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Show HIGH-CUSS WDHXMEN FOR QUAUTY WORK Employees Have Much to Do With Finished Reo Product. EMPLOY NO FLOATERS General Manager Tells of Experiences Vith Work-ingmen Work-ingmen at Factory. "Hire high-class men if you want quality work," is the axiom laid flown by General Manager Richard H. Scott for the conducting of Reo factory affairs. af-fairs. "We believe that th class of workmen work-men we employ has almost ag much to do with th quality of the Reo product es the class of materials that enter into our automobiles and motor trucks," says Mr. Scott. "A large percentage of workmen employed em-ployed in factories nowadays are what might be termed 'floaters.1 These men pcem to have no definite purpose in life, but are obsessed with the wanderlust and they keep changing from place to place, always sure, in good time, of pome kind of a job. That's one way to get experience, of course, but we find such men do not make desirable or dependable workmen. Will Not Deprive Competitors. "Neither do we care to employ men from other factories. First, because we do not want to deprive our competitors of the men they have trained, and, second, sec-ond, because we find that men trained from the ground up to the Reo way of doing things axe infinitely superior. "We prefer to take young fellows right oft the farm, when we can get them, put them in at the bottom and show them that nothing save their own shortcomings stands between them and the top. 1 We take great pains to educate euch men to our ways, and as they become proficient they are promoted. Because of the constant and steady growth of the Reo factories, there are always positions opening up for foremen," fore-men," superintendents and managers of departments, and consequently there is always an incentive for a man to do his best in order to obtain advancement. advance-ment. "In that way we keep our manufacturing manufac-turing organization together and give the fellows who show talent an opportunity opportu-nity to constantly advance and Setter themselves. "If we were to hire men from other factories, where they do things differently, differ-ently, we would not "be able to obtain that uniformity of workmanship, that exactness or that quality in the product for which the Reo lino is famous. "In most cases we have found that I JOHN 1. YOUNG f , f ; - ' Manager General Auto Eepalrlng Co. men from other factories have been told to do things in ways that are faster but not so sure. "In the Beo plans we do not ask so much for speed as for accuracy. "We have never been ambitious to make all the automobiles only the best. "On that account we do not try to speed up our men or our machines to the. highest notch. "We strive to obtain ob-tain efficiency by the surer route that of not having to' retrace our steps. Had Much Experience. "I have been a manufacturer all my life, and I have studied carefully all the different methods by which so-called experts achieve what they call efficiency, effi-ciency, and, as a matter of fact, I have found there is more waste in speed than in anything else. It is easy enough to pound men on the back and tell them to shoot that stuff through, but if vou watch the matter carefully you will find that more is lost in parts that have to be culled out in the inspection and in time lost in trying to assemble parts that do not fit than would be lost in the first place by taking the time to make those parts properly. "Good tools, always in perfect condition, con-dition, is the surest road to efficiency, and the only way you can be sure of having tools" always" in condition is by having intelligent men handling them. "We pav Beo workmen more than the wage demanded by the floater tvpe of laborer, but we find we get the difference dif-ference in efficiency and in the quality of the finished product. "Perhaps our system our way of holding on to our good men and promoting promot-ing them whenever opportunity arises is the reason why a very large percentage percent-age of bur men are married, nave families fam-ilies and are permanent citizens of Lansing. Lan-sing. "We were astonished ourselves to find recently, on making a canvass, that nearly 50 per cent of the population of Lansing, a city of 40,000 people, derive their sustenance directly and indirectly indirect-ly from the Reo payroll. ''Every manufacturer knows the superiority su-periority of married men over single ones the very fact that they have homes with home interests and are pet-tied, pet-tied, makes them better men mentally, as well as physically. "When a man owns his own home he is anxious to hold on to his job, and, of factor in this matter of advancement. We- find the wife is a very important factor in this matter of advencement. Invariably she encourages and urges the husband to get along for the children chil-dren 'e sake. "Owing to the fart that Reo workmen work-men have steady work the year around, and know their jobs are secure, most of them are able to own their own homes. "By th way, it is a principle of the Reo t'actorv never to discharge a man unless he, "himself, makes it absolutely necessary. That is, perhaps, a surprise to Borne manufacturers, but I can assure as-sure them the policy pays. "The old theorv" that a man never did his best unless "he was always in terror ter-ror of losing his jobj is an exploded theorv. the-orv. Such a man is worried mentally m'd ha becomes physically unfit to do his best. "We have found that the very fact that Reo workmen do not worry about their jobs the fact that they know they can lose them only by flagrant violation vio-lation of important rul6 or by downright down-right shirking makeB the men better as a whole. "Frequently we find a man who will not fit in one position, but instead of discharging him and breaking in an entirely en-tirely new one, we estimate the fact that" he knows some part of the Reo plan as of considerable value to us, and so we transfer him to some other department, de-partment, then again to another, if nec-ecessary, nec-ecessary, until he finally finds the place where he does fit in. Reo Policy Successful. "This Reo policy has proven vastly superior to the old policy of telling "a man to 'go get his time' the minute the foreman Decomee dissatisfied with him for any reason. "We devote a great deal of thought also to the development of young single j men. Largely for their amusement and , mental improvement, we have built the big Reo club, where the men may avail themselves of various kinds of healthful health-ful recreation bowling, billiards, cards, etc. while in the big auditorium we have frequent organ recitals, band concerts, con-certs, lectures, movies, etc. "We find our own movies are most valuable in teaching men in the various va-rious departments how we do things in other departments of the Reo plants. "Lansing is a 'dry town, which is another great aid to efficiency in the factory, and we feel it our duty to furnish the men with healthful recreation recrea-tion and an attractive place to go to take the place of the old-time saloons. "On the whole, I would say that to a very large degree the quality that is universally resognized as Reo, is the result of our employment of a superior class of men in tne first place, and then training them to do things the Reo way. ' ' |