Advice To Businessmen On Staff Treatment

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30192, 25 July 1963, Page 16

Advice To Businessmen On Staff Treatment

A good supervisor should set up a card file with pertinent facte on each employee, said Mr D. Sawyer, employee relations manage - of a tyre manufacturing firm, in an address to the New Zealand Institute of Management's human relations conference last evening. Mr Sawyer said the card ' file should include facts such • as each employee’s birthday and his wedding anniversary. Then one could go to the employee on the right day and congratulate 'urn. ''He’ll feel about 10ft tall/' said jlt Sawyer. "It shows . a personal interest in each employee, and that is impoctant to the employee.” Good human relations were pretty much the ability to get along with others, and that was a matter of common sense.

Basic social needs had to be recognised. The need to be "in the know" and to share in decisions should be taken into consideration, because it produced good employee morale. Mr Sawyer suggested that the management could always “guide” the discussion towards the desired result. Other basic needs were a sense of accomplishment, a * need for status and recognition, and the need to pre- • serve dignity and selfrespect. The need for security was all-en bracing, and all these needs should be taken into account in dealing with employees. For many years industry had worried only about employees' physical and economic needs, he said, but social needs were also important. This was learnt first when the Western Electric Company in the United States tried -some experiments in the late !920's. Six girls who assembled components were placed to- - gettver in a sep' ate group and their hours v-ere altered by the addition of mid-morn-ing and mid-afternoon breaks.

plus a reduction of half an hour in their working day. Production went up with each alteration. But it also increased when the girls lost all their advantages and were returned to the original conditions.

This showed that production had no relation to the time element. The girls’ output had increased simply because they felt they were important to the firm and that the firm was taking particular interest in their work.