Those engaging employees should be careful to get the best. Understand you cannot
have too good tools to work with, and there is no tool you should be so
particular about as living tools. If you get a good one, it is better to keep
him, than keep changing. He learns something every day, and you are benefited
by the experience he acquires. He is worth more to you this year than last, and
he is the last man to part with, provided his habits are good, and he continues
to be faithful. If, as he gets more valuable, he demands an exorbitant increase
of salary, on the supposition that you can't do without him, let him go.
Whenever I have such an employee, I always discharge him; first, to convince
him that his place may be supplied, and second, because he is good for nothing
if he thinks he is invaluable and cannot be spared.
But
I would keep him, if possible, in order to profit from the result of his
experience. An important element in an employee is the brain. You can see bills
up, "Hands Wanted," but "hands" are not worth a great deal
without "heads." Mr. Beecher illustrates this, in this wise:
An
employee offers his services by saying, "I have a pair of hands and one of
my fingers thinks." "That is very good," says the employer.
Another man comes along, and says "he has two fingers that think."
"Ah! That is better." But a third calls in and says that "all
his fingers and thumbs think." That is better still. Finally another steps
in and says, "I have a brain that thinks; I think all over; I am a
thinking as well as a working man!" "You are the man I want,"
says the delighted employer.
Those
men who have brains and experience are therefore the most valuable and not to
be readily parted with; it is better for them, as well as yourself, to keep
them, at reasonable advances in their salaries from time to time.
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