INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY
86
Vol. 16, No. 1
Employee Loyalty and the Inventive Spirit’ By Clayton L. Jenks 120 BROADWAY, N E W YORK,N.
HAT is the present-day relation between the employer and that employee who gives brain service and does not work merely with his feet and his hands? Does the employer get the service for which he pays? Does he pay for what he gets? Can the inventor, the engineer, or the research worker be hired under that old law of supply and demand a t the minimum bargain prices then prevailing, and be set down in an office or laboratory and made to produce inventions like human sausage machines? There is often a vast gulf between such employees and their employers. It is not surprising, considering modern conditions of employment and the lack of contact between employer and employee, that each may be suspicious of the other. Suspicion breeds greater evils-and it is all so useless, so unnecessary.
W
THEEMPLOYER’S COMPLAINT The employer is ever looking for brains, ability, dynamic energy, and, particularly, business sense. He offers advancement in salary and promotion to positions of responsibility t o deserving employees. But where are they? He scans their records, but often turns away discouraged. The task is too heavy for their weak shoulders. He feels that he must carry the burden himself. He overhears their complaints of unfair treatment and feels the injustice of their misunderstanding. Do they think that he inherited his business and has but merely to clip the coupons 4s they fall due? How many of his employees realize even dimly the dangers, the hardships, the worries involved in giving birth to a new business? The employer knows that not many businesses are born in Wall street with silver spoons and gold-laden godfathers galore. The Carnegies and Wanamakers may be rich and powerful today, but they had to start a t the bottom. Let us ask the young employee who complains of his lot if he can follow in his employer’s footsteps. Has he the nerve, the endurance, the knowledge, and the ability t o start merely with an idea, an invention, a public want as yet unsatisfied, and then mortgage, not only his property, but the very health and happiness of his dear ones so as to be able to build that idea into iron? Does he appreciate the hours of patient study over cost figures, methods of manufacture and distribution, the days of pleading with the banker for financing funds, the sleepless nights planning defensive fights to keep the money barons from taking his business away when i t begins to show promise? Can the employee who spends his evenings playing cards or a t the movies appreciate what “the boss” has had to go through in order t o provide that particular job which the young employee graces by day?
THESENSE
OF
RESPONSIBILITY
When the employee asks for an increased salary, what are some of the arguments? Why, he has worked for the company many years. He needs the money. Smith, younger in the business, is getting more money. Does not a long and faithful service count? Yes, a man’s salary is often raised for these reasons. But is the increase deserved? Perhaps the length of service has actually diminished his efficiency. A salary increase should go with increased responsibility and the ability to hold it. Does the complaining employee seek responsibility or does he shun and fear i t ? He may feel that responsibility belongs to him who has the profits in the business. Is that feeling justified? H e may say that the boss will not give him responsibility, but the time always comes when he has but 1 Received
September 26, 1923.
Y
t o reach and take it. Perhaps something goes wrong in the plant-a great machine breaks down, contracts are in danger, bills for damages loom. Many an employee shrugs his shoulders. He was not to blame. On the other hand, the plant manager feels that i t is his duty to see that the plant carry on smoothly always. He calls for help, advice, anything to start the wheels again, How many employees take up the task, eager to solve the problem, to study and to work overtime, to take responsibility? Yes, how many of these young men are not daily guilty of secretly playing the great indoor game so common to corporations-passing the buck? Is it any wonder that the corporation manager gets discouraged and finds fault with his employees, that he hires new blood and fails to promote the old? Yet there are many employees who are keen to get ahead, who seek the business burdens, who wait their chance to show their worth. Why is it that our young scientists, who yearly graduate from college to the works, so often start first with enthusiasm and then gradually fall back to mediocrity? Is it possible that the failure of the employer to get the best service from such a n employee is his own fault?
