every way. The net result of this is that in spite of all that has been done, the people arrive at work in the morning vexed and go away from it at night delayed and irritated.
It is the belief of not a few that great as have been the strides in the processes of production in the past, there will be advances as great or greater in the near future, as a result of the efficiency which will come from the co-operation of labor and capital, working with knowledge of each others’ interests, for the common purpose of creating an increase in economic wealth, each deriving its advantage therefrom. Such a result will be dependent on employes giving not only a perfunctory and formal attention to their assignments but a loyalty in sentiment and an enthusiasm in accomplishment which will carry the output of productive methods into new realms. It will likewise be dependent upon the employers’ knowledge not only of plants and machinery but also of the temperaments and attributes of their man. This is the most valuable function which the welfare department can fulfill— aiding each to understand the other.
FATIGUE STUDIES NOT TO BE NEGLECTED
The scientific study of fatigue, for instance, has revealed that employers were failing to conserve their own interests in the long hours formerly required. As a result of this, we have the movement toward the decrease of working hours to the point of maximum efficiency where vitality enough can be preserved for interest in participation in those things outside of industry which broaden life, while at the same time relieving worries, leaving the man not only a better citizen but a more effective workman.
Many who would not argue that an employer should shorten hours simply for the sake of giving employes more time to themselves would concede that the employer should know at what point in the number of hours required per day or week he gets maximum production of major quality. It is a matter of record that in various industries an actual increase in output has resulted from decreasing the working hours per day. There is probably a much greater number of industries which could reduce the number of hours without loss of production, at least.
I have personal knowledge of a textile industry in which a reduction of hours from 62 to 57½ was made, in which the superintendents of the mills involved testified that there was no reduction in production and that, if anything, they were getting more. Another well known company discovered, upon analysis of its working conditions, that it could so arrange its hours as to close on Friday night, not opening again until Monday, thus giving its productive corps two days a week. The plan has been entirely successful. Three years ago, a great department store made an analysis of its summer sales and decided that it would make an arrangement by which its people should not come into the store at all on Saturdays during July and August. Since that time, this principle has been adopted by stores in most of the great cities of the country.
There is, of course, some point at which this process stops, but my contention is that the intelligent employer needs to be guided by something aside from precedent. Meanwhile, it goes without saying that when such reduction in hours is made, the employe needs to recognize, as he generally does, that he must put more concentration upon his labor, if he is relieved from conserving his energies for the more prolonged effort.
IMPROVEMENTS SHOULD BE BASED ON ANALYSIS
Intelligent analysis, therefore, of working conditions, that knowledge may be had of them by employers, is not only the employes’ right, but it is due the industry itself. The so-called welfare activities should be founded upon this principle, and if commercially worth while, they must hark back to it continually.
Conditions under which an individual or a small group of individuals might work not uncomfortably may become almost intolerable when hundreds and thousands are gathered and subjected to the regulations necessary when men are assembled in large bodies. State and national inspections are forcing upon the laggards the modern view of the workingmen’s right to work where his life, his safety and his health are endangered as little as may be. There are some lesser things of fundamental sort that are not as rigorously watched, that an employer cannot afford to be ignorant about, and with which a welfare department should concern itself. Opportunities for personal cleanliness, such as running water and washing facilities, including soap and towels; conveniences, such as locker rooms and toilet facilities; essentials to health, such as temperature regulation, ventilation, light and pure drinking water, need constant and solicitous attention. Furthermore, these are rights of employes, and must be provided as such, for if they are given as concessions or benefactions, the co-operative aspect is lost, and they become assumed to be another effort of capital to make labor dependent upon it.
