£10,000 TO EMPLOYEES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19365, 23 July 1925, Page 7

£10,000 TO EMPLOYEES

MOTOR FIRM’S FINE EXAMPLE THE FINAL ACT. The last day of last month saw the firm of Davies and Davies, Ltd., Sydney, disbanded as a motor-car selling organisation. On that date they relinquished the agency for Ford ears in New South Wales. The occasion was taken advantage of for the gathering ! together of the employees for the purpose of receiving, at the hands of the directors, a practical expression of the firm’s good will. Mr Arthur H. Davies, director, distributing the bonus, said that “the system was probably unique, because no system yet devised would appear, so far as he had learned, to have* succeeded in establishing an absolute community of interest; but many firms and companies had gone a considerable length in that direction. \ “To secure partnership in service, systems of co-partnership in proprietary rights had been adopted with more lor less success. Such a method had not 1 been contemplated by the board. WithI out going to the point of co-partnership, j many other employers had adopted a system of profit-sharing—neither was 'that contemplated by the board. “Still, whether it was Io admit the I employees as shareholders or to sharo I a fixed rate of profit, or a surplus of profit over a fixed rate, the underlying factor was the bonus. That was to say. | any obligation upon the employer was I self-imposed, and any sum or sums paid were the effect and expression of good [ will. Personal element counted for 1 most, and if good relations were to be established and maintained, it was imperative that from the supervising head to the manager, there should prevail sympathetic interest in the persons working under them. Under these con ditions, the bonus was but the concrete form of such kindly interest, and would add to the tangible effect of such hightoned relations. “Forms of bonus and the manner of distribution varied with the nature ami policy of the concern. A manufacturing industry might fix the task of the employee and grant a bonus on increased out-turn; or a retail house might pay its counter hands on sales, and so on. These forms applied to individual effort; but we, being a distributive trading concern, the result depended upon collective and co-operative effort. “Having these things in mind, the firm of Davies and Davies, as an act of goodwill, yet as an appreciation of worthy services rendered by the com pany’s employees, resolved to appropriate out of the profits of the company an amount to provide payment of bonuses upon salaries of employees.” The sum of £lO,OOO has boon distributed.