The Romance of a Great Store Part 13

Here is only a single one of the many evidences of Macy co-operation with the employees. Yet it ill.u.s.trates clearly the house's policy of making its workers feel an interest in and beyond the mere amount of money that they draw at the end of the week. Not a few of these prizes are awarded for suggestions as to procedure in technical matters relating to the details of the business. Some of them result in the saving of time--and consequently money--and others in the improvement of working conditions. For example: ten dollars was awarded to the man who suggested that the doors of fitting-rooms be equipped with signals to show whether or not they are occupied; five dollars went to the one who made the suggestion that the fire-axe and hook standing in the corner of the customers' stairway be placed on the wall in a suitable case so that children could not play with them; two dollars to her who advanced the very reasonable idea that a scratch-pad in the 'phone booths would prevent memoranda and art manifestations being made upon the walls. Here are a few suggestions that were proffered and acted upon. The entire list runs to a considerable length.

There is another notice upon the big bulletin board at the head of the employees' stairs--a sort of town-crier affair with temporary and permanent notices of interest to the store's workers--which tells the working force that when vacancies occur within the big store they will be promptly posted on this and other bulletin boards. The workers are advised to apply for any position which they may feel they are competent to fill. Ambition is not curbed in Macy's. On the contrary, it is stimulated to every possible extent. The employee is restricted only by his own limitations, if he has them. It is a firmly-fixed house policy to promote, wherever it is at all possible, from its own ranks. Among its high-salaried men and women are not a few who have worked their way up from the bottom. In fact, among these six or eight of the best paid men in the store, is one who boasts that he first came to New York fifteen years ago, with but a suitcase and eleven dollars in his pocket.

The employment department must have been very much on the job when it hired this man. It generally is very much on its job.

Obviously, the hiring of workers for an enterprise as huge as Macy's cannot be conducted on any hit-and-miss plan. We have gone far enough with the store in these pages to see that hit-and-miss does not figure at any time or place in its varied functionings--and nowhere less than in its employment department. The hiring of new workers for the store is indeed a branch of the business machine that receives constant and great care and systematic attention. A store must employ the right sort of people in order to be a good store. This is fairly axiomatic these days.

These workers are gathered in a variety of ways--by volunteer applications, by newspaper advertis.e.m.e.nts (in New York and outside of it), by outside free employment agencies, by circular appeals generally to educational inst.i.tutions, and, best of all, through the solicitation of its regular employees. There is no appeal for a worker that, in my opinion, can compare with the suggestion made by an employee that the place of his or her employment is a good place for his or her friends, as well.

I am warmly concurred with in this opinion by the store's employment manager, a big, upstanding man, who in his Harvard days was a famous football player. The rules of that fine game he has brought to the understanding of his present problem.

"One of the most desirable cla.s.s of applicants is that brought by our own employees," he says, frankly, "as in hiring these people we have a feeling of security; especially if they have been brought in by some of the old and most loyal employees. It has been our experience that such applicants enter more readily into the spirit of their work and develop more rapidly than those obtained from other sources. We advertise in the cla.s.sified columns of the newspapers only when it is absolutely necessary. Our regular daily advertis.e.m.e.nts keep the store constantly before the public eye--and generally that is enough.

"During the recent war period, however, we had no scruples about advertising, as nearly every other line of endeavor was in the same boat as we. Never before have the newspapers carried so much cla.s.sified advertising. Yet when all is said and done, besides the moral undesirability of this source of supply, we found it also very expensive indeed.

"Some people believe that the function of an employment department is merely to keep in touch with the labor market and engage employees," he continued. "This is erroneous. The duty of this employment department is to raise the standard of efficiency of the whole working force by the proper selection, placing, following up and promotion of employees and so bringing about a condition that will result in their rendering as nearly as possible one hundred per cent. service to the store. That is the real reason why employment departments such as this first came into existence. Business some years ago awoke to the realization of the fact that its indiscriminate handling of the entire labor problem was causing a tremendous economic waste, not alone to the employee and to society, but to itself. It then began for the first time to deal with the problem of its personnel in a scientific and practical way."

