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Stepping Stones Reprint: Work Abilities
Chapter 2
"Work Versus Jobs"
Intro | Prelim | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
Comment
Note: Not recommended reading. Takes a long time to
make the point that Job Titles are inadequate to describe what people who hold the titles
can do. |
p. 17 |
CHAPTER II
WORK VERSUS JOBS
THE present greatness of our country has come as the result of
Man Power - applied either more or less wisely. Due to the need of keeping up with the
advances in every line of science, invention and industry, Man Power has been used in the
past without that analysis and care that would have yielded the most satisfactory results.
The jobs open are filled - for better or for worse - but they were filled. Many are the
men today in situations for which they were never fitted, but in which chance has placed
them and from which they do not see any way of escape.
Today each man must know what he has and apply it for both the common and
his individual good. He must avoid regimentation into a job and contribute to the
advancement of the country. He must understand the functions of employer and employee, of
producer and consumer; he must appreciate the privileges as well as the responsibilites
that go with each state. Because we have come ... |
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p. 18 |
| so far, so fast, in a rather haphazard manner we cannot
sit back and assume that conditions will never change. The present adjustment - or
depression - is a warning to take counsel and to plan. Man Power has
brought us to our present emnence as a nation. Because we have not used it to the best
advantage and have taken the privileges without assuming the corresponding
responsibilities we consider ourselves today a jobless nation. Too long have we filled the
jobs awaiting us till now we do not know how to create "jobs," in fact, do not
know what we can do.
There is more work to be done than ever before to put us on a
prosperous plane. Our condition as a nation is the proof. If as a nation we can know what
we can do, can each tell the other in work language what we can contribute to the common
good in the way of work and corresponding profit, we will all find the "jobs"
for which we are suited and in which we will be happy and prosperous.
Let us forget "jobs" and think "work." What can I do?
How can I express it to others? `Who is interested in my capabilities? Employer and
employee have a common pur-... |
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p. 19 |
| pose. The employer needs service that will bring a profit,
the employee wishes to serve at a wage that will yield him an adequate income. In both
cases PROFIT IS THE URGE. The employer today wants his profit more than
ever, but is not getting it. The employee wants work, but cannot find it. WORK IS THE
ISSUE.
In our present society, the result of generations of labor, toil, and
effort, there can be no profit without work, without profit of some kind there is no urge
to work. In our approach to this problem of meeting the challenge of our changed
conditions, let us bear always in mind those eight words, the foundation of prosperity-
WORK IS THE ISSUE
PROFIT IS THE URGE.
In a perfect state the employer before putting anyone to work would know exactly what
had to be done and who could best do it. The seeker for work would offer his services on
the basis of an exact specification of his capabilities. Both would meet on a common
ground of defined requirements and offerings. Since that ideal condition is ... |
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p. 20 |
| not yet with us, we can at least do our share and offer
our services in such form that employers can make a choice which will be to their, and to
our, best interests. Purchases of machinery, materials and buildings are
made on the basis of specifications. If the buyer knows what he wants, he draws up the
requirements which the seller must meet. If the buyer can tell only the result he desires,
the seller makes up specifications of whatever he can offer that will meet the buyer's
needs. In the procuring of man power, of services, specifications have been sadly lacking
and are badly needed.
Man Power Specifications, describing the work ability of the individual,
will enable the employer to place the employee to their mutual advantage. He can either
pick the best man for a known need or may find a man who has ability to do work that will
yield them both a profit-in many cases work that the employer had not realized he needed
to have done. Man Power Specifications raise the discussion from the level of filling a
job to the plane of creating a demand or supplying a need. |
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p. 21 |
| They enable both employer and employee to talk the same
language, to discuss facts, instead of theories and possibilities. How does
the Man Power Specification come into being?
Who will compose it?
How should it be used?
The answers to these questions will remain hidden as long as we think of
Man in the mass. We have been so busy analyzing mass reactions, mob psychology, and
comparing the individual to the mass from one point of view or the other that we have lost
sight of the human being. Truly, you and I, just plain Bill and John to our friends,
wandering in the mazes of mass discussion, are "the forgotten men."
We have each lived our own life with its joys, sorrows, work, play, and
education. No one can take that away from us. Everything we have done has left its mark,
made us a different man. For the most part these experiences have come and gone without
any very conscious thought or organization. No one but ourselves knows them; in their
unorganized state, no one else wants to know ... |
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p. 22 |
| them. Yet they have made us what we are and from them we
can learn "what we can do." When we can tell an employer "what we can
do" in work language, and can show him the proof of the correctness of our
statements, then he is buying and we are selling on the basis of specifications. Job names
and job specifications are eliminated, for the duties of a job vary with the person doing
it as well as with the constantly changing conditions of the industry where that job is
located. Let us forget the word "job," forget that there is such a word and tune
our minds to the word "work." That is what we have to offer, that is what
business and industry need today. We shall study and rationalize our
education, preparations, and work into a history of "what we have done,"
expressed in work language. This will be our proof, our evidence, of the truth of
our statements of "what we can do." From this work history we will draw up and
set down the specifications of "what we can do." We must do it ourselves, with
counsel perhaps, but no one can do it for us. It must be us when completed, not
what someone else thinks is us. |
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p. 23 |
| We must draw up our own Man Power Specication. For the
sake of clear discussion we shall have to use the word "job," but we are now
thinking in terms of work, and work only. "Jobs" belong to the past, and today
they do not exist. The unemployed spend their time asking for
"jobs." Due to their lack of knowledge of their capabilities and the difficulty
of expressing clearly what they do know, this becomes a promiscuous activity and gives the
potential employer no sound basis for action. The unemployed says "I want a
job," the employer answers "I want more business." Both are perfectly
honest in their expressions and the resulting lack of action is easily understood. Both
are helpless.
Employers can make "jobs" available to the unemployed only as their volume of
business increases sufficiently to warrant an enlargement of their forces. In order to
revive the use of idle plant
and equipment there is need of much work to be done. Due to our thinking in terms of
"jobs" it is difficult for any employer to define what kind or quality of work
he wants done, though he knows ... |
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p. 24 |
| that something is wrong with his business. He would like
to have help, but where is it to be found, with any certainty of getting the desired
results? Job names and job duties vary from one business to another. There
is lack of a common language. A simple description of work will be understood by all men
and in every business.
Titles do not define or describe ability, character, energy, or ideals.
Yet all of these qualities should be taken into account by the employer, and the seeker
after work should make fully available to the employer everything he has to offer. The
unemployed have ability to work, but they cannot tell and do not clearly know exactly what
they have to offer.
Industry and business need man-power to handle the tasks which confront them, but
either they do not know what they need, in which case they need help to determine it, or,
if they know their need, it is now, as always, difficult to find the individual who can
meet that need. Work is the common denominator which will solve the problems of both
employer and em- ... |
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p. 25 |
| ployee. Work language used by the one is easily and
clearly understood by the other. When both the work to be done and the services offered
are expressed in work language there is a meeting of minds, a clear understanding and the
foundation is laid for a connection profitable to both. We will be helped
in making out our Man Power Specification if we know not only what we are and what we can
do, but also the why of our doing what we do and of our being what we are. Others have
contributed to our development and we in turn must make our contribution to others.
Let us see how Man Power Specifications fit logically into our economic
order and how they can contribute to our well being. Then let us take a look at the
sources of our capabilities and see, not only the effects others have had on us, but also
how we affect others. |
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