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1. |
Modernity of
the modern office. Many had tried
and only partially succeeded in producing a typewriter when the first machine
which became a successful commercial product was placed on the market in 1874.
This indispensable tool of modern business is not, therefore, fifty years of age
and many of the appliances which have followed in its train are still younger.
It is difficult for us to picture a time when business records were written wholly
by hand and when the only means of duplication available was the old-fashioned
letter copy press, when incoming letters were filed away in boxes and paid bills
were strung upon a wire like a catch of fish and hung on a nail. Yet those times
are not very far behind us. Visit a shoe factory
in Lynn or Brockton and watch the innumerable processes carried on by countless
machines to put a shoe on the market, and then conjure up in memory the
old-time shoemaker of your boyhood's days who made shoes in a little outhouse
with a few knives and awls, and you have a contrast which is no less striking
than that which exists between the offices of some of our larger undertakings
today and the offices in which our grandfathers began their business careers. The output of
the village shoemaker was shoes, and so is that of the great modern factory. Yet
only in this are they alike; in their technical, their economic and their administrative
problems, they are vastly different. The output of the modern office is office
work as was that of the old-time office, but not only have mechanical processes
changed, but with these changes have come new principles, new methods and new
ideals in office management. |
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2. |
Magnitude of
the in modern office. It is an interesting
speculation how with the lack of appliances and facilities which characterized
the offices of fifty years ago, they would have handled the work of today. There
was, in fact, no occasion for such a volume of office work since
business in all branches, manufacturing and mercantile, was conducted on a relatively
small scale. Big businesses as we know them today did not exist, and few had passed
beyond the stage where the competent manager whose office, in the familiar
phrase, was under his hat, could not handle the business which came up, in a
thoroly satisfactory manner. That we have grown beyond that stage of one
man management needs no demonstration. Appliances add
to complexity, and complexity adds to appliances. They go hand in hand. The complexity
which comes from appliances is seeming only, it is the aspect in which these new-fangled
notions are viewed by those who have been brought up in the old ways. In reality
their functions are to add simplicity, directness and efficiency to the office
work. If they do not do this and there are, of course, many inventions which,
however ingenious, fail to meet this test, they are unsuccessful and find
their way into the junk heap. The complexity
of business which produces appliances is the outgrowth of many forces, all of
which tend toward larger business units. It is a common observation that the more
frequently operations have to be repeated, the more attention is given them, and
the more thought is expended in examining into the processes and seeking the means
to improve them. The village storekeeper, for example, who writes an occasional
letter puts the stamp on in the natural instinctive way. But give an office boy
a hundred letters to stamp, and his
taste for mucilage will pall ; he will seek other than the instinctive method
of moistening the stamp. Let the number of letters to be mailed mount up to hundreds
and a mailing machine, tho its first cost may be considerable, may save not only
time but money. |
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3. |
Office workers.
It would be a mistake
to assume that the office problems are confined to consideration of appliances
and processes. They concern also persons. Whatever progress may have been made
in devising machines to do some of the office work, such machines are far from
automatic. There are industries in which mechanical forces ingeniously directed
do practically all the labor that is performed, requiring only a small number
of persons to tend the machines. But such a consummation, whether to be wished
or otherwise, has not been attained in office work nor is it likely to be. Mechanical
and technical progress has gone very far in many branches of industry, so far
indeed that it seems to many manufacturers a negligible problem in their undertaking.
It is the labor problem that keeps them awake at night. In offices, the labor problems do not
assume the same form as in factories, but they are none the less present. Machines are only
a limited help, processes of much wider application, but machines and processes
have to be put into operation thru persons. Yet the nature of the work involved,
the education and capacities of the workers give to the various problems concerning
the hiring of labor in offices rather a different twist from those which confront
the factory manager. The selection of
proper persons for the work, the necessary supervision, and perhaps suitable
training, the payment of compensation in such manner as to bring out the full
possibilities of the workers, the stimulation of the workers and such general
care for their welfare as is an appropriate part of business policy are problems
of no small magnitude in the conduct of business offices. |
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4. |
Practices. It is a frequent
rule that practice precedes theory, that the latter is as it were distilled from
the consideration of what men habitually do. Of the great changes which have
taken place in the management of business offices in the last generation there
can be no doubt. They have been introduced successively, each on its own merits.
Thus new ways of doing things make their appearance and gradually the entire office
routine is changed. The men in charge of the office know why they make the changes.