The market for workers--like pretty nearly every other sort of market--is, as we have just seen, subject to fluctuations; there are seasons when the employment manager--ranking as the store's fourth a.s.sistant general manager--must look sharply about him for the maintenance of its ranks, other seasons when long files of would-be workers present themselves each morning at his department doors. For the five or six years of the World War period the first set of conditions prevailed. It was difficult for any department-store, ranked by the Washington authorities in war days as a non-essential industry, always to maintain its full working force, to say nothing of its morale.

Recently the pendulum has swung in the other direction. America is not exempt from the labor conditions which are prevailing in the other great nations of the world. And there are plenty of people who would work in Macy's. Yet the store has refused to use this situation as a club over its workers. Throughout the darkest days of the business depression it told them that it had no intention either of reducing its force of workers (beyond the usual lay-off of extra Christmas people) or of reducing their individual salaries. Which was a considerable help to its _Esprit de corps_.

Yet even in the hardest days of labor shortage Macy's never ceased to be most particular as to the quality of its help. Applicants for positions underneath its roof were scrutinized with great care to make sure as to their desirability as additions to the organization. And before they finally were accepted and turned over to the training school, they were examined, with as much thoroughness as if there were hundreds of others in the file behind them, from whom the store might pick and choose.

All this is part and parcel of the definite management policy of the employment department, just as it is part of its policy to make sure that the prospective member of the Macy family has more than one arrow to his or her quiver. Alternate capabilities are a.s.sets not to be scorned. And there is an obvious store flexibility in being able to use its human units in a variety of endeavor that the management can hardly afford to ignore. And it does not.

There is a function of the employment department of the modern business machine that Macy's recognizes as second in importance only to that of engaging its workers. I am referring to that moment when they may leave its employ, either from choice or otherwise. If "otherwise"--in the colloquial phrasing of the store being "laid-off"--there is the greatest of care and discretion used.

"Remember the Golden Rule," says its general manager to his a.s.sistants, and says it again and again. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And remember that there is never a time when this Golden Rule is more necessary or applicable in business than in the moment of discharge."

Translated into the terms of hard fact this means that in Macy's no buyer, no department head, no department manager has the power to dismiss one of his workers. He may recommend the "lay-off" but only the general manager himself may actually accomplish the act. In which case he first refers the case to one of his five a.s.sistants, for personal investigation and recommendation.

When the saleswoman--or man, as the case may be--leaves of her own volition the matter becomes, in certain senses, more serious. Why is she dissatisfied? Are the conditions of labor more onerous at Macy's than in the other stores of the city, the remuneration less satisfactory? Macy's does not intend that either of these causes shall obtain beneath its roof. So the retiring employee, before she may leave its pay-roll, is carefully examined as to her reasons for going. The last impressions of the store must be quite as good as the earliest ones--even upon the minds of its workers. And a careful system of observation and of record has been upbuilded to make sure that this is being obtained; which may often lead to valuable opportunities for the correction of store system, particularly in the relationship between Macy's and its employees.

We come now face to face with the training department--another individual organization strong enough and important enough to demand as its head an officer of the rank and t.i.tle of a.s.sistant general manager.

But before we come to consider it in some of the many aspects of its workings--before we come to see how in these recent years education has come to be the hand-maiden of merchandising, let us consider the actual experience of a young woman who recently entered the employment of the store. She was a college woman--a good many of the store people are these days. The ma.s.s of young women who come trooping out of our colleges each June are apt to find their employment bents trending more or less to a common course and in great cycles. Yesterday the cycle was teaching; the day before, literature or the sciences; today it is merchandising. The great department-stores of our metropolitan cities in America are, as we already know, today paying their executives and sub-executives salaries more than commensurate with the earnings of those in other lines of industry and well ahead of those in the learned professions. Moreover, they have brought their hours of employment down to a point at least approaching those of other business organizations.

Their appeal thus has become measurably greater. And they are reaping the reward--in the attraction of a higher grade of executive young women.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SCIENCE OF MODERN SALESMANSHIP

Education places the saleswoman of today at highest efficiency.

