employment was to yield satisfaction to both employer and employee. The main features of its referral program are outlined here in the belief that they offer possibilities for adaptation and use by other placement officers.

The staff of this agency regarded the development of accepted terminology, job descriptions, and usuable occupational classifications essential to effective placement practices. Using job definitions in the United States Department of Labor "Dictionary of Occupational Titles" as a basis, a set of job descriptions was evolved covering the following types of jobs: day worker, homemaker (social agencies), nursemaid, general maid, cook, working housekeeper, chambermaid, laundress. More detailed, they were an improvement over the occupational dictionary definitions, since they provided a more complete picture of the job in general and as it existed locally. For each of the listed occupations, the agency has formulated job standards and sample employer-employee agreements.29

The standards sheet, developed in consultation with employers, applicants, and other agencies, presented minimum standards, currently accepted in the locality, which seemed practical and fair.

Each Employment Service staff member, supplied with this basic material, was prepared to discuss job duties and working conditions intelligently with both job applicant and employer. The job description helped the interviewer question the worker skillfully and thoroughly regarding the worker's experience and ability. It also enabled the interviewer to help the employer organize the various tasks included in the employer's specific job order. The standards sheet and sample agreement served the Employment Service staff in guiding employers and employees toward a clear understanding of the duties and hours, wages, and other conditions of work involved in the job.

Wage charts were used to give Employment Service staff members information on hourly and weekly rates for various skills and for various combinations of days and hours of work. These charts, prepared after conference with other agencies dealing in household employment, indicated minimum rates currently offered by employers and accepted by workers in the area. With the help of these charts the interviewer could plan with the employer how to obtain the type and amount of service that would best meet the employer's need, stay within her budget, and still guarantee the worker a standard payment for the work performed.

The New York State Employment Service possesses no power to enforce standards, but it can and does inform employers that there is little prospect that a substandard job will be acceptable to appli

"Samples of some of these job descriptions, standards, and agreements are shown in the appendix, p. 41.

cants, and makes no effort to interest applicants in such job openings. Within the framework of its legitimate activity, it has encouraged good standards and has developed new procedures which resulted in effective placements averaging 16,000 or more monthly.

Ninety-five percent of the placements were for day workers.30 This high percentage of placements for casual workers was the result of a number of factors: the long hours and poor working conditions frequently found on steady jobs; unavailability of workers trained or sufficiently experienced to carry continuing responsibility; and the variation in periods and types of employment of the male relatives of the women seeking employment. A qualified, trained Employment Service staff, exhibiting a consistent, objective attitude and supplied with identical basic information, using the educational approach, has succeeded in maintaining standards. Both employers and applicants have been encouraged to think in terms of definite hours of work for definite hourly wages, and to establish businesslike relations. This office has achieved an outstanding performance in intelligent and well-informed placement of workers and in obtaining the cooperation of employers.

One of the developments that have contributed toward the acceptance of standards and satisfactory work relationships between employers and workers has been the handling of grievances by the Employment Service. Trained interviewers have been able to deal with grievances over the telephone, and in this way to help in the solution of difficulties that would otherwise have resulted in turn

over.

Harlem YWCA Placement Work

Placement which carefully relates the worker's background and experience to the job should result, over a period of time, in a steady group of satisfied employers and employees who consistently use the agency's services whenever needed. The record of the Harlem YWCA employment office in New York City testifies to the soundness and reliability of such placement techniques. While some curtailment of activity was experienced during the war period, it did not reach the extreme contraction due to loss of applicants suffered by other similar agencies. The agency's report for 1945 reveals 2,950 placements, an increase of 16.2 percent over 1943. Seventy percent of these placements were for day workers. The prewar average of registrations amounted to approximately 4,000, as contrasted with 3,005 in 1945.

This agency considers housework a vocation demanding specific

*A day worker is one who seeks work for only a day at a time. One who works one or more days a week regularly, but less than a full week, for the same employer is a part-time worker.

skills. It therefore keeps a detailed record of applicants, with a cumulative work history for each person, whether a day or part-time worker. On application the worker makes out a record of personal data, work history, and names of former employers. A form letter requesting ratings on work skill, habits, and attitudes is mailed to all employer references.31

A health examination, which costs her $1, is required of each applicant. The physician sends the health report to the agency office, and if any physical disqualification is reported, the agency offers counseling to the applicant to help her obtain suitable remedial treatment. If she is unable to pay for medical care, she is referred to a clinic.

