Wage Earning and Education Part 8

CHAPTER XIII

SUMMARY OF REPORT ON DEPARTMENT STORE OCCUPATIONS

The field covered in this volume is limited to the business of retail selling as carried on in the department stores and some other stores of Cleveland. The retail stores considered can all be a.s.signed to one of the three following cla.s.ses: (1) The department store of the first rank which draws trade not only from the whole city and the suburbs but also from the towns and smaller cities of a large surrounding district; (2) the neighborhood store which does a smaller business within narrower limits, drawing its trade, as the name indicates, from the immediate neighborhood; (3) the five and ten cent store, well known by syndicate names, where no merchandise which must be sold above 10 cents is carried.

DEPARTMENT STORES

The five largest department stores in Cleveland employ about 5,800 people distributed among several mercantile departments, and in a variety of occupations that find a place in the industry. Of these 5,800 people approximately seven-tenths are women and three-tenths are men; 90 per cent are over 18 years of age and 10 per cent are under 18.

The entire force of a store is sometimes arbitrarily divided by the management into "productive," and "non-productive" help. From 40 to 60 per cent of the employees were reported as actually taking in money, while the remainder, the "non-producers," were engaged in keeping the business going and making it possible for the "producers" to sell goods.

The greatest number of opportunities either for employment or promotion are in the selling force. This is often spoken as being "on the floor." Both boys and girls may find employment here, though a large majority of the sales force is made up of them. Speaking in general terms, men are only employed to sell men's furnishings, sporting goods, bulky merchandise, such as rugs, furniture, blankets, etc., and yard goods which are difficult to handle, such as household linens and dress goods. Positions as buyers and buyer's a.s.sistants are not restricted by s.e.x and boys and girls may both consider them as a possible goal.

NEIGHBORHOOD STORES

A neighborhood store is that type of department store which draws its trade from a comparatively limited area of which the store is the center. The kind of goods carried are practically the same as in the large department store and the variety of merchandise may be nearly as great; but the selection is more limited because of the small stock.

Promotion to selling positions is more rapid in the neighborhood stores than in regular department stores. One reason for this is that a larger proportion of the force is "productive," _i.e._, selling.

This proportion may run as high as 80 or even 90 per cent, as compared with the 40 to 60 per cent of "productive" help in large department stores.

Employment in these stores is looked upon as desirable preliminary training for service in larger department stores. This is the general opinion held by those who hire the employees in the larger stores. The selling experience gained in neighborhood stores is looked upon as general, in that it gives an acquaintance with a variety of merchandise rather than an extensive knowledge of any line of stock.

This experience makes the employee adaptable and resourceful. Another advantage of neighborhood training for sales people is the fact that they are brought into closer human relations with the customer and thus learn the value of personality as a factor in making sales.

FIVE AND TEN CENT STORES

Cleveland had in the fall of 1915 six large stores where nothing costing over 10 cents is sold. These belong to three syndicates or chains. To show the extent to which this business has developed it may be stated that the largest of these syndicates, which controls three of the six Cleveland stores, has 747 branches in different parts of the country.

The number of saleswomen in a single store ranges from 12 to 70. The total number in the six stores was approximately 226. The shift in this branch of retail trade is large, as there are continual changes in the selling force. One store reported the number of new employees hired in six months as being about equal to the average selling force.

The managers of the five and ten cent stores without exception stated that they preferred to hire beginners who were without store experience. The hours of work are longer and the conditions under which the work is done are more trying than is usually the case in the larger department stores.

The girl who expects her application for employment in the five and ten cent store to be accepted must be 18 years old in order that she may legally work after six o'clock. It is better for her to be without previous selling experience (unless in other five and ten cent stores), as employers in these stores prefer to train help according to their own methods.