A Macy schoolroom]

This young woman was of that type. And here is how she came to Macy's--told in her own words:

"Not at all long, long ago, I went rather hesitatingly into the rooms labeled 'employment office' at Macy's. 'Hesitatingly' because, if you have ever gone around very much looking for a job, you know that 'Welcome' is not always written on the door-mat that receives you. But it is at Macy's--and a woman, who made me feel that she was my friend by the warmth of her smile, talked with me and after filling out the usual blanks I was told when to report for work. They were mighty decent, too, about trying to place me selling the kind of merchandise that _I_ wanted to sell--and that means a lot!

"The Monday morning that I came to work was, of course, rather hard--it's not easy to go into any strange and new place and be crazy about it right at first! There were a lot of us--all new girls--and it was fun to see what they did to us. We went from the employment office, where there is a good sign reading 'Say "we" not "I" and "ours" not "my",' to our locker room (which, by the way, is the best of any of the places I have ever worked in) and then up to the training department for a little first time; after which they sent us to our respective departments. We felt rather like ping-pong b.a.l.l.s, being knocked hither and thither, and though we didn't know why we were doing any of these things we trusted that those holding the ping-pong bat did.

"While we were waiting up there in the training department, we had a chance to get to know each other a little--two or three of us were charmingly Irish--and time to note the people busy about that department. Nice efficient-looking people they were--and of course we labeled and cubby-holed them. One man, we all decided, could well be a matinee idol and another might have hailed from down Greenwich Village way.

"At last we parted and went down through the store to our own departments--and on the way any importance which we may have felt was quickly submerged in seeing what a distressingly small part we were of the large Macy organization. Even so, we later found out how many, many other 'we's' like each of us could make a deal of trouble for it, should we fail to carry on our work correctly. A talk we had from the store manager, a little later on, made me feel directly responsible to the poor fellows who are the Macy delivery men. If I were not careful to write the address clearly in my salesbook, the delivery man would get in trouble--and all because of my handwriting! Funny, how we were all linked up together.

"Well, to go back, I got to my department feeling decidedly unimportant, and was put to work behind a counter which sold women's and children's woolen gloves and women's kid gloves. That was the first counter I had ever sold from. In other stores I have sold from what are known as 'open departments'; the counter trade was a revelation to me. Did you ever notice the lack of s.p.a.ce behind the counters in the stores? Well, with the Christmas rush and all the extra salesgirls, it is lucky indeed that some of us have a sense of humor.

"I had not been behind the counter for two whole minutes before a customer came along and asked for something. I tried to look wise and answer. It was all terribly new. The customers are always so plentiful in Macy's that a new girl hardly has time to have the old girls tell her about the stock. Moreover, our counter was very near the store's main entrance--which meant that we were an informal but very busy little information bureau on our own account--not only about Macy's but apparently anything else in the city of New York.

"Of course, I didn't have a salesbook that day; I didn't receive one until after I had had some training and was beginning to know something about the Macy system. However, customers could not see the 'new-and-green' written on my face, so I waited on them thick and fast; even through that first morning. And a wild time I had of it--gym was never so exhausting as stooping down to look for a certain pair of gloves which must be a certain color combined with a certain size, plus a certain style and so on. Some people must stay up nights figuring along the lines of permutations and combinations, so as to work out some unheard of ones for the things they ask for in Macy's. The other girls were mighty nice to me, though, and as helpful as could be. And our having to almost walk upon one another and squeezing past and b.u.mping so often--why, you all get clubby, mighty soon. At the end of that first day I was rather wrecked, though happy--for in my desire to find things for customers speedily I had, in bending down, burst through the knee of one stocking, broken a corset-stay and ripped loose a garter! Henceforth I managed to dress in a manner prepared for doing gymnastic stunts, such as deep-knee-bending and leap-frog.

"My first lesson on the store system came on my first day in the store--and then one every day for an hour, during the whole first week.