THEOTHERSIDE OF
THE
PICTURE
In the small company where the president is Sam and the mechanic Bill, all is well; but as Sam acquires dignity and power he becomes President Jones, Chairman of the Board of Directors, and Bill becomes Mechanic, Clock Number 1272. Sam used to put a friendly hand on Bill’s shoulder and Bill would work nights and Sundays without thought of extra pay. Now Bill’s interest in the company extends only t o his pay envelope. The president in his own super-enthusiasm for the corporation’s success naturally believes that his employees are fired with the same zeal. He fails to realize that the employee is not in the confidence of the directors and does not know the business details, the chances of loss instead of profit, the hundred and one problems that fill the manager with enthusiasm. The worker is limited to his narrow job. Perhaps only his conscience stands there to make him do good work. The officer’s reward may be in direct proportion to the energy and interest he displays in his work. Has the employee a like incentive? Does he profit in proportion to the results he produces? What is the status of the better class of employees, the thinkers, the engineers, the laboratory workers, the inventors? They may produce brilliant plans or inventions and the company profit largely. What is the incentive under which such persons work? Herein has this class of employees been misunderstood and neglected, Herein lies the fault of the employer. Inventors are not in the same class with ordinary wage earners. They should not be classified with Bill. They are of the stuff of which employers are made. They are seeking the chance to struggle up towards the top. They are of the type which makes the world’s progress. The employer’s usual line of complaint should not apply to this class of men; yet often i t does. Why? Because such men may become discouraged, lose faith in both the employer and themselves, and then gradually fall into t h e lower class. THEINVENTOR’S COMPENSATION The lower class worker may be treated well by a kindly and considerate employer. He may have medical care, free lunches, entertainment, athletic fields, and clubs provided. Yet in spite
January, 1924
INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMIXTRY
of i t all he cannot rise t o a position of responsibility, because of inherent mental lacks. The college-trained engineer is not of the type that accepts charity. He disdains the employer’s gratuities. What is offered him in their place? What does he want? An engineer or a research chemist may have been forced into signing a contract or be under an unwritten coercion to assign his inventions to the company. The corporation officials accept his efforts, often brilliant and arduous, in a matter-of-fact manner and perhaps with not even a “thank you,” for that was just what the man was hired t o do-“of course.” Yet in the employee’s mind there is always the query “what do I get out of it?” and his effort is likely to be governed by his compensation. A patent assignment, like other contracts, reads, “In consideration of One Dollar to me in hand paid,” and no dollar is supposed to pass to substantiate this legal fiction; yet a large number of inventors ask, partly jocularly but largely with the thought rankling, “Where is my dollar?” Many a sermon on “loyalty” and “future recognition for services rendered” must the patent attorney or the research director deliver to answer that question; but despite their efforts the enthusiasm of the researcher wanes and the. imaginative products of his brain become fewer as time goes on. The inventor feels unjustly treated and ultimately becomes discouraged, believing that advancement and recognition cannot be had from the employer who does not say “thank you.” Does he hesitate to say “thank you” for fear there will be a request for extra compensation? * The employer aggrievedly replies that the inventor is hired to make inventions; hence he should not be paid twice for the same job. Granted-but did that employer ever try to drive a balky horse? The usual expedients of whips, clubs, pitchforks, and bonfires are of little avail compared with four quarts of oats three times a day for producing speed. Mixing sawdust with the oats may fool the horse, but seldom increases his pep or the day’s rtsults. “Contented Cows” is a good dairy slogan, but it is funny that bovine employees often get more psychological study a i d consideration than human employees. DISCOURAGED INVENTORS
A college-trained man, thoroughly equipped and full of energy, was transferred from a supervising job in the plant to take charge of a restsarch problem involving the correction of a plant method. He tackled it scientifically, first studying the surrounding theories and ascertaining and charting the physical constants of the material involved. Many inventive schemes were proposed and tried. The job was his hobby. Nights and Sundays were spent in the library. The task was difficult and went on for two years. Patent application was filed. Did he get the dollar? No. More than that, he found that his enthusiasm was stirring up opposition. The practical men in the plant believed in letting well enough alone. Their jobs were to keep the routine daily events on schedule time. Any innovation meant upset schedules, readjustments, learning new ways. Their hostility transfused to the plant head, and the researcher then had to defend his theories and schemes before he had sufficient data. The value of research obviously cannot always be foretold. Yet this man had not only to prophesy results, but to explain why he was working so enthusiastically. One’s supply of enthusiasm is limited, and nothing exhausts it like skepticism and ingratitude. This man’s analytical judgment, however, had not been wholly exhaust€d on his research, and he finally turned it upon his own self. He recalled the easier and more serene days when he, too, was a cog of the smoothly running corporate wheel. The outcome was a gradual letting down, until today the research work stands neglected. The man is once more carrying on his part of the routine and apparently his position and salary are better assured Ihan when his head was above the stone wall of research.
