The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 3, Issue 4 (August 1, 1928)
Human Engineering — The New Industrial Era
Human Engineering
The New Industrial Era
We are made for co-operation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of the upper and lower teeth. To act against one another then is contrary to nature.—Marcus Aurelius.
Industrial progress is depending increasingly upon the recognition by leaders of industry of the importance of the human element.
The maintenance of right relations is dependent upon a proper application of the golden rule, and the modern name for the science of right relations in industry is “Human Engineering.”
Speaking on this subject, Mr. Charles M. Schwab, Chairman of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, recently said:—
“In their progress during the last half century, engineering and industry have marched side by side. Their development is a remarkable story of scientific achievement. The mobilisation of capital and engineering talent has made possible the large scale industry that is the leading characteristic of the wonderful era of progress in which we live.
“This new industrial order created its own problems—new problems of social and economic aspect requiring the highest type of statesman-like management for their solution. Industry has brought together and welded into single organisations hundreds, sometimes thousands, of human beings with widely different habits of life and thought. For the success and happiness of these human beings, and of society as a whole, it is vitally important that they should adjust their mutual relationships on the basis of fair dealing and co-operation. Here is a problem embodying the recognition of all the differing physical and mental characteristics of individual human beings.
“Need for the solution of this problem brought forth a new concept of the management of business. At the same time it created a new science, a new field of engineering which for want of a better name we call Human Engineering—the practical science of humanising industry and of making the men in it substantial self-respecting workmen, citizens and co-operating factors in the success of the business. This new science recognises that industry is dependent upon mass production, machine processes and technical skill, but that the human element after all determines the progress of a business and its service to the country at large.
“Forward-looking management, as well as farsighted representatives of employees, came to realise that if full benefits were to be had from the creations of the engineers, industry must be viewed as a co-operative undertaking, in the advancement of which every supervisor and every employee was an important factor. They recognised that conflict between capital and labour was destructive of the interests of each; that it was unnecessary and mutually expensive.
“Herein lay a field where expert service in enlisting the interest and confidence and goodwill of the workers became just as important as the study that had been given to the characteristics and utilisation of materials. Out of its solution was to come a new code of economics, a code that aimed not only to provide food and clothing and shelter, but also to elevate society at large and to place a true dignity upon labour, a dignity that would yield a fuller and happier measure of life.
“One cannot reflect on the subject of human engineering without realising the tremendous responsibility that rests upon management in guiding the destiny of mankind.
“What are the reasonable wants of employees, which they have a right to see satisfied as far as conditions of industry permit? I believe they include the payment of fair wages for efficient services; steady, uninterrupted employment; safeguarding of their lives and health, good physical working conditions; a voice in the regulation of conditions under which they work; provision for them to lay up savings, and to become partners in the business through stock ownership; finally, some guarantee of financial independence in old age.
“We have travelled far in our thinking on this fundamental question of reward for service. We have come to have a new viewpoint toward the payment of wages. Our better relationships have brought a clearer understanding of the reciprocal value to national well-being of a class of well paid workers whose buying power is sufficient to take the output of our mass production. We are ambitious to see our workers receive an adequate wage—a wage that is sufficient to afford a worker and his family a decent standard of living with a margin for laying something aside—but we cannot entertain any uneconomic theories as to doles or subsidies. We cannot lose sight of the fundamental law that requires full value in services for wages paid.
“How to measure and relate output and wages on some fair basis has become an important function of management We now realise the essential benefits derived from relating compensation to the contribution made by the individual, with the result that under the stimulus of measured return for service rendered, there is an increasing tendency for men to take a keener interest in the business much as if they owned it. This applies to workers as well as managers.
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Twenty Years Ago.
The staff of the Maintenance Branch, Christchurch in 1908.
“Successful human relatione in industry recognise that the interests of employees and employers are mutual. They must be friends. The very nature of their aim for profit creates an interest in one another's well-being.
“In any human relationships there are, day by day, problems arising in industrial relations which, if not settled with full justice to each, will threaten this bond of friendship. But the need for a medium for preventing or adjusting breaches in relations is not the whole objective of employees and employers. Essentially these two parties have been seeking a medium that would provide a common meeting ground. They have really been seeking for a way of living together which would permit an expression of their personality, and yet cement and increase this friendship. The employee representation movement is such a constructive medium permitting not only settlement of questions on which there is a conflict of interest, but of even more importance, offering an unobstructed channel through which their unity of interest may be promoted.”
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(Elsie Morton photo)
The Forest Primaeval.
The world-famed Waipoua Kauri forest, North Auckland.