WAGES AND EMPLOYMENT

The wages paid beginners in the department stores are fair as compared with other industries employing the same grade of help. Boys and girls when they first enter employment receive from $3.50 to $7, depending on the store where they get their first job. In addition to the salary most department stores give bonuses or commissions through which the members of the sales force may increase their compensation. The Survey Staff worked out comparisons on the basis of data supplied by the State Industrial Commission between the earnings of workers in department store occupations and those in other industries. Diagram 3 shows graphically a comparison of the wages of women workers in six different industries. An interesting point brought out by this graphic comparison is that retail trade const.i.tutes a much better field for women's employment as compared with the great majority of positions open to them in other lines than is commonly a.s.sumed to be the case.

This is brought out even more clearly in Table 15, which compares, on a percentage basis, those who earn $12 a week and over, in all of the industries of the city employing as many as 500 women in 1914.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Diagram 3.--Per cent of women earning each cla.s.s of weekly wages in each of six occupations]

TABLE 15.--PER CENT OF WOMEN EMPLOYEES OVER 18 YEARS OF AGE EARNING $12 A WEEK AND OVER

Office employees, in retail and wholesale stores 31.8 Employees in women's clothing factories 22.5 Saleswomen in retail and wholesale stores 21.0 Employees in men's clothing factories 13.3 Employees in hosiery and knit goods factories 7.9 Employees in printing and publishing establishments 7.7 Employees in telephone and telegraph offices 6.3 Employees in laundries and dry cleaning establishments 4.4 Employees in cigar and tobacco factories 3.9 Employees in gas and electric fixtures concerns 3.2

If the data were for retail stores only and did not include wholesale stores, then office work, which now stands at the head of the list, would probably not make so good a showing, although the superiority over the selling positions is, from the wage-earning standpoint, so marked that there seems to be no escape from the conclusion that on the whole women office workers are better paid than women in the sales force. On the other hand the proportion of saleswomen earning $12 and over is from nearly seven times as great to not far from twice as great as it is in the factory industries, if we except the workers in women's clothing factories, whose earnings per week are better than those of the saleswomen.

With respect to the men employed on the sales force of the department stores a somewhat different situation exists. In Diagram 4 a comparison is made of the wages paid in sales positions with the wages paid in clerical positions. Here it will be noted that men who sell goods in retail and wholesale stores earn more on the average than men occupying clerical positions, such as bookkeepers, stenographers, and office clerks. This comparison does not include traveling salesmen. A further comparison of the earnings of the men in stores with the earnings of male workers (omitting office clerks) in the different industries of the city employing the largest number of men is given in Diagram 5, which shows the per cent in each industry earning $18 a week and over.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Diagram 4.--Per cent of salesmen and of men clerical workers in stores receiving each cla.s.s of weekly wage]

In comparing wages in stores with those in the manufacturing industries it must be not forgotten that the working day and week in the larger stores is shorter than in most of the factories. Hence a comparison of earnings on the basis of wage per hour would show a still greater advantage in favor of both sales persons and clerical workers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Diagram 5.--Per cent of male workers in non-clerical positions in six industries earning $18 per week and over]

REGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT

In department store work and in nearly all branches of retail selling there is a marked fluctuation in the number employed during the year.

Sales work in the department stores is seasonal in the sense that a large number of extra sales women are taken on during the Christmas season for a period of temporary employment, usually lasting from one to two months. The proportion of the total working force for the whole year employed in such transient jobs is approximately one-fourth. How selling positions in retail and wholesale stores compare with other fields of employment in this respect is seen in Diagram 6.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Diagram 6.--Per cent that the average number of women employed during the year is of the highest number employed in each of six industries]

OPPORTUNITIES FOR ADVANCEMENT

In regard to promotion in department stores it should be noted that as a rule the executives are made in the business and are not, as in some industries, brought in from the outside because they must have some special training which the organization itself does not provide. Not only in Cleveland but in other cities where studies of the same kind have been made it has been found that practically all the people holding important floor positions have come up from the ranks. The various lines of promotion through the different departments are a.n.a.lyzed in detail in the report.

