TECHNICAL MEN : How to Secure technical schools all over the world are turning out thousands of men annually, it is still true that the business world can use almost twice as many technical graduates as are now being supplied.
The technical man is the autocrat of the business world. His genius is the foundation of the large majority of commercial enterprises, and on his advice almost every business depends for success. The technical man conies closer to the life of every great business than any other class of worker. Technical men are difficult to secure because they know their own value better than any other class of employee, and unless the business will stand frequent changes, the employer must be prepared to pay the full market price, and even by doing this it is difficult to ensure the permanence of men. Competitors will be constantly trying to engage the best ones.
As a general thing newspaper advertisements are not a successful method of reaching the best technical men. The really capable technical man usually has so many offers open to him through his own eflbrts that he does not read the " situations vacant" column, and these advertisements, as a rule, bring answers from men who are out of work through their own incompetence or unreliability. If willing to pay the right price the trade papers and technical journals offer an excellent means of reaching the most desirable class of men. The scarcity of technical men emphasises that a system in every business for keeping records of available technical men of all kinds is necessary.
Considerable difficulty will ba experienced in securing proper draughts men, one great trouble being that almost every technical man who is a draughtsman wants to get off the board and keep off: Very often he will accept a lower salary for the sake of getting into some other kind of work. While this is true of technical graduates, it is the height of ambition of mechanics and men who have had no technical training to become draughts men. This ambition should be encouraged, for such men often prove competent workmen, and are generally better at draughtsman's work than the technical graduate. The average draughtsman is lacking in familiarity with shop work. He does not know how to make drawings that can be handled most easily in the shop, and often he produces designs which cannot possibly be worked out. A knowledge or shop work being so desirable in draughtsmen, it pays to keep an eye on the men in the shop and encourage those who have the necessary ability and ambition.
Only a trained technical man who can rightly measure experience in others can successfully engage and oversee the work of chemists, technical men, and draughtsmen. Remember always, with technical men it is what a
man has done, not how he looks or what he says, that proves his fitness or unfitness for a position. Personality counts for practically nothing, and not infrequently the most capable technical man is one whose personality is almost a disgrace to any high-class establishment.
When engaging a technical man one thing should never be overlooked— his capacity for work. No matter how routine his duties nn .y be, be sure he is a man of ambition who will make himself master of all his work, and by study outside office hours keep pace with the progress of the engineering world. Only a man who does this can hope to achieve success for himself and give the best possible return for the salary paid. Too much preference is frequently given to the all-round technical man who can turn his hand with fair success to several different branches of technical work. In small establishments such men are almost a necessity, but in larger concerns it is better to engage men who have had special training and experience in a single line. k \Alen a large staff is arranged so that there is a large number of versatile but mediocre men instead of a few specialists, the chances of success in that particular business are materially reduced. No department of business needs more tact in managing men than the technical department. Technical men are prone to jealousy even though the cause may seem petty to outsiders, and the fact that in many instances any one of several men can step into another's position at an hour's notice, or even less, is apt to make them independent and restless.
In any business which requires technical men it will pay to use every effort to get the best the market offers, and exercise great care in handling them so that they will remain permanently and show the best results of which they are capable. The loyalty and enthusiasm of capable men will increase in proportion to their knowledge of the general aim of the business, its success and its possibilities. The training of any employee, whether it is in the technical or the sales, organising or clerical department of the business, should have for its object the man's interest, his loyalty and his ability to fill not merely his present position but a more responsible one. The task of developing his ability should begin the day he is engaged, and never cease no matter how far he advances; and every man should receive complete and definite instructions, not only concerning his particular duties, but con.
cerning the duties of every man in his own and other departments, so that he may work intelligently and in harmony with the rest of the organisation.