The Wrong Team Spirit
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MUCH has been heard recently about the importance of selecting and training drivers carefully, and of building up team spirit. British Road Services are able to employ specialists for this delicate task, and are fully alive to their responsibilities, but the team spirit existing among their drivers seems to be directed more towards safeguarding their own position than to the furtherance of the organization's interests. A classic instance occurred last week, when employees at a B.R.S. depot ceased work in sympathy with a driver who had been suspended for a week without pay after an accident. In avoiding a boy the man's lorry struck a house after skidding for 114 ft. The management held that the accident was caused by excessive speed and that the Joss of E10 wages was a minor penalty to impose on a man who had done £600 damage to a vehicle and property by incautious driving. The length of the skid marks would certainly suggest that the vehicle was travelling at more than the 28 m.p.h. claimed by the driver. But, the facts of the case apart, a situation in which a whole depot can be immobilized because disciplinary action has been taken against one man is intolerable. It emphasizes the importance of a full inquiry into every applicant's sympathies and general 'attitude towards his employment, as well as into his technical skill, before engaging him. Loyalty certainly cannot be bought solely with high wages and good working conditions. Those benefits can do no more than stimulate an inherent sense of responsibility. That is what so many workers now seem to lack.