THE PROBLEM OF TRAINING

That vocational training for department store employees is both desirable and possible is proved by the fact that most of the large stores in Cleveland make some provision for the instruction of their workers. Some of these cla.s.ses are carefully organized and excellently taught with every promise of increasing in usefulness. Others employ methods of instruction which belong to the academic school of an earlier decade and give evidence that the problem of vocational training with which they are presumably concerned is not even understood.

From the standpoint of the school there are two well recognized kinds of training possible for department store employees: trade preparatory and trade extension training. Eventually it may prove practicable to organize instruction of both kinds, but it is the opinion of the author of the report that under present conditions the surest results can be expected from trade extension training. In trade extension instruction the members of the group to be dealt with have already secured their foothold in the industry; and having mastered at least the rudiments of their job they have acquired a basis of experience which may be utilized for purposes of instruction. These people are responsive to teaching organized with regard to their needs, for daily experience is demonstrating to them their deficiencies.

The success of the proposed training will largely depend upon the employment of simple and direct methods that shall place this knowledge in the hands and head of the person or group needing it. The application of this instruction must be immediate and practical and must not be dependent upon the working out of a complicated course or schedule.

The organization must be flexible enough to admit of bringing together a group having a common need, although they may come from different departments of the business. Since the unit of cla.s.s organization is not previous school experience or similar employment, it will be seen that this cla.s.s should be held only until the need is fully supplied and should then give place to another organized on the same basis.

As in all vocational teaching, the size of the cla.s.s should be limited. To make this work really effective, the instructor should come in sufficiently close contact with all pupils to enable him to obtain a personal knowledge of their needs and capabilities. A further necessity for small cla.s.ses and individual instruction is found in the fact that there is a constant shift of employees in the industry as well as frequent accessions from the outside.

It readily can be seen that this is not a problem of the regular school and that it cannot be met by ordinary cla.s.sroom methods. Part time or continuation cla.s.ses, such as have already proved feasible for other kinds of trade instruction, are the most practicable methods of doing this work.

Cla.s.ses for the instruction of employees are already maintained in the majority of large stores. The extension of this plan of separate responsibility is one way of meeting the problem. But this method has certain obvious faults. The unequal opportunity which it affords to department store employees as a body is a conspicuous drawback. The value of the instruction so given, moreover, will always depend to a large extent on the comprehension of the problem by the firm maintaining the cla.s.ses. The method involves much duplication of effort, which is particularly wasteful when the instruction of small groups is involved.

Another possible method would be for the several department stores to get together and cooperate in providing instruction. There would seem to be no reason why stores should not unite for this purpose as well as for any other. The advantages of this method are economy of maintenance and administration, the ability to command expert service, and the possibility of securing and sharing the results of a great variety of such experiences as does not consist of exclusive trade secrets.

The number of people whom it would be necessary to employ exclusively for the purpose of conducting these cla.s.ses would be small as compared with the results accomplished. Collectively these stores now have in their employ a body of highly paid experts in all lines of merchandise. A large amount of the most accurate technical knowledge covering the work of all departments is already available in the several stores. These are valuable resources which should be utilized by a cooperative school of this kind.

For the head of such a school, it would be desirable to secure a man or woman of more than usual ability and discernment who, above all else, could sense the business and routine of each contributing store from the standpoint of the employee and of store organization. It would be the business of this person to become familiar with the available sources of knowledge in the different stores and then arrange for the presentation of this knowledge to the various cla.s.ses.

By cooperation with the floor men, heads of sections and departments, as well as with the employees themselves, he should come into close contact with the requirements of the workers and should gather from the different stores those who, because of their common need, can be made into a "school unit." It would also be necessary to employ a.s.sistants of practical experience who would attend to the details of routine teaching, and act as interpreters for those experts who have the knowledge but not the ability to impart it even to a small cla.s.s.