Progressive records of each employee's performance are necessary as they serve as a basis for future advancement. Special tests for ascertaining the ability of new employees will prevent to a large extent the great wastage of continuous hiring and discharging. Many psychological tests, special ability and trade tests have been prepared, extensively used and found advantageous. (See INTELLIGENCE TESTS.) While there are many clerical positions which demand the very highest intelligence, all clerical work does not, and much of the simpler clerical work is found irksome when allotted to those capable of a higher grade of activity. Training is extremely important, though often sadly neglected. In some offices the various lines of promotion are laid down and made known to all employees, so they can prepare themselves for advancement. Some offices also have officers who devote their activities wholly to employ ment, and all persons who are to be discharged are referred for final adjudication to this officer—the employment manager. The advantage here is that competent employees are not lost to the organization solely because of the personal pique of some hasty or temperamental officer. The employment manager also ascer tains by tactful questioning the reasons why employees leave, and by a careful, classified record of such reasons is enabled to check bad practices, and to determine any other causes for dissatis faction.
The "rate of turnover," that is, the ratio of em ployees leaving to those on the pay roll, is a most important factor in good office management. An average cost of over $1oo is represented in the training of a new employee who replaces one who has left, so that it is evidently desirable to retain employees for long periods. Turnover is dependent upon many factors. If employees are not properly selected, many replacements will be needed; if salaries are not right, physical conditions bad, or the relations of officers not as they should be, there will be many vol untary separations. A minimum turnover is considered to be about o% annually. Length of service depends upon much the same conditions as rate of turnover.
A routine is a collection of separate operations through which a piece of work successively passes. Division of labour has been highly developed in office work, and few operations are complete in themselves. Routines as a rule are seldom consciously developed but come into existence gradu ally through the use of machinery combined with hand-work. As a result, operations wholly or partially useless and of little or no value to the "finished product"—the result desired—are fre quently found. Methods also have generally speaking a similar evolution, and yield great results from scientific research. Unless both routines and methods are carefully studied, there is apt to be much waste.
To secure maximum results for mini mum effort, a continuous and uninterrupted flow of work is neces sary, and this is one of the most difficult achievements in office work. In the manufacturing of any material commodity the work can be precisely scheduled, step by step, and the maintenance of a steady flow is largely a mechanical problem, as every piece of similar character goes through precisely the same steps. But in
the office there is the added difficulty that office work of similar character does not always take the same course; and even in some work of exactly the same nature, the flow is governed by conditions beyond the control of the office manager. Because of this fact it was, until very recently, considered impossible to plan and schedule office work. Peaks, that is, periods demanding intensified and additional work, were handled either by over time work, or by the permanent maintenance of a sufficient force of clerks to handle them, both plans being evidently wasteful. Analysis of this matter, however, showed that in many cases they could be adequately met by pre-planning. The office force should be well balanced, and sufficiently large to handle average conditions; but a sufficient number of clerks should be trained in several operations. Then by utilizing the idea of the "flying squadron"—a selected group of clerks that can be used almost anywhere in an emergency—most of the minor peaks can be handled without difficulty. Major peaks can be dealt with by a re-adjustment of working force and the employment of extra clerks for positions which require only a minimum of training.
On this subject all the major factors of office management converge, and all have a bearing upon it. Under conditions where all factors have been scientifically studied, clerical output is invariably much greater than in organizations in which they are largely ignored. Thus in the office of the latter character the average output of a stenographer will rarely exceed oo sq.in. per hour, while in a scientifically managed office this particular output will be increased to an average of Zoo sq.in. per hour. The maintenance of the latter rate does not depend alone upon the skill and application of the stenographer—for 20o sq.in. per hour is but 3o words a minute, while the world's typewriting record is over Boo sq.in. per hour—but largely upon other factors outside the control of the operator and decidedly within that of the office manager. As with typewriting, so it is with all other clerical operations; the output usually depends much more upon the efforts of the management than upon those of the individual clerk. The effort should not be to obtain the highest possible output from any individual, but that which should be expected from a first-class worker.
Still another factor which aids in ob taining a high clerical output is an incentive wage of some kind, wherever it is possible to measure the work. The various methods of incentive wage used in other lines of business endeavour have all been tried in the office, some with considerable success, others with disastrous results. In the cases of failure the main causes generally are that (I) work was not properly standardized; (2) not properly measured; (3) steady flow not obtained; (4) work not properly controlled; and (5) no adequate check upon its quality. Piece-work in the office is not so generally applicable, because the worker must have a guaranteed minimum wage, and it is not always possible to supply him with sufficient work to make that wage on a piece-work basis.