87
Psychologically, the man felt beaten. For excuse he said that the corporation could not get out of him something for nothing. Since his salary remained the same, why exert himself? He of course was wrong, for if his enterprise and enthusiasm had carried on to a successful conclusion, recognition would undoubtedly have come from some source, even if from a competitor. A mechanical engineer, thoroughly grounded in his company’s engineering practice after years of work and experience, similarly came to the conclusion that i t did not pay him t o give up his ideas freely, so he stored up sketches of his pet schemes, begrudging help and advice to others, looking always towards the day when he would leave for another job. That day came during the late depression when his employer thought it an economy t o cut down the engineering department. A strong competition seized the opportunity and today that man is dgsigning a competing line of machines under the hope of adequate reward. This is obviously not an isolated example of modern conditions. To be sure, such men have forsaken their ideals. They will: never succeed. On the other hand, the employer loses, too. Those men were inventors. By failing to produce inventions they injured the employer’s business. It is not efficient to let one’s employees do work of mediocre value if they are capable of greater efforts. LOYALTY
The employer feels cheated and talks sadly of the lack of loyalty among employees today. “Loyalty” as Galsworthy has shown in his remarkable play, is a Janus-faced word, the most abused in the vocabulary of the modern corporation owner. Loyalty to what or to whom? That is the question. The employer is loyal to his corporation. “He works enthusiastically, night and day,” ’tis said; the business is never out of his thoughts. Yes, so does any man who owns and runs his own business. He can see the direct relation between effort and profits. It may sound sordid, but money interest is the incentive for much of human progress. Should the employer expect any higher enthusiasm on the part of the worker or any greater loyalty to the corporation than he himself shows? Pievertheless, give many an employee credit for far more enthusiasm-yes, and loyalty-than is shown by the officials themselves; for the research or engineering employee and, particularly, the enthusiast just out of college often works, not with the money purse jangling in front of his eyes and ears, but with an inborn sense of fair play and the still stronger love for a job well done. His salary may not change in proportion as his work succeeds; yet he does his work well because he wants to do his work well, because’ his conscience will not let him do poor work, because he is a scientist. Honesty is a necessary and cardinal quality in all scientific work. A real scientist cannot be dishonest and remain true t o his education and his science. He is loyal to himself and to his ideals. Self-respect may be a stronger feeling than loyalty t o a soulless, intangible, corporate person. Yet, satisfying one’s conscience and love for scientific truths does not feed many mouths. This is a practical age, of struggle for one’s very existence. It is not the good old Southern days of slavery when “Massa Tom” would see that one had enough to eat and “Miss Janie” nursed one back from illness. “What do I get out of it?” is a question both pertinent and proper for every man to ask. The scientist has a trained, educated mind to lease-trained a t the expense of long laborious nights of study and days of sacrifice. He has enthusiasm for inventive work, for mastering new problems. He wants to sell his services and is willing t o give full measure-but let the employer beware of one controlling factor. Killing or limiting that man’s enthusiasm destroys his value as a researcher. Make a work horse out of a thoroughbred Kentucky racer? It cannot be done.
88
INDUSTRIAL A N D ENGINEERING CHEMISTRY EMPLOYEE INCENTIVE
How keep up the scientists’ enthusiasm? There is one simple way. Create an atmosphere of good understanding and of mutual helpfulness. Let the employee feel that good work is appreciated-and paid for. Let the employer encourage the worker to feel a personal interest in the business. .Give him an interest in the business! Any advances looking towards better relations must come from the employer, for he is in the position of power, and the employee may hesitate through misunderstanding or diffidence, or possibly through fear for his job, a fear which strikes many a strong man cold. But cold and enthusiasm for one’s job are diametrically opposite. To thaw out the employee the “boss” must hold out his hand first; he must go more than half way. Let the employer talk with his assistants. Get them together. Explain his plans and business problems t o a considerable extent. Above all, tell them that he is always looking for good timber for positions of responsibility. This sentiment may appear surprising to some plant managers-but it is true, though strange, that the employee often does not understand such axioms of business progress. Let the manager speak out loud and often. I t does not take much effort to warm up a feeling of cordiality and to stir the old fires of enthusiasm in the employee. Even a casual word of thanks for a job well done or a word of encouragement works wonders. Why are the simplest remedies so easily forgotten? But that “thank you” will sometime appear insincere unless followed by more substantial rewards. If the employee through special service directly produces a profit for the company, why should he not enjoy some of the fruits? If he has invented and patented a money-making scheme, why not share a bit with him? He will not expect a large share. For example, there