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Employee Services
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- Welfare:
It was in the sphere of physical welfare that all personnel management had its beginning, and this historic tradition is still noticeable, especially in the older industries such as textiles. Consideration for the welfare of the workers is a natural extension of the provisions for health and safety, and, here too, minimum standards are laid down by the Factories Act. Indeed, many of the basic amenities are more matters of health or hygiene than employee services. These include cloakrooms, lavatories, drinking water, and facilities for making tea or heating food.
- Canteens:
Just as the central medical department in the larger firms developed from the statutory provision of first-aid boxes, so the works canteen has taken the place of the old mess room where workers could eat food brought to work with them. The extension and improvement in both services are a reflection of the increased importance now granted to elementary living standards. Excellent and attractive canteens in both medium and comparatively small companies are a feature of the industry.
- Transport
Many employers who cannot staff their factories from the immediate locality have to look further afield, and, in order to attract suitable labour, the firm arranges special transport facilities.
- Housing:
Some firms go even further and assist employees with housing, in finding lodgings, providing house loans and also by providing their own hostel accommodation. This last type of assistance is likely to be for special categories of workers, such as foreigners and apprentices only.
- Visiting:
Very many welfare supervisors and industrial nurses visit employees when they are sick or away from work for other reasons. This is a service that is usually greatly appreciated. Besides helping to maintain accurate records of absence, it provides a practical demonstration of the management's concern for the individual, and many matters come to light in the privacy of the home or hospital ward that would not do so in the mill.
- Welfare funds:
In spite of national health and unemployment insurance, people still find themselves in financial difficulties, and it is rare that a firm has not some kind of benefit scheme, pension arrangement, or sick fund to help employees. Many such schemes are generous, but they vary considerably according to the firm's resources, policies, and tradition.
- Recreation:
Sports and recreation are usually included among employee services, and there are, perhaps, two broad schools of thought about them. One considers that leisure-time activities should not be the concern of an industrial organization and that, indeed, it is more beneficial for workers to spend their free time away from both the place where they are employed and the people with whom they work. The opposite point of view is that the usual place where one makes friends is at work and possibly even that improved industrial relations result from the friendly contacts made on the playing field or at the canteen concert. In fact, a wide range of practice exists in industry generally, to which textiles and apparel are no exception, and games teams, dances, and dramatic and other societies flourish, these including several highly successful pensioners' clubs. On the whole, however, as more recreational facilities are being provided by local authorities, so is less undertaken by industrial concerns.
- Personal problems
One service more appreciated by workers than any other is not a physical one at all. This is the opportunity to bring all kinds of personal difficulty to the personnel department or the welfare supervisor. Very many people are in need from time to time of a guide, philosopher, or friend, and far too many do not know where to find one. The factory personnel department acts as a clearing house, introducing employees to the requisite specialist. More often, perhaps, the welfare officer herself acts as a confidante and is able to supply the necessary advice or reassurance.
- Welfare supervisor
The maintenance of all employee services must be the responsibility of some department in any organization, however small, and, where no central personnel department exists, this is usually the concern of a welfare supervisor. This role is of particular importance in the textile and apparel industry, where so many of the firms are small and where it is therefore uneconomic for them to maintain a full range of personnel functions in a specialized department. The welfare supervisor undertakes the recruitment of labour, supervises training arrangements, keeps a watching brief on physical working conditions, controls or acts as a liaison officer with the canteen, organizes such other employee services as housing, transport, and laundry, does the first aid, visits the sick, and still finds time to listen to and advise troubled employees. For the suitable and qualified person this is a most rewarding role, and, indeed, just because the size of the organization is small, it is possible to maintain a real personal contact with all, whether management or workers.
- Remuneration
As the tangible reward for work, however, remuneration is of great significance in the understanding of people, and its consideration is therefore one of the most important aspects of personnel management. It is necessary to be aware of the underlying factors, so that the development of policies and procedures do not cut across fundamentals of human behaviour or of organizational structure.
- Reward for work
All work undertaken under employment is characterised by contract, not necessarily explicit, between the individual and the organization, between the individuals work and responsibilities on the one hand and his reward on the other. By reward is meant the total return that the individual gets for his work, some of which is in tangible form and some in intangible form. The intangible area of reward includes such factors as job satisfaction, status, prestige, and promotion possibilities, but it is the tangible area that is usually implied by remuneration-that is, some form of pay. Fringe benefits should perhaps be mentioned because they are, of course, part of financial reward, although sometimes not fully recognized as such by workers. As such the type of rewards given to workers in apparel industry differs. The workers are paid based on number of pieces they produce at the end of the day/week /month.
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Participants