DO WOMEN MAKE GOOD EMPLOYERS?

Evening Star, Issue 15907, 13 September 1915, Page 2

DO WOMEN MAKE GOOD EMPLOYERS?

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*~— — . .INSTANCES OF UNCONSCIOUS CRUELTY. The entrance of women into commercial and professional life has inevitably increased the number of women employers. Twenty-five years ago women emplovers consisted mainly of ladies engaging governesses and domestic servants. To-~dav; however, we have an enormous number of women, who employ members of their own sex in various capacities, and the question "is the modern woman a wise and considerate employer?'" naturally suggests itself. —Women Distrust Women.— In the first place, there can be little doubt, I think, that the great army of housewives who engage domestic help are kind and thoughtful mistresses. Economic conditions, if not their own goad instincts, compel women to treat servants kindly.' The average domestic is well housed, well fed, and well paid, and the educated girl who accepts a position as a governess is far more to be pitied than the cookgeneral or house-parlormaid in tho same establishment. On the whole, however, it cannot be honestly said that women make such good employers as men, and one hears very often a young girl exclaiming " Oh, I would much rather work for a man than for a woman." Women have an instinctive distrust of their own sex as employers, and the distrust is not altogether unjustified. —Deficient in Business Sense.— Women who are employers are generally lamentably deficient in justice, or, to put it less "harshly, they are deficient in the business sense. I know a wealthy woman who pays a competent secretary the small salary of 18 shillings a week* for what is supposed to be a morning engagement only. As a matter of fact, Miss A is frequently asked to " come in after lunch just to finish a few letters." No mention of overtime and extra pay is made, and Miss A does not like to refuse because she feels sure it would give offence. Now, I don't think many men would take advantage of a social relationship . between themselves and their employees in this shameless fashion. A woman employer, for some inexplicable reason, seems to' regard herself as a benefactress because she employs anyone at all; she is apt to loo!< for extra consideration and work as toll that the poor employee will be glad to pay for the privilege of being employed. In other words, she is slow to realise that she is no more entitled to ask her secretary, for instance, for extra work than she has to ask her butcher for two pounds of meat for the price of one. —Forgetting to Pay Wages.— Then, women are criminally careless" in [ the payment of wages. I have heard endless cases of women who have positively been compelled to beg for their salaries. I Here _is an example. A clever young woman I know was engaged as' head milliner in a small establishment kept by a fairly well-to-do woman in {he West End of London. It was arranged that she should be paid weekly. At the end of. the first week no money was forthcoming. As a newcomer she hardly liked to ask for her wages, and decided to wait another seven days. On the Saturday night she ventured to ask for the payment due to her. "Oh, I'm so sorry, I'm afraid I can't pay you to-night; do you mind waiting till Monday?" was her employer's reply. —A Cruel Choice.— Monday came, and the girl's landlady said to her before she left the house in the morning: "I'm afraid I shall have to let your room to-day unless you can sottk up, Miss!" With an anxious heart the little milliner turned to work, only to get a message later in the day that her employer would be away until the Wednesday. There was no alternative between taking her wages out of the day's receipts and being turned out of her lodgings. Fortunately, when her employer learnt that she had adopted the former course she had the grace to apologise, but many women would have accused . the girl •of theft and dismissed her without a character. This is an instance of undeliberatecruelty that might easily have wrecked a girls life. A woman ought not to think j it possible to be too scrupulous in. the payment of wages. She should recognise the fact that an employee cannot afford to wait for her wages as a shop can wait for the settlement of an account. No woman if she were really thoughtful and tenderhearted would put an employee in the humiliating and painful position of having to ask for wages as a favor. And if the employee happens to be a friend as well, there is all the more reason for the unfailingly strict observance of the business side of the relationship. —Employers Who Have Been Employees.— One reason why women make bad employees is that most of them have never been employed themselves. The average successful business man lias had to work his way up from an inferior position. He understands business routine in all its details; he knows from intimate personal experience what an employee's conditions are, and if, as many men do, he forgets the day of his apprenticeship, custom at least prompts him to treat his enrployees with a certain amount of justice and consideration. The very best woman employer I know is a charming lady who owns several teashops. She was once a waitress herself. And 1 use the word lady advisedly, because she treats her employees with the utmost kindness and consideration. . There & no one so difficult to please as the woman who has never earned her own living, while- professional and business women who have gone through the mill themselves do, as a rule, know how to treat those in their employ. ' —Defective Educational Methods.— The lack of business instinct that is, perhaps, a little characteristically feminine is due to our defective educational methods rather than to an inborn incapacity to grasp the business side of life. Girls at school are not taught to develop a love of order and method, and through slovenliness and carelessness make the performance of workman unsatisfactory labor instead of a pleasure. Almost everv business conducted by a woman could be improved rn smartness, method, and punctuality. " She'd be ail right if she'd only malce up her mind what she wants, but she's so undecided and feeble," I have heard women say of their employers., Gills who work for women invariably confess to missing that atmosphere of system and briskness that is typical of most offices and businesses controlled by men, and I have'been told that it is not to an applicant's advantage to say she has been employed by women only when looking for a new appointment. —A Matter of Time.— Every woman who employs another woman in her service accepts "responsibilities which she should faithfully discharge. The employee shonld give efficient, willing, and conscientious service. The employer should pay a living wage, and he scrupulously exact in its payment. But more than this is necessary" if she is to deserve the title of a good employer. She must be just, but she must be generous; she must bo ready to admit that her employe* is not a mere machine, incapable of making mistakes, but a live, human woman, with a woman's weaknesses as well as a woman's strength.. As more and more women enter the world of commerce and professional activity our educational methods may be adapted to meet the needs of modern times, and girls will be taught at school to cultivate those virtues and qualities which, when fully developed, will materially help them later on in life to become wise, kindly, and generous employers. It is only a "matter of time, and one must, even now, admit gladly that there aro many good women employers who are shining examples to their sisters.