Efficiency Methods
An Introduction to Scientific Management

134 EFFICIENCY METHODS that it is fairer to the employer that the workman should not receive the whole profit made by extra work, that being one of their objections to piece- work. Halsey explains explicitly that he will give just enough reward to make it worth the workman’s while to exert himself as required ; that he will choose the workman who will do it for the smallest reward. He is therefore not concerned with amount of output or with any idea of equity in distribution.1 He has also stated that, broadly speaking, the increase in earnings by the workers comes to rather less than half the savings to the employer. Schloss does not discuss the abstract justice of the situation at all, but observes (p. 113) that a worker is likely to be better off under a bonus system which promises him a definite reward and keeps the promise exactly, than under a piece-rate system, in which, although his reward is nominally proportional to his output, his earnings are liable to be cut down frequently. After reviewing these opinions, Emerson's con- tention that you do not buy output from your worker will seem quite sound. He would add to the minimum wage he wished to establish something for skill and experience, and something more for “ co-operation ”—being willing to push on the work and do his best. But his measurement by “ effici- ency,” which will be discussed shortly, will in most 1 In this context see (later) a criticism by E. D. Jones on the Taylor system, which brings in also tbe further question of lowering the price to the consumer.