was an employee always prone to harsh criticism of the capitalists He submitted an idea under a suggestion system, and to his surprise received, not only a small check but a personal letter of appreciation from the president. What was his reaction? He returned the check, not with an insulting reply that the reward was too small, but with a cordial note that he was glad to give the company his best service, and that he felt it to be his duty to give freely what inventions and suggestions he might make for improving the company methods as well. BONUSSYSTEM Suggestion systems work with noninventing employees. Why should inventors be excepted from them? It is peculiar, when one stops to think about it, that many employers should be so short-sighted as to fall back on their employee contracts and expect inventors to produce the maximum effort for a fixed salary. That is contrary t o human nature. Extra incentive always pays. Some fair bonus system should be devised, something which depends, not on length of service, but .on individual results. Of course, jealousies and complaints of unfairness may creep in. They are always a part of a corporation’s problems. But that is no reason why sincere effort cannot make a success of some fair plan. It is not feasible to detail a specific plan which will apply to all types of corporations. There are many remedies, but each must be cut to fit the cloth. One simple scheme is to establish the rule that twenty-five dollars, or even one hundred dollars, shall be paid t o the inventor when a patent application is signed. It should be clearly understood t h a t this sum is not the sales value of the invention, but is merely a substantial “thank you,” a bonus for good work. Under such a scheme a prolific inventor could materially improve his salary. Others would have incentive to try. Since the expense to the corporation employer would be negligible, this plan has no serious drawback. If some
Vol. 16, No. 1
employer is skeptical, let him try it even on a small scale and as a temporary measure; he will be surprised a t the results. Loyalty? Let there first be cordiality, mutual respect, reciprocity. Loyalty will follow. Give the brain-working employee incentive, a direct monetary interest in good work. Make him feel that i t pays to give the best he has. It will pay both employer and employee!
Help ‘Wanted’ By J. E. Zanetti NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL, WASHINGTON, D. C.
I
N CONNECTION with the compilation of a list of research problems which is a t present being assembled by the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Technology of the National Research Council, the following problem was submitted by one of our larger manufacturers of dyes : T h e determination of the physical constants of dye intermediates, particularly those of the benzene series. The freezing points and vapor pressure curves of the pure compounds are particularly desirable. In many cases, the published data give only the melting points, which were frequently not determined upon the pure material, and, even in cases where the purity of the substance is beyond question, the melting point was usually taken by the capillary tube method, so t4at the exact melting or freezing point is still to a large extent undetermined or unavailable. The vapor pressure curves of the volatile compounds are also largely unavailable or of questionable accuracy. We are all, of course, proud of our dye industry and willing to aid in its development, and many indeed are the investigations being carried out in our educational laboratories which daily contribute t o its progress; and yet such essential data as the correct physical constants of dye intermediates are sadly in need of revision or even of determination. Here is a great opportunity1 The determinations of these constants do not offer the wide outlook for original investigation that is afforded by explorations in the field of synthetic chemistry, and it is doubtful if they could be used as a subject for a Ph.D. thesis; but they would form excellent subjects for investigators who have only a limited time to give to their research, for example, those who are working for a master’s degree in chemistry. With adequate scientific training a student under proper supervision could turn out in one year, or even less, results which would have immediate value, while a t the same time he would be undergoing the mental training afforded by a piece of work demanding careful manipulation and attention to details. There are between seventy and eighty commonly employed intermediates of the aromatic series. Samples of these, either in sufficiently pure form for immediate determinations or pure enough so that they can be purified for accurate determinations without too much labor, can be supplied by the concern which submitted the problem. The Division of Chemistry and Chemical Technology of the National Research Council will gladly act as a clearing house in assigning t o interested investigators individual compounds for determinations either of the freezing point or vapor pressure, thus avoiding duplication of work. If those interested will write the chairman of the Division what type of investigation they wish to pursue, whether a freezing point or vapor pressure determination, compounds will be assigned t o them and a record kept in this office so that duplication will not occur, so far as the office is concerned. Samples with directions for purification will be forwarded if the assignments are accepted. It is hoped that this appeal will find response in our educational laboratories and that the gap existing in this field will soon be effectively closed to the benefit of all concerned. 1
Received December 13, 1923.
