STENOGRAPHIC FORCE : How to Organise organising a stenographic force, one of the first questions to be considered is the staff is to be composed of male or female stenographers. If i t. is a small staff, and the work is of a highly specialised nature, it is probable that a force of male stenographers will give the best results. on the other hand, the work is that of ordinary business correspondence and i he staff is to be fairly large, the employment of women prove more advantageous. In this stenographic force there are two things which we must have—good material to work with and a direct head capable of getting the best results out of this material. Some hints on the selection of workers are given in the article SHORTHAND WRITER.
When the staff' has been selected, it should be organised so far as possible on the principle of giving each individual member some portion of really important work. The relation of each individual's work to the whole should be carefully explained, not once, but many times. Many a stenographic staff produces an amount of work considerably below what its output should be because the various members have no conception of the work as a whole. Each one sees only his or her portion, and understanding perhaps but little of the real reason for that portion, the work is done in a careless and half-hearted, parrot-like fashion.
The ideal stenogPaphic staff is one in which each member is fitted by training and knowledge to take the place and do the work of any other member. This is a state of perfection which is seldom attained, but ie nevertheless the ideal which should be striven for.
Above all things, in order to get effective work, the staff manager must .
avoid favouritism. He must treat his staff with absolute impartiality, and base his decisions entirely upon business reasons. Nothing is more conducive to the rapid destruction of the morale of a stenographic force than the creeping in of the idea that certain members are favoured over and above others because of personal reasons. Along this line an excellent idea to institute is that of allowing the staff a certain amount of what may be called " sick leave " in addition to the regular two weeks' holiday. For instance, a week's sick leave distributed over a year may be allowed to be taken at the rate of not more than half a day a month, and with the distinct understanding that all other absences must be paid for by the employee. This plan relieves the manager from any suspicion of favouritism in dealing with his staff, puts all upon absolutely the same basis, and relieves the manager from the temptation to overlook absence on the part of particularly capable members of the staff.
A very careful system of records should be instituted, showing the actual amount of work done by each member of the stenographic staff and the cost per letter. It is very easy to reduce all the various items of work to a letter basis. Emir items of one kind, for instance, may take as long as one ordinary letter ; two items of another sort, and so on ; and a proper basis having been arrived at, it is comparatively simple to draw up a schedule which will cover all the work done. Miscellaneous work, clerical work, and special work can all be reduced to the basis of regular dictated letters, so that the daily and weekly totals of the report are given in totals of letters. A record of this nature is of great advantage to both sides. It shows at a glance what letters are actually costing, and the relative value of the various stenographers of the staff. Each particular stenographer's record should be open to inspection at any time by that stenographer, and it is thus possible for each member of the staff to compute his or her earning capacity, based on the average salaries paid. The staff may at first object to the introduction of records of this kind, feeling that they are only another means of driving still harder an already overworked force ; but a little proper and diplomatic explanation of the fact that these records are to be used not only for the benefit of the employer, but also as a basis on which to compute the salary of the employee, will soon show any member of the staff that the records are of quite as great value to the employee as to the employer. By the use of records such as these, the stenographer's actual worth in the office, and his or her exact earnings in pounds, shillings, and pence, can always be calculated at a moment's notice ; and it can be so determined whether stenographers are entitled to an increase in salary or are being paid more than they are worth.
In addition, the record forms an added check on the postage account, as manifestly the postage account should agree with the total number of letters written as turned in on the stenographer's daily report. There is no department in the office which will repay atten,tion better than the stenographers' work. The value of the stenographer is too important to be neglected.