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EDITORIAL

25th October 1974
Page 21
Page 21, 25th October 1974 — EDITORIAL
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

Productive effort?

How many of the productivity schemes which were such a prominent feature of the Sixties have stood the test of time? It is a question worth asking now that the Common Market Commission is dedicated to outlawing bonus schemes 8% hich could put road safety at risk. And the question of safety and productiyity payments does not end at the cab door: at a recent work-study conference it was stated (though in a slightly different context) that to put chargehands on a shop bonus was a ticket to disaster.

Bus workshop schemes reported in Management Matters in this issue appear to have stabilized costs and raised wages over a period of about two years. After that, it seems that the familiar "wage creep" began to be felt, and now it is necessary to consider second-generation schemes in which at least part of the original bonus element will have to be consolidated into the basic pay, and the productivity advance will have to be bought for a second time.

If, as seems fairly common, productivity schemes tend to run out of steam after two or three years, this raises the inescapable question of whether the whole exercise really pay s off. "Successful" bonus schemes in a sizeable company can involve a y ear of planning and yvork, with joint meetings, the expense of consultants, the diverting of management from other tasks and in some cases the risk of upsetting hitherto good industrial relations. This is not to condemn productiy it'. schemes — there is eyidence of really worthwhile advances in some cases — but to question whether the whole apparatus is not too often used as a means of introducing improvements which management should have achieved any way. Quality of workmanship stems from good basic training and sound super's ision; and sound super's ision should include the identification of areas where below-standard skills need to be eliminated by training or job transfer, lYithout the whole paraphernalia of consultancy.

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Organisations: Common Market Commission

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