The Hidden Profit in a Worker's Good Will
A Hoquiam-area editorial argues that the loyalty of a working force is worth more in dollars and cents than the good will of customers — and that most employers are squandering it.
What is the good will of the employee worth to the employer? How many employers have stopped to think about that? Many have and would not part with it. Others have not and do not know how much profit they are losing yearly.
Doubtless a great deal of thought is given the good will of the business, meaning the good will of the customers. But in large concerns it would be worth more in dollars and cents to have the good will of the working force than the good will of those on the outside. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that the average working force is capable of increasing its production twenty-five per cent or more whenever the workers feel so inclined. Workers animated by ill-will cannot possibly give results equal to those of workers animated by good will.
The tragic fact appears to be that a vast number of working forces are not animated and inspired and stimulated by the glow of good will toward their employers, but that most of them are either coldly indifferent or worse. What would be the worth to a large industrial concern, for example, of an executive who could be brought in for the purpose of arousing the ardent loyalty of the working force, provided he succeeded in abundant measure? Manifestly, he would be worth not $25,000 or $50,000 a year, but several times that amount.
In the past there have been occasional instances where boards of directors have dropped the chief executives and other executives because of failure to win the cooperation and support of the workers. The dropping of such executives will become far more common hereafter. Some of America's most astute bankers now realize the enormous importance of whether a corporation needing funds has the good will of labor or the opposite. More and more, this asset or liability will become a consideration in the financing of large enterprises.
“Workers animated by ill-will cannot possibly give results equal to those of workers animated by good will.”
A century before 'employee engagement' became a corporate buzzword, this editorial was already pricing worker loyalty as a balance-sheet asset. The timber mills that built Hoquiam and Aberdeen ran on exactly this question — whether a crew gave a full day's work or withheld it. Today's debates over retention, quiet quitting and the cost of a disengaged workforce are the same argument in new clothes.
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