Factors Affecting Human Efficiency

Abstract

LOADING pig-iron on a freight car, driving an automobile, typing a letter, delivering an oration, planning an advertising campaign, directing the policies of a state or corporation, writing a poem, or devising a scientific theory-all these are work, and all of them can be done with varying degrees of efficiency. It is quite apparent that there are great differences between even the few samples of work which we have mentioned. Some require more strength than others, some require more of what we call intelligence, some require more ambition, and so on. The muscular strength required is certainly an important characteristic of work. Strenuous muscular work can best be done by young, but fullgrown, males; it can best be done for short periods; it requires its own type of preparation and a particular kind of diet for the worker. One cannot reason that, because a bookkeeper does better on a light diet, in a quiet office, and with, perhaps, long but infrequent rests, that the same is true for the foundry hand. The amount of intelligence required also differentiates one kind of work from another. A business executive or military commander can hardly be too intelligent in his work. But a girl running an ending machine in a paperbox factory would find much thought or any other form of intelligent behavior quite a handicap. She would be like the centipede of the following well-known lines: