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The living quarters furnished should invariably be reasonably comfortable. Few field employees outside of the offices can hope to restrict their activities to an eight-hour day or secure regularly and uniformly one day’s rest in seven. The effort should, however, be made to approximate these standards, through an increase in personnel and definite provisions for relief from duty. Special effort should be made to see that employees take vacation leave each year and that they have opportunity to maintain the contacts necessary for keeping abreast of developments in their special lines of work.
Those employees who are required to drive about the reservations in all kinds of weather should be provided with closed cars in good condition, or they should be permitted to use their own cars and charge the government for mileage at a reasonably liberal rate with due consideration of the nature of service required of the car.
Retirement. The Indian field service is no place for an employee of advanced age. Only the exceptional person in the late sixties is physically fitted for the rigors of outside work in the Indian country. It is recommended that retirement be made permissible at age 60, and, except in unusual cases, compulsory at age 65. The retirement allowance should be increased and made more closely proportional to salary so that the more highly paid employees will have less incentive to remain in service after their physical capacity for the work has begun to wane.
Employment of a Qualified Personnel Officer. The Indian Service has almost five thousand employees and it is under-staffed. In no branch of the national government is personnel more important, nor does more depend on the character, initiative, and personality of the employee. These three factors are the most difficult to measure in advance through civil service tests. They can be tested effectively only through a long probationary period on the job in the Indian country. The Service should have an able personnel officer to keep in close contact with the work of the employees, particularly during the probationary period. The civil service tests for entrance into the Indian Service need radical revision, and much work must be done in establishing contacts with sources of supply of qualified employees and in encouraging qualified persons to apply for the Service. Living and working conditions require thorough investigation and constructive work. The amount of field