The Hidden
Page 15
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Costs of Labour
By George R. Archdeacon
L. ABOUR. is the most important and the most costly item in the repair and maintenance of commercial vehicles. .Many. depot superintendent haggle and fight over rates of pay, but they overlook the fact that labour frequently fails to apply effectively its energy and talent in performing the tasks for which it is paid.
Hard work is supposed to be the only solution for the present economic muddle into which the country has drifted. This is only half the solution, for it is a cornbinatioa of hard work and effective work wherein the solution lies. Efficiency means taking hard work out of work and substituting effective work In a certain factory, bottles were being moved on .a conveyor belt for scraping, wiping, papering and stacking. The girl operators had to reach out to the belt and lift the bottles from the belt to the tables. An investigator had the tables made 7 ins, higher and 23 ins. narrower, a simple change which resulted in an increase in output of 10 per cent. and the girls did not work any harder. .
How many times has one seen mechanics at their work-bench fumbling in the tool-drawer • They turn over everything in the drawer, and finally find the required tool at the bottom. It is used, thrown back into the drawer, and 10 minutes later the same tool is needed again and the same stupid searching repeated.
This misplacing of tools and subsequent search for them is using up the worker's energy ineffectively; moreover, it may take 60 seconds each time. He may repeat this 12 times in a day, making a total of 12 minutes wasted. Multiply this by a similar waste of time on the part of 10 mechanics, and away goes 120 minutes per day.
If they are being paid at the rate of 3s. 9d. per hour they are costing id. per minute. In the search for tools the 10 mechanics will cost 7s. 6d. per day for no return.
Not Value for Money This is an example of the hidden costs of labour_ The term hidden costs is used because the mechanics are not slacking, clock dodging or deliberately wasting time. They are working hard continuously, but they are not returning value for payment received. The loss is not apparent because it is hidden.
In a certain large repair depot surveyed by the writer, it was discovered that many workers were wasting 118 minutes per day of 510 working minutes, yet most of this time they were " busy." . • .
Frank Gilbreath, the World's greatest authority • on " Motion Study," asserts: "There is no wake of any kind in the world that equals the waste from needless, ill-directed and ineffective motions, and the resulting unnecessary fatigue." , All the waste Gilbreath has in mind increases the hidden costs of labour, and in these days of high wages chasing the high cost of living, it is imperative that these hidden costs of labour be hunted down and. exterminated.
The employees are not entirely to blame, as the average skilled craftsman is an honest, conscientious chap, interested in his job and taking a pride in his craft. He does not intend to " pinch " his employer's money. The simple fact is that he has never been trained to value time in minutes. He thinks only in terms of his weekly wage, and a week seems -a long time.
An executive of a well-known equipment concern, in going through his wages accounts, realized that certain of his highly skilled men were being paid at the rate of Id. per minute for a 40-hour week. He made a personal canvass of each class of labour among his 50 employees, and put the following question to each: 'Do you know how much I am paying you for each minute you are employed? " Not one of them had any idea until they had worked it out on paper. Such a state of ignorance must obviously lead the worker to be careless in the use of such trifles as minutes.
All workers are wage conscious, many arc job conscious, but few are time conscious.
The executive to which reference has already been made instituted a system of payment by the minute. This made all his employees time conscious.The new awareness of the flight of time thus created resulted in the output of his company being increased by 7 per cent. during the past 12 months.
Payment by the Minute This system is based on a 40-hour week, for which apprentices begin at a id. per minute, or £2 10s. per week, and can progress by 1,d, per minute, or 25s. per week, to an average rate of Id. per minute, or £10 per week. • This executive asserts that "Our pieference is to have several men entirely non-productive for the purpose of supervision, checking or booking repairs in and out. With regard to the men allocated to supervision, and others connected with productive work, we prefer to segregate these if need be, on the basis that a known expense, which is provided for, is always better than an unknown loss
Despite this closer watching of the minutes; staff relations are excellent, there being a general atmosphere of friendliness in the workshops.
Payment by the minute may seem no better than payment by the hour, as it is merely a change of basic standards of time. The important factor is that it makes the worker time conscious, which, in turn, prompts him to improve his personal efficiency and so increase his output.
Payment by the minute is the next move in psychologically conditioning the mind of the worker, and thereby reducing his sense of boredom with the job The power of suggestion is a most effective stimulant If this be doubted, the following case from the records of the industrial Psychological Society should be considered:- " Girls employed in stoning raisins were overpowered by a sense of frustration and boredom When faced with a mountain of 14 lb of raisins. By the simple trick -of reducing each batch to one of 7 lb.. the output of these workers was doubled."
Payment by the minute has a similar effect: The worker derives a certain degree of stimulation from the realization that during a brief intervaFof time he has produced something for which•he is being paid, and instinctively he speeds up his work in response to approaching remuneration of the next minute.