I liked that--for then I knew how things were supposed to be done. They even took us out into departments that were not busy early in the morning and had us make out certain kinds of sales right behind the counter, and carry the whole thing through--all that was lacking being the _real_ customer. It gave us confidence and showed us things that we thought we knew, but that, when it came right down to it, we didn't know at all. The training department also gave us pamphlets and notices about how to use the telephones and telling us to do certain things, as well as how our salary and commission were to be figured. Also one leaflet told us about Macy's underselling policy, and what we should do in case a customer reported merchandise as being cheaper somewhere else--and, although I had heard before of this policy of Macy's, I came to believe in it faithfully, after I had read the booklet.

"When you're new in a department the 'higher up' man can do much to make you feel glad that you are there. My section manager and buyer were both fine. The buyer told us in a talk she gave us all about how she'd been with Macy's for twenty-five years; that she had worked for several years, when she first began, at six dollars a week. She made us feel that there surely must be a chance for every one of us--that a firm that is worth staying with that long must be pretty fine indeed--and that it was just up to us individually, whether or not we would go ahead. As for our section manager, he was always so nice in the way he handled any transaction with us--giving us an extended lunch-hour or signing any sales checks that needed his 'O. K.' In many stores the section managers are so disagreeable about doing their work that the salesgirls hate to have them 'O. K.' things--but I have found it quite the opposite at Macy's. And when he had the time and saw any of us looking glum or tired our man would talk to us and succeed in cheering us up.

"There are many things, too, that I discovered Macy's doing for its employees--all sorts of clubs and parties. One of the most useful of the first of these I found to be the umbrella club. All I had to do one day when it began unexpectedly to rain was to go up to the training department, deposit fifty cents and receive an umbrella. If I left Macy's within the month, I would get my fifty cents back. Of course, I was to return the umbrella the very first clear day but any time thereafter that I needed one I could go upstairs and get it.

"Then, too, there's the recreation room--you have two fifteen-minute relief periods a day in the store in addition to your lunch time. You can go to the dressing rooms and wash up a bit and then go to the recreation room, where there are plenty of large, comfy chairs, a piano, books and the like. The room is a veritable social center all the day long--I always found lots of friends there, no matter at what time I took my relief periods. And you go back to your work refreshed and 'full of pep' once again. Another place where you have a chance to see your friends is the employees' lunchroom--and it certainly is a popular place. Despite the clatter and rush, the Macy folks have a good time in their cafeteria; the crowds that eat there every day prove the wholesomeness of its food. It is good home cooking and, as far as its cheapness is concerned--well, I've eaten veritable dinners there at the noon hour, day after day, and never had my check total more than twenty-five cents; with thirteen or fifteen nearer the average.

"One morning we all came early to the store--to a courtesy rally.

Thousands of us--yes, literally thousands of us--gathered on the main floor, on the central stair and everywhere roundabout it, and we sang songs about smiling; and other optimistic things. Then, after good addresses by Mr. Straus and Mr. Spillman, we all sang again and, in response to an inquiry from one of the store executives, all shouted that we would try to carry on with the new Macy slogan of 'A smile with every package' and 'a thank you as goodbye.'"

Frank testimony, indeed. And honest.

To bring this atmosphere about the worker in the store may no more be the result of hit-and-miss than the right sort of hiring. In the modern marts of the new Bagdad the creation of morale, not merely the retention of a good industrial relationship between a store and its workers but a constant bettering of it, has come to be as important a problem as that of the buying or the delivering of its merchandise, or even its problems of making its public constantly acquainted with its offerings and advantages.

The work of such a department--in Macy's the department of training--divides itself quite logically and clearly into two great avenues; the one educational, the other recreational. Each takes hold of the newcomer to the store almost from the very moment that he or she enters upon its lists of employment. The new salesgirl's name is hardly upon the rolls of the department to which she is a.s.signed before a member of the store's reception committee is upon her heels and steering her straight through all the maze of fresh experiences that necessarily must await the novitiate. She is told all about her time disc of bra.s.s--the individual coin that bears her distinctive number (built up of her department number plus her own serial one) which she must drop into its allotted slot at the employees' entrance when she comes to it in the morning and which she must see is returned to her before the day is done in order that she may have it to use again upon the morrow; how, going from the locker room to her department at the day's beginning, she must sign its own time-roll, which then becomes accountable for her comings and goings through the rest of the day; how she can go and when she must return; how she is paid--her salary, her quota, her commissions, her bonuses.

