nts this system is very
loose and the departments exist principally for the purpose of securing
applicants who are then turned over without recommendation to the foreman
who still has the power of employing and discharging.

The remedy for which we have been looking is to be found in an employment
department, organized with a carefully selected personnel, which will
perform the same careful, analytical research and record-keeping functions
as a scientific purchasing department. Perhaps, for the sake of clearness,
it would be well for us to describe rather in detail the work of such a
department.

ORGANIZATION

The organization of such a department depends entirely upon the number of
applicants and employees with which it must deal and the character of the
work to be done. Suppose, for example, we have a factory with two thousand
employees, seventy-five per cent of them skilled, fifteen per cent of them
unskilled, and ten per cent office employees. The work of such a
department could be very well carried on by one employment supervisor, one
assistant supervisor, one clerk and record-keeper, and part of the time of
one stenographer. The employment supervisor is a staff officer. His
position in the company is that of a member of the staff of the general
manager or president. His work should be subject to oversight by the
president or general manager alone, and he should not be answerable to any
other officer or member of the corporation. It is the function of the
employment supervisor to direct the work of his department, to conduct its
relations with all other departments of the business, to interview,
analyze, and recommend for employment all executives and employees of more
than ordinary importance; to hear and adjudicate all cases of complaint or
disagreement between executives or between executives and their employees
and also to review cases heard by his assistant in which there is any
degree of dissatisfaction with the settlement proposed.

It is the duty of the assistant employment supervisor to interview and
analyze, select, and recommend for employment all applicants for minor
positions in the factory and office. It is also his duty, under direction
of the supervisor, to number and carefully analyze every position in the
organization, determining its requirements, and, having made a careful
list of these requirements in a card index, to keep it in the files of the
department where it can be readily consulted.