Efficiency Methods
An Introduction to Scientific Management

114 EFFICIENCY METHODS these particular operations could be so arranged as to give the original output from much fewer workers, then the task can be made fairly severe, and only the more capable people kept. There will be a process of selection, such as Taylor was often able to carry out. But this is where there are plenty of labourers to be had. If the supply of labour is short, and again if a considerable increase of output is desired, the standard task must approximate more nearly to the average, for more workers must be able to reach it. Taylor discusses the matter from this point of view very fully and frankly on p. 175 in “ Shop Management,” admitting that “ the precise point, between the average and the first class, which is selected for the task, should depend largely upon the labour-market in which the works is situated.” At the same time, he says that at Bethlehem he was always able, by the increase of wages offered, to get plenty of first-class men, although “ labour was as scarce and difficult to get as it ever has been in the history of this country.” The subject will be under consideration again in chap. xvi. on Education. It is rather evident that the^changing conditions of labour in the United States have had some considerable influence in producing the tendency in more recent scientific management to much less screwing up of the standard than was done in Taylor’s early work. Taylor was often able to realize the very natural ambition to exhibit a picked team of superlatively good workmen.