All of this might sound complicated, indeed, to the new girl, were it not for the kindness of her a.s.signed "committeeman." Complications in the hands of a woman who has been through the mill, herself, and who has come to see how they are really not complications at all, but cogs in the grinding wheels of a great and systematic machine, are easily explained. The new girl catches on. The simple but accurate psychological tests through which she was put before she was accepted for Macy's a.s.sure this. She catches on and within a year--perhaps within a s.p.a.ce of but a few months--she, herself, is on the reception committee and helping other new girls through the maze of first employment.

The new girl catches on--

There lies before me, as I write these paragraphs, a neatly typewritten loose-leaf memorandum book. It is the work of a girl who has yet to round out her first year in Macy's and it is a work that all must produce before they may hope for very definite advancement.

This typewritten book is, in itself, a book of the Macy store. Its pages are a brief, succinct and thorough account of the store's organization, its selling policies--including, of course, the stressed under-selling policy--and its methods. Yet it is much more, too. It is, if you please, a manual of salesmanship. Under a heading, "Steps in an Ideal Sale,"

these are not only enumerated but are given relative values in percentages. Thus we see that "attracting attention" is twenty per cent.; "arousing interest," twenty; "creating desire," fifteen; "closing sale," twenty; "introducing new merchandise," ten; and "securing good will," fifteen. Under each of these sub-heads, the salesclerk has collected a group of points necessary to their attainment. Thus, under "attracting attention" one finds "facial expression" and under it, in turn, "pleasant and expectant."

All of these things have been taught the salesgirl author of this book--the volume, itself, is the result of her notes at her lecture cla.s.ses. When she is taught "attracting attention" she is told that alongside of "facial expression" there comes "tone of voice," and under this last there are five distinct cla.s.sifications: "audible, distinct, sincere, rhythmical, suited to customer." Truly the science of salesmanship goes to far lengths these days. From time to time the store has engaged a professional teacher of elocution to take up and carry forward this last function of its work. Here is this saleswoman being taught that "swell" is a word forever to be avoided over the counter, "smart," "stylish," "fashionable," "original," and some others being subst.i.tuted. Similarly "elegant," "grand," "nifty," "cla.s.sy," "cheap,"

"awfully" and "terribly" are under the ban, appropriate synonyms being suggested to replace them. "Flat" is not to be used, when "apartment" is meant. The entire list of words to be avoided in a Macy sales conversation runs to a considerable length.

This particular saleswoman was trained to textile salesmanship.

Consequently, although the first half of her book, which treats of the store's methods and policies, is common to those that are being prepared by her fellows in all the other selling departments, the second half is the result of the special training that was given her in the department of training along the lines of her own merchandise. Not only did she spend long hours of the firm's time in its cla.s.sroom upon the third floor of the store and surrounded by cabinets in which were displayed textile materials of every sort and in every stage of development, but she was given a printed booklet which told her much about her merchandise, its history, its production fields and the details of its manufacture.

From it she evolved her own history of textiles, setting down with accuracy the four fundamental cloths--cotton, linen, silk and wool--and not alone tracing their development and manufacture, but by means of carefully hand-made diagrams, pointing out the difference between the different textures and weavings. "Warp" and "weft" and "twill" have come to be more than mere words to her. They are a part of her business capital, which she can--and does--turn to the good account of the store.

So she is to her compeer of twenty-five years ago--selling dress-goods in the old Macy store down on Fourteenth Street--as the electric light of today is to the old-fashioned lamps of that day and generation.

Back of this little black-bound notebook there is system--organization if you would read it that way. Education, of a truth, has become the handmaiden of merchandising. And the store's school has become one of its ranking functions.