Harrington Emerson Quotes (9 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

Harrington Emerson: 9 quotes1 like

Famous Harrington Emerson Quotes

“In selecting human assistants such superficialities as education, as physical strength, even antecedent morality, are not as important as the inner attitudes, proclivities, character, which after all determine the man or woman.”

Harrington Emerson

Source: The twelve principles of efficiency (1912), p. 176; cited in Münsterberg (113; 52)

“Twelve Principles of Efficiency”

Harrington Emerson

The twelve principles of efficiency (1912)

“The schedule is a moral contract or agreement with the men as to a particular machine operation, rate of wages and time. Any change in men [etc. ] calls for a new schedule.”

Harrington Emerson

Harrington Emerson, as cited in: Horace Bookwalter Drury (1918) Scientific Management: A History and Criticism http://archive.org/stream/scientificmanag00druruoft#page/140/mode/2up. p. 142

“Staff standards are not theological abstractions, but scientific approximations, and are evolved for the use of the line, the sole justification of the standards being that they will make line work more efficient. Staff standards being for the benefit of the line and often entrusted to line officials, must be put in the form of permanent instructions so that all may understand what is being aimed at, and deviations by the line be noted and reprimanded.”

Harrington Emerson

Source: Efficiency as a Basis for Operation and Wages, p. 70; Cited in: Morgen Witzel (2003) Fifty Key Figures in Management. p. 79

“It is psychology, not soil or climate, that enables a man to raise five times as many potatoes per acre as the average in his own state.”

Harrington Emerson

Source: The twelve principles of efficiency (1912), p. 107 ; cited in: Hugo Münsterberg. Psychology and Industrial Efficiency, 1913, p. 52

“We have not put our trust in Kings; let us not put it in natural resources, but grasp the truth that exhaustless wealth lies in the latent and as yet undeveloped capacities of individuals, of corporations, of States.”

Harrington Emerson

Source: Efficiency as a Basis for Operation and Wages, p. 164; ; Cited in: Morgen Witzel (2003) Fifty Key Figures in Management. p. 80

“The type for the great newspaper is set up by linotype operators. Apprenticeship is rigorously limited. Some operators can never get beyond the 2500-em class, others with no more personal effort can set 5000 ems. Do the employers test out applicants for apprenticeship so as to be sure to secure boys who will develop into the 5000-em class? They do not: they select applicants for any near reason except the fundamental important one of innate fitness.”

Harrington Emerson

Source: The twelve principles of efficiency (1912), p. 156; ; cited in Münsterberg (113; 53)

“The individual effort method of increasing the reward of the wage-earner includes all that is best in other methods, and attempts to exclude all that is objectionable. Its good points are summed up as follows:
# The standard time set is reasonable and one that can be reached without extraordinary effort, is in fact such time as a good foreman would demand.
# An extra reward of one-fifth of the regular wages for the operation is given to whoever makes standard time.
# Extra compensation above the hourly rate is paid even if standard time is not reached, although this extra compensation diminishes in percentage above standard time-and-a-half.
# If longer than time-and-a-half is taken, the regulai day rate is paid. Of this, the wage-earner is also sure.
# Standard time is carefully determined by observation and experiment, and is only changed when conditions change.
# The arrangement is one of mutual benefit to both parties — of increased earning to the worker, of increased saving to the employer.
# The employer loses more than the wage-earner if schedules do not encourage co-operation.
# The wage-earner, working on a schedule, becomes in a large degree his own foreman.
# The wage-earner determines his own earning power, and by co-operating to cut out wastes increases his own value.”

Harrington Emerson

Harrison Emerson, " Shop betterment and the individual effort method of profit-sharing http://archive.org/stream/americanengineer80newy#page/64/mode/1up" in: International Railway Journal Vol. 13. p. 61. 1905; Partly cited in Drury (1918, p. 141)

“The competent specialist who has supplemented natural gifts and good judgment by analysis and synthesis can perceive attitudes and proclivities even in the very young, much more readily in those semi-matured, and can with almost infallible certainty point out, not only what work can be undertaken with fair hope of success, but also what slight modification or addition and diminution will more than double the personal power.”

Harrington Emerson

Source: The twelve principles of efficiency (1912), p. 177; ; cited in Münsterberg (113; 53)