ABSTRACT
Although the last meeting had finished with at least some agreement that the scheme should continue, it was apparent from both the management and labour comments that there existed some overall dissatisfaction with its performance and results. Furthermore, this dissatisfaction with the scheme had now become tied to some element of personal suspicion amongst the participants involved, with a more overt questioning of motives and attitudes being articulated. However, almost as if from the brink of a mutually agreed termination of the scheme some ‘consensus of opinion’ had been reachec as regards the desirability of its continuation. Although one cannot be certain as to the specific issues considered by the participants in reaching this decision, one can observe the content, direction, and tone of subsequent meetings as indications of the evolving and emerging states if trie scheme In the eyes of the participants. So, at the next meeting of the Committee when C.G. Renold sought to clarify his commenca of the previous meeting one senses some conciliatory element in the speech, in particular, a sercsived need to avoid ‘misunderstandings’:
“Certain sections of the Committee seem to have taken the statement as a general charge that the Profit Sharing Scname had not contribuced to efficiency and that the workers were not working hard.. This was not said and not meant. The misunderstanding seems to have arisen over the use of the term ‘direct incentive’, This Cads for further explanation. Ever since the inception of the Scheme there have been somewhat varying views among the Directors as to just what the company could expect to gain from the Profit Sharing Scneme. Some of them believed that the Scheme wolid provide an ever-oresent incentive to each individual to put forth his maximum effort [illegible text] time because of the effect it would have upon his shars of the profit.
In this view the Scheme was looked on as a kind of payment by results and as likely to provide the same kind of incentive as piece work. It was this that was referred to as ‘direct incentive’.
The other view was that the ‘direct incentive’ could never be very real, and that the true value of the Scheme to the Company lay in its producing a better atmosphere, in providing everyone — management and workers — with a common aim, in fact in promoting the ‘harmony and unity of effort’ referred to in the statement.
Mr. C.G. Renold stated that when he said that, in the view of the Board ‘the direct incentive of the Scheme towards increased effort is doubtful’, he meant that the Board had now come to recognise that the second view as to the value of the Scheme was the correct one, ie. it is not primarily an alternative to piece work but is of value in so far as it promotes a general community of interest.
One of the main points of the statement was that the Directors believed that the Scheme was no longer helping to produce the right atmosphere or ‘unity of effort’ in which case it was not worth the work involved”.
(Committee Minutes, 23.2.25) emphasis in original This element of clarification carries with it some statement of the specific benefits management expected from the scheme, and although there is no explicit suggestion that its continuation would be made contingent upon improvements towards a “unity of effort”, the employee representatives were now clearly aware of this key issue from a managerial persoective and of the dangers associated with an antagonistic posture towards the scheme.