The Psychology of Careers: An Introduction to Vocational Development.
work place. Variations in work conditions and worker performance due to assignable causes must be eliminated since time values in a stable setting fluctuate only for random causes. However suggestive the above procedures may be, they raise basic questions. First, what validity has this technique in face of the fact that workers' performance does not necessarily produce a random distribution of time values? Second, how objective can the estimates be when the very choice of control limits and tests of statistical stability are dependent on personal preferences? We are left with the dilemma of having to negotiate on the statistical criteria of stability. Third, what guides are the negotiators to follow in their evaluation of the estimates of performance times to derive specific production standards? The author believes that wage incentive systems which relate output to pay seriously distort workers' performance and that therefore, in most American industry it would be difficult o prove production standards. Yet, the author only vaguely suggests the type of work system where no such relationship exists by referring to the annual wage. The theory of work activity presented in this book encompasses not only systematic codified or stable work procedures, but also "unsystematic movements." In performing the latter, the individual exercises his special skills and abilities to meet unexpected developments. Even where these developments appear to be unproductive, they may be essential to maintaining stable cyclical performances. Delays may therefore be as essential as performance to achieving high stable output rates. Fatigue, according to this concept, is produced by the imbalance in the use of distinguished skills, and the degree of fatigue is dependent upon the amount of imbalance. The problem of reducing fatigue is therefore an individual and local one. Workers must be trained to eliminate undesirable activities and delays to reduce their fatigue. In a real life situation, however, work stability tends to be incomplete and temporary. The degree of success is dependent upon the continuing efforts of workers and management to correct the ever recurring imbalances. In the more automated procedures, this goal will be easier to achieve since machines will perform the systematic work and man, the unsystematic activities. All practioners of time and motion study should consider this book as required reading. Leaders in, and teachers of, the professions should analyze and evaluate the judgments and ideas presented, and the behavioral sciences should be enlisted in their further study. Certainly, unions will be encouraged to bargain directly on production standards after reading this wholesale rejection of the pretensions of the time study man's art.