Rag trade nurtures employees

UNDER the chairmanship of Mr J.J. R. Rendell (president of the Auckland Association), the first annual conference of the newlyformed New Zealand Federation of Drapers, Clothiers, and Mercers opened yesterday in the Early Settlers’ Hall. Between 30 and 40 representatives were present. Mr Penrose (Dunedin) illustrated the scheme of staff training, for mental and physical development, used in his own business, for the encouragement of a spirit of confidence and loyalty and cooperation between the

management and the employees. The extensive scheme of similar welfare work inaugurated by Messrs Milne and Choyce (Ltd.), of Auckland, in which each beginner in the trade is taken in hand, and put through a proper educational curriculum of business training in the firm’s time, was also explained as a proved means to the cultivation of a definite personal interest in the young untrained employee.