THE EMPLOYER MUST KNOW HIS BUSINESS
The greatest grievance that any group of employes can have against their employers is lack of intelligence in the conduct of their business. In general, we expect leadership to be informed about the path along which it purports to lead, but one of the most disturbing factors in our industrial life has been the employer who has had no further knowledge of where he was going than that he was on his way. The man who assumes industrial leadership is an industrial menace, unless he makes or has made those strides which shall inform him as to the vital facts of his business, such as manufacturing costs, hours of labor required for maximum production, the very great distinction between increased individual wages and increased total expense, and so on. Gradual elimination of seasonal employment and reduction in labor turn-over must be his aim.
The domain of the work of such a department as we have been discussing ought not to be too definitely defined. Its work is bound to be staff work in the main. It offers opportunity for centralization of the practical idealism, now to be found in connection with most industries, and for the adjustments which are so necessary to keep the proportions of things right. Its goal must be to contribute as much as possible to hastening the day when an efficient, profit-making industry, and prosperous, contented workers see their mutual dependence, and live with mutual respect. Such is “the day” toward which we must all look, and our greatest satisfaction must be the fact that every once in a while, as we look, it seems not so far away as when we looked before.
MORRIS L. COOKE: My principal objection to Mr. Hopkins is not his attitude, but this: I am primarily a democrat. I do not want to do anything that does not fit in with the widest conception I can form as to how society will be assisted in what I can say. So, when we talk about the workingman wants, there is the reaction. We can give them a place, I think, that takes that sting out of it, so that this work of the supervisor of personnel is not done with any particular group in mind. Those of us in responsible positions do need the help of just such an agency as Mr. Hopkins is trying to describe. And if we can make it something that applies to all the different grades in the business and all the different people in the industry, men and women, from the top down, it takes that sting away from it.
One of the first things which struck me in reading Shop Management by Mr. Taylor was his reference to the agency used for employment of men. Now it seems to me we can turn this over to Mr. Hopkins’s supervisor, and we are ready to consider the exceptional man, and to come into contact with certain employes where even the supervisor of personnel may feel he is not the man to handle the situation. We should in turn classify any people who are specifically qualified for that work.
What makes me say that is my experience with factory owners. I have what I call my social secretary. If I were going to get the most out of politics I certainly had to perform some of the services formerly performed by the Ward Boss, and when someone was born or died or was sick, or something else happened to them, I must do what the Ward Boss formerly did. So I put on a young woman whom I think of as my social secretary. I have seen factory owners that were not of the kind Mr. Hopkins has in mind. I believe there are more factory owners and others with titles corresponding to that, that hurt this movement more than they help it.
I have in mind now a case of a factory nurse who was used as a spy. I know another factory nurse in a New England establishment that did very good work. But I have found that I must keep away from my social secretary as much as two months at a time without talking to her. I have ascertained that the impression was going out that this young woman went into the homes of the employes—and she always goes to the hospitals when we have any man sick there, and we always have someone there—I found the impression was being created that she was reporting directly to me about these things.
Now, that is an unfortunate opinion for the workmen to have. However benign the employer, the employes do not want to feel that everything that a particular employe assigned to social work knows, goes to the management or to the Board of Directors. This scheme of having a department of personnel acts as a sieve. We must remember that it cannot be efficiently carried on if the employes think the information is going to headquarters.
Another thing suggested by Mr. Hopkins’s talk is this suggestion of social welfare. I was glad to hear him say there were many things that could be done in that department. In Dayton they give a physical examination of every employe that comes into a certain establishment. Now, I believe that is brutal. If you said that everyone should be physically examined, there would be probably 85 to 90 percent examined.
Now, do not let us injure this cause of improving conditions, by being too arbitrary about it, and making the employe feel he is not a part of it. I have had a lot hammered into me in the last three years, and I have found you can work with some pretty high class people and yet have their views differ from yours on many things.
Now, if this is true of people in the higher grades, it is even more so in the lower grades. You must avoid in every way you can, imposing on them rules and systems which they cannot understand. Start with that idea in view and announce your programme, not too loud, get all you can into the first year, and then the next year exert a little pressure, but do it so that no one will know where it comes from, and by and by you will get it completed through a process of psychology, which will be more efficient than by doing it overnight and under pressure.