Those who succeed them accept the new methods as parts of standard procedure.
It is only when a change in some process is under consideration that men realize
that a particular principle is involved. They do not call it a principle, as they
think in terms of time saving, labor saving, larger output, efficiency, and the
like. But each of these is in reality a principle of management. Thus back of
every change, of every innovation, there is some particular principle at work. |
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5. |
Principles. Men practiced division
of labor before they were aware of it as a principle. But when they
recognized it as a principle they took a great step forward since it then passed
from the realm of the particular to that of the general. The orderly combination of the
principles underlying economic activity, something that had been going on in the
world since "Adam delved and Eve span," resulted in the science of political
economy or of economics as it is more frequently called today. In the same way
the patient analysis of office organization, procedure and methods yields us
a body of principles which when combined in a systematic, or derly arrangement
of these principles gives us the science of office management. It is the purpose
of the present Text to unfold those principles and develop that science. We have
to do then in the first instance with a variety of principles, later with their
combination into a science. |
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6. |
Science. There are always
some who dispute the application of the word science to a comparatively new subject.
Discussions as to what constitutes science and as to whether a certain body of
knowledge deserves that title may be interesting exercises in dialectics, but
they do not go far toward advancing the sum of human knowledge or power. For present purposes
it is sufficient to characterize science in the sense here used as a body of organized
knowledge. It is clearly recognized that the various bodies of knowledge are in
different stages of advancement. Some are in the formative stage, just emerging
from a state of disorganization. Obviously, the
science of office management is in such a formative state. While it is in this
condition, it will not have universal recognition. But just because it has
not yet earned such recognition, the problem of presenting this knowledge in systematic,
orderly form becomes of greater interest. Whatever the ultimate judgment of
the reader, it must be recognized that in a field which has commonly been
thought of as belonging purely to routine, there are important principles of
organization and operation which if recognized lead to a mastery of the subject
which can be gained in no other way. |
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7. |
Building up the
science. The presentation
of any subject consists in a judicious admixture of precept and example, of
principle and illustration. Few of us are so constituted that we can think wholly
in abstractions; we need concrete illustrations to give them life. There are,
however, certain fields of knowledge with which our contact is so familiar
that we can conveniently start from the abstract and use the concrete merely as
illustrations. In others, we must develop the principle out of the analysis
of the facts themselves. Because the science
of office management is in the formative state, it belongs in the latter class.
Hence the treatment of the subject in the present volume begins with the study
of concrete facts, and develops principles as it proceeds. This course is followed
partly because the facts are for the most part new, and partly because our experience
is limited. Individual experience touches certain definite processes, but
does not commonly embrace all the analogous ones. Therefore, in the early part
of the Text the attempt is made to survey, classify and analyze the of office
practice. In this analysis, the principles of office management are disclosed. In the latter part
of the Text, the standpoint is not that of special processes and special problems,
but that of the office as a whole. There are important considerations of the
unit as well as the parts which compose it. |
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8. |
Principles are
general. The practice from
which the principles set forth in the Text are drawn is, it will soon be
observed by the attentive reader, that of the larger offices. The obvious
reason for this is that in the
larger offices the need for standardizing practice is felt earlier than in small
ones, and principles rather than rule of thumb are more earnestly sought in them.
Reform often takes root with those most advanced and works its way downward, whether
in social, political or economic life. It has been because colleges and universities
have recognized the problems of education, that most of the changes in elementary
education have been introduced. But it will at
once be recognized that if the conclusions drawn from the practice of the
large offices are in reality principles of office management, they must be true
for all offices, great and small. They are just as significant for the small as
for the large office. American business men are constantly building for the future,
and there are few of them whose ideal of achievement is to remain small. This
or that type of appliance may be too costly to install in a small' office, but
some day it may become necessary, and in the meantime the principle which makes
it desirable in a larger office may be put to work in some other form. After all the basic
aim of the office is, as in every other department of business, the maximum output
of effective work at the minimum cost. Given this aim, principles of efficiency
are always to be followed even tho the magnitude of operations at any given
time does not permit the attainment of the highest possible results. |
REVIEW
What conditions have
given rise to so many new and improved office appliances?
Do these
appliances tend to take the place of persons in an office ?
How could the offices
of fifty years ago conduct their business without the appliances now considered
absolutely essential?
What is meant by
the "science of office management"?
Are the same principles
of office management applicable to both
