BRIGHTER FACTORY LIFE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 179, 30 June 1937, Page 10

BRIGHTER FACTORY LIFE.

ANTIDOTE TO BOREDOAI. A recently issued report of the Aledical Research Council of the British Industrial Research Board on “fatigue in Repetitive Work” records that experi merits showed • that gramophone music provided an antidote to boredom in the modern factory and increased output. This idea has been earned lieyoml the experimental stage in Birmingham where, for two and a half years, a leading firm has provided three programmes of half an hour each ever\ day the music being relayed to evendepartment. It was recognised that factory work is being done under everincreasing pressure, and music was introduced with a five-day week and two complete pauses, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon, when everyone and everything stopped for ten minutes and a cup of ten could he taken. The interval- were just when work was beginning to pall. “AVo have light, rhythmic music, including dance tunes, and the workers sing and whistle the accompaniments, said a representative of the firm. “There is no doubt it helps enormously and the executive and staff find relief from it as much as the manual workers. Since we made these innovations there has been an immense drop in our sickness percentage. AYc get as l>j<r an output with a five-day ucek as with five and a half days; the two days' break refreshes the people completely.”