Peeved Personnel

July 1, 1946

In the a ermath of an earlier global calamity and the tenuous economic recovery that followed, tensions were running high in the workplace of the mid-’40s.

There was no postwar “Great Resignation,” but in another obvious sign of workplace discontent, there

was a dramatic surge in the number of skilled workers joining unions. One such organization, the O ce Employees International Union, increased its membership rolls to 90,000, a ninefold rise in three

years. Yet many corporations remained “blithely unaware that white collar morale isn’t all that it has

been in the past.” For bosses at those rms, human resources expert Lawrence Stessin, a vice president at the Labor Relations Institute, prescribed a 15-part remedy. It included greater “planning-ahead knowhow,” “ability to command respect and obedience” and “knowledge of psychology and basic worker motives.”