My experience in the last year, and especially in the last few months, seems to teach me that if you are doing big things—the bigger the things you are trying to do, the more mobile your organization must be,—the less and less you are going to regret losing people. You may lose them because they are going on for their own betterment. But whether they go for this reason or for any other, you have got to get away from the old idea of holding on to people. Undoubtedly unemployment will be reduced by building our organization so that people can stay if it is to their advantage, and your advantage for them to stay; and the more valuable they are to you and you to them, the more unlikely it is that people will change.
H. V. R. SCHEEL: It is admittedly good business to consider the psychological side. Take a case where three men have about the same kind of responsibility, or are doing about the same kind of work, instead of considering them as equal jobs of equal value, it has been found better to arrange them arbitrarily, one above the other as to importance and pay, into a lower and intermediate and an upper grade, so that a line of succession is established and advancement will be possible from one to the other. The result is psychologically that the man in the lowest of the three has something to look forward to, the man in the highest of the three has something to look back upon. It has been worked out satisfactorily with clerks. It is worthy of consideration. The disadvantages of the greater number of changes due to more frequent promotions are taken care of by having the men themselves take the responsibility for breaking in their successors and acquiring the knowledge of the new job under the penalty of forfeiting the chance to advance.
MR. J. M. BRUCE: Some of the points made by Mr. Hopkins have interested me favorably, and it occurs to me that some of the work along these lines which I have succeeded in doing for the American Tobacco Co. may be of interest in this connection.
The company’s sales force is directed from the home office through the supervision of five general districts and under them there are some forty state department managers. These latter have always had the hiring and firing of the salesmen in their hands. In going over the records I found that during the previous four months, 140 men had been hired to fill thirty vacancies and 110 discharged. The salary and traveling expenses of these men who averaged nearly six weeks each in this company’s employ, was a heavy burden of expense on the sales department, not to speak of the disastrous effect of the undisciplined work of inefficient men in the various territories and the disturbing influence of this constant changing on the moralé of the whole organization.
After considerable experiment we evolved the following plan now in effect: I will illustrate with a concrete example. Desiring ten new men in the Middle West, the state department manager needing men in that territory was directed to advertise for applicants and to pick out three or four men for each position to be filled. They were supplied with record blanks worked out by Prof. Walker Dell Scott of Northwestern University—in whose hands the final selection of the men was placed, as will be shown.
These blanks contained specific and searching questions, which had to be answered categorically by the applicants and those responsible persons, either former employers, school teachers or business men acquainted with the applicant. By this means we avoided the usual testimonial with which we are all so painfully familiar—which in the case of a drunkard generally reads: “I have had John Smith in my employ for some time (generally about two weeks) and have found him industrious and honest.—Blank Blank Co.” In the case of a crook the testimonial is changed to read, “I found John Smith sober and industrious.”
With Prof. Scott’s blanks a direct lie was necessary to get one of these men by for further consideration. Quite a few refused to be bothered with so much red tape, and were eliminated. Next a careful examination of the applicant’s physical features was made by a regular life insurance physician, special attention being given to the conditions of the men’s feet as well as the regular organic examination. Some twenty-four passed these preliminary tests and were sent to Evanston to take the final examination. The test started with the simple Binet Simon test to discover persons of arrested mental development, who are utterly unfit to become satisfactory salesmen, and who cannot be detected in a casual interview by the most expert of examiners. Next came simple tests in memory, accuracy of perception, quickness of perception, etc. These tests were made increasingly difficult and consumed some 6 hours. About 7 or 8 were eliminated, or eliminated themselves. Then came the final determining test. Each applicant had it explained to him that to be a successful salesman he must be able to gain and hold the interest and attention of his prospective customer, and that this operation would have to be repeated many times each day. To show the men’s capacity to do this, Prof. Scott, some assistants and some advanced students numbering twelve in all gave each applicant a 5-minute interview on a subject of general interest named by the examiner as the applicant entered the room where the examiner awaited him alone. The last book read—Base Ball—The last play—The good and bad points of the last job—School, etc., were the topics selected by the examiners. Each man was thus required to give twelve 5-minute interviews to twelve different men in an hour. Each examiner graded the men numerically as he found their work relatively interesting, the sum of the ratings and the examinations determining the men’s standing.