On the basis of a worker's skills, experience, and physical condition, the office impartially presents to her suitable openings from which she can make her own job selection.

A small and flexible fee is charged the employee at placement. If she is unable to pay, the fee is waived. After a trial period of 2 weeks, if the placement has proved satisfactory, the employer pays an amount equal to 5 percent of the first month's salary. While these payments help to meet the expenses of the department, they also tend to decrease turn-over. Workers are less apt to leave or employers to dismiss workers for petty or minor reasons.

When constant complaints are received concerning a worker, and it becomes apparent that she is not suited for the work, she is dropped. Such a situation may indicate the need for individual casework, however, and the agency's counseling services are used to help the worker to obtain employment for which she is better fitted.

Since requests for workers are in excess of the supply, the office maintains a list of employers with whom good relations have been established over a period of time. These employers are accorded first consideration. Occasionally the orders of an employer about whom there have been constant and unvarying complaints from a number of workers are rejected. Ordinary grievances registered by workers, however, are handled by the placement staff. The placement office considers it important to advise employers, too, and to explain the necessity and reasons for standards. In many cases, education removes the causes of the complaints. Explanatory materials regarding household employment have also been distributed to employers. This employment office is convinced of the importance of household employment to family well-being. The attention devoted to solving problems in this field and to maintaining a good service has produced a fairly steady supply of qualified workers and an intelligent, fair-minded group of employers.

1 See appendix, p. 54.

TESTING PROGRAM: ST. PAUL-MINNEAPOLIS

The field of household employment has lacked techniques for evaluating performance through valid measures of skills in different types of work. The household employment committee in the St. Paul-Minneapolis area, however, completed before the war an experimental set of performance test questions under the direction of the University of Minnesota testing bureau. In August 1942 this test, together with a general aptitude test and a performance test in meal planning and preparation, was administered at a vacation household institute held at the Minneapolis YWCA camp. The tests were used also with other groups throughout the country, but the project was discontinued in 1943 because of the war.

Renewing their testing program in the fall of 1945, the committee established a fellowship at the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota, to begin September 1946 and to be devoted to the construction of a test for household skills. With the university's approval, $1,000 for a 1-year fellowship was granted for the work. Field work was to be done in cooperation with the YWCA and the USES. The fellow selected was to be under the supervision of a member of the committee and of the university's department of home economics education.

The household employment committee hoped to publish the tests resulting from this work and to distribute them, on a non-profit basis, to all agencies and employers concerned with selection, training, and placement of household workers. Administered by qualified persons, such tests should help to achieve accurate classifications of skills and objective and scientific placement of workers.

772323°-485

SUGGESTIONS FOR HOUSEHOLD EMPLOYMENT PROGRAMS

No community has fully solved the problems of household employment. But the programs which have been described do furnish practical experience and knowledge of trends on which recommendations can be based. Local communities will need to analyze and adapt them to local needs and circumstances and to modify them to meet specific problems that may arise.

THE OBJECTIVES

A comprehensive program designed to meet current needs relating to household employment would include simultaneous action toward four objectives: the establishment of working-conditions standards, better training for both employer and employee, efficient placement service, and improved status for household employees. The first three of these objectives form the foundation of the fourth. The change in status, which involves a change in human relationships, is probably the most difficult of the four objectives to accomplish, but its development will follow more easily if efforts are made along the other three lines.

These objectives can be promoted by: (1) community organizations (general committees, employer leagues, and employee committees and unions), (2) public education systems, (3) public and private placement agencies, (4) individual employers, and (5) employees. The general community committees have been found to be particularly useful in formulating working-conditions standards and in forwarding general educational projects relating to the status of household employees. Public school systems and placement agencies, on their side, have contributed especially toward meeting the technical problems of training and referral procedures.

GENERAL COMMUNITY COMMITTEES, AND EMPLOYER LEAGUES

The general community committee is recommended as probably most conducive to an adequate household employment program. Such a committee would, in so far as possible, include specialists in the fields of economics, psychology, sociology, domestic science, vocational guidance, adult education, and placement, as well as representatives of social and civic organizations and individual employers and employees. Advantages which a general community committee offers are:

(a) A general committee provides for discussions among people having varied viewpoints-especially valuable in the development of standards.

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