Increasing Efficiency in Business

It increased the efficiency of the individual workers; it greatly augmented the effectiveness of the organization as a whole. It was developed, without appeal to sentiment, under conditions which make for division rather than coperation between employer and employee. The men were unionists; wages, hours, and so on, were contract matters with the boss. Yet in an emergency, the tie between the tunnel builder and his men was strong enough to stand the strain of the fatiguing and long-continued effort necessary to complete the job and save the former from ruin. Like incidents, on perhaps a smaller and less dramatic scale, are not uncommon; but the historian of business has not yet risen to make them known.

_Loyalty, to Nation or Organization, shows itself in an Emergency_

As with patriotism, business loyalty needs some such crisis as this to evoke its expression. In peace the patriotism of citizens is rarely evident and is frequently called in question. In America we sometimes assume that it is a virtue belonging only to past generations. But every time the honor or integrity of the country is threatened, a multitude of eager citizens volunteer in its defense. Likewise, many a business man who has come to think his workmen interested only in the wages he pays them, discovers in his hour of need an unsuspected asset in their devotion to the welfare of the business, and their willingness to make sacrifices to bring it past the cape of storms.

Study of any field, of any single house, or of any of the periods of depression which have afflicted and corrected our industrial progress, will convince one of the unfailing and genuine loyalty of men to able and considerate em-

ployers. So generally true is this, indeed, that ``house patriotism,'' ``organization spirit,'' or ``loyalty to the management'' is accepted by all great executives as one of the essential elements in the day-by-day conduct of their enterprises.

Striking exhibitions of this loyalty may wait for an emergency. Unless it exists, however, unless it is apparent in the daily routine, there is immediate and relentless search for the antagonistic condition or method, which is robbing the force of present efficiency and future power. Coperation of employees is the first purpose of organization. Without loyalty and team work the higher levels in output, quality, and service are impossible.

_Loyalty on Part of Employer begets Loyalty in his Workers_

The importance of loyalty in business could not readily be overestimated, even though its sole function were to secure united action on the part of the officers and men. Where no two men or groups of men were working to

counter purposes, but all are united in a common purpose, the gain would be enormous, even though the amount of energy put forth by the individuals was not increased in the least. When to this fact of value in organized effort we add the accompanying psychological facts of increased efficiency by means of loyalty, we then begin to comprehend what it means to have or to lack loyalty.

The amount of work accomplished by an individual is subject to various conditions. The whole intellect, feeling, and will must work in unity to secure the best results. Where there is no heart in the work (absence of feeling) relatively little can be accomplished, even though the intellect be convinced and the will strained to the utmost. The employee who lacks loyalty to his employer can at least render but half-hearted service even though he strive to his utmost and though he be convinced that his financial salvation is dependent upon efficient service. _The employer who secures the loyalty of his men not only secures better service, but he enables his men to accomplish_

_more with less effort and less exhaustion_. The creator of loyalty is a public benefactor.

Such loyalty is always reciprocal. The feeling which workmen entertain for their employer is usually a reflection of his attitude towards them.