Twelve men were selected for work in the school. This school is in charge of an experienced state department manager who had been a school teacher before becoming associated with the company. Two weeks were given to training the men in handling the company’s forms and reports and giving them some knowledge of products and prices. Then four weeks were spent in actual work in Chicago, first in groups under the eye of the instructor and then individually. Nightly meetings were held, in which the men met, told of their failures and successes and had the errors of their work pointed out by the instructor, often with demonstrations of the correct method.
The result of this work is that of the ten men graduated from the school, nine are now with us and are among our best bonus earners. In fact the high man for the past four months over all the salesmen in the company is a graduate of the school. Of course we are able to follow the work of each individual with absolute exactness because the whole force is operated on the task and bonus system. The tests are not anything that could not be given anywhere by a group of ten or twelve trained observers but the point is that they will not be given under the old system of forcing a hard-driven sales manager to do the work himself—hiring and firing is more easier and more conventional.
WILLIAM KENT: I am interested in what Mr. Hopkins said about paternalism and democracy. At a mining village in Pennsylvania I noticed a row of houses built in blocks, and they were of unpainted wood, and in front of them was a miserable wooden pavement, and between the pavement and the house there was nothing but mud and dirt and chickens and pigs. That is democracy, with every man free to do with his own doorway as he feels.
A few years afterwards I was over in Germany. In looking over a coal mine there I saw a room where 2,000 men could hang their clothes on hooks suspended from the ceiling, and take from the hangers his mining suit. There was a room adjoining with 200 shower baths. In Pennsylvania when the men came home from the coal mine, they looked as though they had been in a coal mine, but in Germany the men went home cleaned up with no trace on them of what their business was. They took us then into the German village, and the houses there were built of brick with a concrete stone pavement in front, and they had grass plots in front and each house had a window box with flowers in it. Then they took us into a house and we went in the back yard. There was a pig out there but he was all clean and polished up. Now, that contrasted very favorably with the democracy which was exhibited in Pennsylvania. If it was wrong for the mine owner to do that, then the village should take it up, and have uniform architecture and flower boxes; and whether you call it paternalism or not, I want to say that I would like to see it done here.
CHAS. DAY: I have been greatly impressed by Mr. Hopkin’s able address and believe that he has directed attention to one of the most important subjects with which Scientific Management must deal. Until the matters to which he has referred have been dealt with along substantially the lines suggested, we cannot assume that we are dealing directly with the individual in the broad and helpful manner which is necessary.
I would like to know whether Mr. Hopkins believes tests as a basis for the selection of employees, along the lines suggested by Dr. Munsterberg have, or are likely to prove practicable. For example, in public service work there are certain occupations which are hazardous unless operatives possess the necessary physical and temperamental qualifications. Insofar as I know, specific tests of a scientific character are not applied by any public service companies in the selection of men for such posts. The tests which Dr. Munsterberg developed in connection with the selection of motormen illustrate what I have in mind.
I will be very glad to hear from Mr. Hopkins on this point.
D. M. BATES: I would like to hear from Mr. Hopkins and any other gentleman, as to what, if any, responsibility the concern takes regarding compulsory examinations and medical attention.
About twelve years ago I was with the Bancroft Company in Wilmington, Delaware. One of our young girls was taken ill with smallpox, and we suggested to all the employees in that plant that they be vaccinated. I suppose that 90 percent of all the people in that one plant—400 to 500 people, men and women—were vaccinated. In the four or five years following there were various things that occurred, death or disabilities of one kind or another, and several cases were traced back in the minds of those particular families to that vaccination. I always felt afterwards if we had another such case of smallpox, I would rather go to Siberia than advise vaccination. So I wondered what liability the company sustains in recommendations of that kind—a recommendation to vaccinate.
