The planning room is the chief service aid of the superintendent and the foreman on tech nical matters. It may, in a typical instance, contain a routing or order-of-work clerk in charge of the planning board, an instruction card clerk, a clerk in charge of time slips and cost records; and it will probably serve also as headquarters for the engineer who calculates the proper speed of machinery, and the time study man who studies manual opera tions.
From the foregoing statement of duties it can be seen that the general superintendent has a very wide range of responsibilities. To be able to function efficiently, in the face of the enormous evolution of science and tech nique which has taken place in recent years, he should confine himself to general supervision, entrusting details to a staff of specialists. There has grown up in the best-managed busi nesses a number of service departments or staff aids for the express purpose of relieving the general superintendent. Such are the tool room, the stores department, the engineering department, the designing and drafting room, the inspection department and the planning room. Usually also the cost department and the employment department will be answerable to him. To a considerable degree the differ ence in efficiency of manufacturing enterprises depends upon the ability of the superintendent to comprehend the functions of service depart ments, and his success in organizing about him a staff of specialists who relieve him and his foremen. An executive blockade ex ists in many businesses because the general superintendent and foremen are overloaded. The remedy is to apply the principal of special ization and division of labor in administration, as it is applied among the craftsmen and com mon laborers in the shops.
Administration of Personnel Within the last 15 years, the attention of busi ness executives has been increasingly drawn to the problem of employment management, or as it is sometimes called, "human engineering." For years the demand of labor organizations, and the waste and violence of strikes, have made the "labor problem" synonymous with a class contest over the sharing of the product. Recently, the relation between employer and employee has begun to take on a different character. It has been found that a great many things can be done which will benefit both. A field of harmonious policies has
opened itself. The labor problem begins to appear to he a matter of the careful selection of men for their work, the provision of com fortable working conditions, the prevention of accidents, the safe-guarding of health, the care ful setting of wages on the basis of an honest study of all the facts, including the cost of living, and a variety of activities which develop interest in work, loyalty to a common cause, and the mutual welfare. Experience has proved that these problems can best be handled by having a separate department of the busi ness, which can devote itself to them; and by putting in charge of this department a first class executive. The movement to install such officers is a resultant of progress in accounting, staff organization, functional foremanizing, vo cational guidance, industrial training, the new wage systems, safety first, hygiene and medical aid, and the use of the committee system of shop management. The functions of the em ployment department are, for the most part, not new in industry. They are now being gathered together under one authority so that they may be handled in a more expert manner, that they may be harmonized into a consistent policy, and that they may be made the definite responsibility of competent officers. Among the causes which are responsible for the atten tion now being given to personnel supervision is the extension of cost accounting to the fac tors which influence labor efficiency. The cost of labor turnover is being calculated. The cost of accidents, of sickness, of absenteeism, of improperly placed men and of strikes is being studied. The employment manager is, in one sense, a labor-cost accountant. The organization of an employment department does not involve an increase in the cost of doing business. On the contrary, it means an economy, by reason of a reduction in the number of persons to be trained, a saving of foremen's energy, a reduction in accidents and a gradual increase in the average skill and experience of employees. Proper employment conditions attract superior workmen, and gen erate a co-operative spirit; this affects favor ably the rate of production, the waste of stock and the quality of output. See LABOR TURN