=Prompt Reward.= Most men believe in Heaven, and many believe in Hell; but few are greatly affected in their action by the hope of the one or the fear of the other. Any reward or punishment that is remote in the time of its application, has a relatively faint influence in determining the average man's conduct. To be most effective, the reward or punishment must follow swiftly upon the act. Hence a managerial policy that may be otherwise good is likely to fail if there is not a prompt reward for excellence. All profit─sharing systems have failed, principally because of failure to recognize the necessity of prompt reward, as well as because of failure to recognize the necessity of individual incentive. The lower the scale of intelligence, the more prompt should be the reward. A common laborer should receive at least a statement of what he has earned every day. If, in the morning, he receives a card stating that he earned $2.10 the previous day, he will go at his task with a vim, hoping to do better. But if he does not know what he has earned until the end of a week, his imagination is not apt to be vivid enough to spur him to do his best. One contractor, known to the authors, has a large blackboard on which the hourly record of his brickmasons is chalked up. He has found that this constant record of where they stand in the day's race is a splendid stimulus. =Sufficient Reward.= When a man produces more than has been his custom, he feels entitled to a very large percentage of his increased output. His sense of justice is keen on this matter, and rightly so. It is true that he is not entitled to all the increase, for his employer may have provided him with machines or tools of a better kind, for which payment must ultimately be made. Moreover, more rapid work with any machine means more rapid wearing─out of its parts, and a consequent expense to the employer. Finally, the employer who has used his brains to devise ways of increasing the output of the employees is entitled to a very substantial reward. No one begrudges Thomas Edison his wealth. He has earned it by virtue of his inventions. In like manner, every man should be richly rewarded for every labor─saving machine or method which he creates or which he applies. However, employers are prone to try to take too large a part of the profit effected by an introduction of a system of unit─payment for work done.