Shop Management

SHOP MANAGEMENT 43 practically true in England, where in some cases task management is actually being used under the name of the “Premium Plan.” It would therefore seem desirable to indicate once again and in a little differ- ent way the essential difference between the two. The one element which the Towne-Halsey system and task management have in common is that both recognize the all-important fact that workmen can- not be induced to work extra hard without receiving extra pay. Under both systems the men who suc- ceed are daily and automatically, as it were, paid an extra premium. The payment of this daily premium forms such a characteristic feature in both systems, and so radically differentiates these systems from those which were in use before, that people are apt to look upon this one element as the essence of both systems and so fail to recognize the more impor- tant, underlying principles upon which the success of each of them is based. In their essence, with the one exception of the pay- ment of a daily premium, the systems stand at the two opposite extremes in the field of management; and it is owing to the distinctly radical, though opposite, positions taken by them that each one owes its success; and it seems to me a matter of importance that this should be understood. In any executive work which involves the cooperation of two different men or parties, where both parties have anything like equal power or voice in its direction, there is almost sure to be a certain amount of bickering, quarreling, and vacillation, and the success of the enterprise suffers accordingly. If, however, either