7 Dark Roses - Free Audio ebooks

Two or three photographers raise their cameras and

focus on the dismal tableau. Flash bulbs flare, the vice-

president mumbles something unintelligible—and he and

his retinue beat a hasty retreat, returning to the pine-

paneled peace and quiet of the company’s downtown

administrative offices.

A photograph of the vice-president and the lathe

operator appears in the local paper the next day—and in

the company’s house organ the following week. “Mr. Wilbur

Knowall, Bollix and Company’s vice-president in charge of

personnel maintains close contact with the firm’s

employees,” the caption under the picture reads. “He is

shown conducting one of his frequent on-the-job interviews

with Joe Smith, a lathe operat

or who has been with Bollix

and Company for nearly three years.”

The comments of Joe Smith and his fellow production

workers when they see this are best left to the imagination.

The only ones fooled by the transparent stunt are Mr. Wil-

bur Knowall and the company’s so-called public-relations

director.

Self-respecting workers resent such stunts which make a

mockery of what has been called the dignity of labor— and

so would I, if I were an employee of a “Bollix and

Company.” But then, my attitudes about work and toward

labor were formed in the oil fields, where the inflexible gov-

erning rule was: The man who works for you is entitled to

decent wages, decent working conditions—and your

respect.

My years in those oil fields taught me that the men who

actually

the work are most certai

nly entitled to decent

wages and working conditions and their employers’ respect.

I also learned that nothing inspires worker loyalty or builds

worker morale more swiftly than an employer’s recognition

of his employees’ importance

and his sincere interest in

their well-being.

“A man likes to feel what he’s doing is important—and

that the boss looks at him as

a person, not just a number on

the payroll,” is the way a veteran driller once expressed it

to me. “A man always does better if he figures he’s actually

part of the operation, not just a hired hand working on the

job—and it sure makes him feel good if the boss comes

around now and then to see how he’s making out.”

Executives who stay awake nights trying to find better

ways to improve employee loyalty, morale and efficiency

would do well to paste this old-time driller’s words into

their Homburgs. They could spend years searching for a

better answer or more reliable formula. Cheap stunts and

tinselly morale-building schemes are definitely

not

the an-

swer. The average worker is quick to see through the bogus

stratagems inept or inexperienced management personnel

are likely to devise.

The important thing is to let the worker know that he

and his work

are

important to the company—and to

believe it and mean it. Any executive who doesn’t believe

the rank-and-file employees are really important has no

right to be an executive, for he obviously doesn’t have a

sense of proportion or know what makes business tick.

As a matter of fact, it’s not difficult to imagine situations

in which the hourly-wage em

ployee is far more important

than the salaried executive. Thomas Jones may have the

exalted title of third assistant vice-president, and he may—

and probably does—consider hims

elf indispensable. But my

guess would be that he’s far more expendable than, say, a

crack punch-press operator on

the assembly line. Were

Jones to vanish suddenly from the scene, his secretary—

and he’s sure to have at least one—can probably run things

until he returns or until a replac

ement is found for him. In

any event, the company will keep on going without Jones.

But the absence of the punch-press operator might well

slow or even halt a production line—and, in the last

analysis, it’s the production line and the products which

come off it that count most.

The executive who understands and assumes his respon-

sibilities takes every legitimate opportunity to demonstrate

to his subordinates that he considers their work important

and valuable—and that he respects them as workers and as

individuals. And he takes a sincere interest in their well-

being. He does not flatter, patronize or coddle them. He

does, however, always manage to find time to comment on a

particular job that has been especially well done or to

acknowledge the value of a worker’s or an entire

department’s contribution to the success of a project. In

short, he shows by word and action that he and the

company are aware of the workers’ existence and of the

importance of their work. By so doing, he goes a very long

way toward raising employee morale—and when morale

rises, employee efficiency and

production go up while such

profit-devouring headaches as absenteeism and labor

turnover go down.

The good executive does not disdain checking

personally

on working conditions and takes prompt remedial action

when he finds them below standard. A broken rest-room

washbasin may seem a minor thing. But, if the executive-

as a representative of management—gets it repaired before

the shop steward can bring the matter up before the

grievance committee, the executive will be taking a major

step toward building good labor-management relations.

Believe me, the remedies for many labor-management

problems are just about that simple. When the desires and

demands of labor are boiled down to their essentials and

viewed objectively, they no longer loom as the deadly busi-

ness-destroying menaces they are often represented to be.

They shrink and become entirely understandable—and

there is nothing unnatural, immoral or subversive about

them. Labor’s basic desires and demands are succinctly

stated

that oil-fields adage—the right to decent wages,

decent working conditions—and respect. Management

executives accepting this tried and proven rule and

governing themselves by it are able to live with labor

comfortably, successfully—and profitably. As any successful

businessman will tell you, learning to live with labor is

sound business.