Joseph Cardinal Höffner CHRISTIAN SOCIAL ... - Ordo Socialis

) Personnel management and authority
Disinterested personnel management is neither sentimentality nor weakness; it presupposes,
rather, the recognition of authority. That does not mean that „those employees who spend
their days in service with the firm (be treated) as though they were mere cogs in the machinery,
denying them any opportunity of expressing their wishes or bringing their experience to
bear on the work in hand“ (Mater et magistra, 92). „If the whole structure or organization of
an economic system is such as to compromise human dignity, to lessen a man's sense of responsibility
or rob him of opportunity to exercise personal initiative, then such a system, we
maintain, is altogether unjust -no matter how much wealth it produces, or how justly and equitably
such wealth is distributed“ (Mater et magistra, 83) The worker should not be present
in the factory merely physically as manpower directed towards piece-work pay; his personal
presence, rather, is decisive. „This demands that the relations between management and employees
reflect understanding, appreciation and good will on both sides“ (Mater et magistra,
92).
On the other hand, the obedience of the subordinates corresponds to the authority of the superiors.
To integrate and subordinate oneself by free decision is no contradiction of the image of
man and does not affect man's position as a subject in the factory. In a factory whose human
and moral climate is healthy, workers whose personal lives are perhaps in great disorder are
able to experience the necessity and stability of a just and continuous order. One can in fact
observe „that the entrance into a clearly, meaningfully, and justly ordered factory often means
the beginning of a development through which a human being gradually succeeds in being
freed from his or her loss of individuality.“ 16 However, that is only possible if a prudent, determined
personnel management oriented by the correct image of man creates a clean social
climate in the factory. In this case, intentional (i.e. consciously willed) and personal management
is complemented by a functional personnel management that sets out from a good social
climate in the factory.
Here it is to be noted that it is not only the formal organization of the factory by the management
with its departments and work teams that is important for the social climate, but especially
the informal group structure that is often inspired and steered by external forces that are
difficult to control, such as political or ideological movements, and which rules almost despotically
what 'they judge', 'they think' and 'they do' within the work force. In this case, there
are not infrequently only a few people who are able to mould the factory environment according
to their own mind, people who exude a mysterious aura, so that they are 'born leaders', as
it were. If these people have a negative attitude, they have destructive effects and form the
most dangerous opponents to those men who, perhaps with the best will, strive to manage the
personnel.
In modern industrial society, personnel management is to a large extent entrusted to the executive
officers whose sociological position is disputed. Some emphasize the arbitrariness of
the executives, particularly of their top group, by speaking derogatorily of 'managers' who,
without being owners themselves, have arrogated to themselves control over whole complexes
of enterprises. Others think, on the other hand, that the executives are placed in the
unsatisfactory and handicapping dilemma of being neither autonomous nor independent and
still having to lead and manage people. In particular, it is not seldom objected to the German
large-scale company that it „has taken its internal personnel system from the state, from bureaucracy,
and from the army.“ This explains why for a long time there was a lack of the understanding
necessary for a „relaxation of the operational system“ which would give „each
individual as much self-responsibility for the whole as the management could assume respon-
16 K Abraham, Der Betrieb als Erziehungsfaktor (Cologne, 1953), 95.
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