EMPLOYEE REPRESENTATION
though actuated in most cases also by humanitarian impulses and
sometimes with the further object of reducing insurance premiums,
employers both before and since the war, actively supported the
safety movement. Regarding it as largely an educational problem,
safety committees were appointed in many plants composed of fore-
men and some of the rank and file; and much valuable and construc-
tive work resulted, especially in those establishments where a com-
petent safety engineer was employed.!8
Welfare work, scientific management, and the safety movement
in time were supplemented by employment management, which
placed its early emphasis upon “reduction of labor turnover.” A
rapidly changing work force, it was seen, spelled inefficiency. The
employment manager, therefore, was evolved to stabilize the work
force by choosing intelligently the workers needed for various posi-
tions, and by affording them an avenue for expression and adjust-
ment of complaints. Since the first national conference of employ-
ment managers was held in Minneapolis in January, 1916, this phase
of business administration has passed rapidly through many stages
of development until, now, as personnel administration, it commands
the center of attention. “The problem of industrial relations is a
problem, the problem of management. A personnel department may
perform many useful specialized functions; but it should always be
borne in mind that everyone in the enterprise is responsible for the
personnel function; that the entire enterprise is the real personnel
department.”!®
Possibly the central weakness of the earlier efforts of employers
to win the cooperation of their employees through welfare work,
bettering their working and home environments, through scientific
management, improving the facilities for efficient work, and through
employment management and corporation training aimed to place
men upon jobs for which they were fitted, was the too great reliance
18 Cf. Frankel, Lee K., and Fleisher, Alexander, The Human Factor in In-
dustry, pp. 135-140; also Boettiger, Louis, A., Employee Welfare Work, pp. 208—
21.
19 Person, H. S., “The Contribution of Scientific Management to Industrial
Problems” in Hunt, E. E., Scientific Management Since Taylor, p. 35.
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