Five or six weeks ago, at the Lewiston Bleachery a boy with poor sight walked into a strand of cloth running down into our bleach-house from the “gray-room,” and broke his arm in one or two places. We had him properly cared for by the doctor, paid his hospital expenses, and then the question came up as to whether we would pay his weekly wages until he got back. I would have been glad to do that, prior to one year ago. We covered weekly wages for a man for a period of 15 months, and he finally got well and sued us for damages, and the man lost the case. It was defended, however, by the insurance company. We told the insurance company our position, and they advised us in the future to get a release before making wage payments. On the next case that came up, that of this boy, we said, “We will give you the wages; we will pay you, but we must have a release so that you cannot bring any suits against us afterwards.” We said, “If you think you have a suit against us, go ahead and bring it now, but we are not going to pay your wages for six or eight weeks and then have you sue us on top of that.” And I cited to the boy’s father, who was there, this case where we were sued by a man after paying him wages for 15 months.
We had two or three conferences with the boy’s father and the boy, and I talked with them. They signed a release, and we paid the boy’s wages, and now the boy has recovered the use of his arm and is back at work. The arm, however, is not strong and the physician says there is some lack of the bone-making materials, calcium and phosphate, in the boy’s system, which might result in the arm never developing its original strength. This is a matter entirely beyond our control. If that arm does not work out into a strong arm, I would be willing to give the father back the release, if he wanted it, as I have no desire to take any advantage of him should he desire to bring suit. But, this case brings up an interesting point as to how far a concern is responsible for the advice given by its regular physician to one of its employees, who at the time of an accident and afterwards is ready and desirous to avail himself of the physician’s advice and assistance. I would like information on this point.
H. T. NOYES: Do you not find organized labor strongly opposed to physical examinations? It is in our city. Would not a factory having physical examinations suffer in consequence?
MR. HOPKINS: I think the danger of which Mr. Noyes and Mr. Cooke have spoken is very real, but the labor opposition as stated by me, lies in the belief that it may work as a spy system back into the home. At any rate we have the full usefulness of it, although against the company’s position there was a suspicion. It has come to be understood that the employment office does not know what the doctor finds or what advice he gives.
Our whole point is the greatest good to the greatest number. I believe I could get that across to the labor leaders. We are against injecting into our organization an individual who might be a contamination for the rest. We have not ventured to insist upon physical examination. There must be a verification in regard to his heart and his lungs and his teeth. We do not demand perfectly good teeth, but he shall not have an infection in his mouth, or in connection with his heart or his lungs. They must be good.
MR. NOYES: We started physical examination two and a half years ago. It was not compulsory. Seventy-seven percent of the workers submitted to it. We started again one year ago, and this time we made very thorough examination, giving one-half an hour to each applicant, and the fact that we made the examination so thoroughly seems to stimulate the men to make application for examination. And they were so pleased with our examination the second time that all the old employees save five, voluntarily made application. We had some talk with the five, and recommended it, with the result that every person in our plant voluntarily submitted to it. They were pleased with it because the examination was so thorough and the advice we gave them was good. We got it over the second time by giving them very thorough examinations and good advice.
H. P. KENDALL: I am much impressed by what Mr. Noyes said about the favor in which the examination was received by his employees. When I visited his plant he had some 1100 employees; I would not have believed it would have met with such a full response.
There has been discussion in our concern at one time and another about having physical examination but it has always been abandoned on account of the belief that it would make trouble.
We have gone this far, that all women applicants who are accepted must pass the approval of our factory nurse who gives them a superficial examination, who may ask them for a doctor’s examination. This gives her a chance to get acquainted with each accepted applicant, and often she can advise well those whom she rejects. And the factory nurse believes they go away with a better idea of what they shall do for their health than otherwise would be possible.
