When we were young
that window alone” bellowed out from behind an adjacent desk. Retreat seemed a reasonable tactic and I hopped it as quickly as I could. I was later advised that ‘window wars’ had been raging for some years, the protagonists being a health fanatic and a chain-smoker who shared an office and were locked in perpetual combat. Shortly after I started work the Equal Pay Act 1970 found its way onto the statute book, although it didn’t come into force until December 1975. It is hard to convey the societal attitudes of that period and it was a time of change. I can remember an older colleague telling me that he left his trade union because of its support of equal pay. In explaining this to me he pointed to a large heavy box occupying a space on the floor in front of his desk. It was full of spare continuous computer paper. I was hoping that he wasn’t going to ask me to move it, but instead he asked me to show him ’a woman that can pick up that box?’. I didn’t take the challenge seriously. He apparently vehemently disagreed with equal pay and the box was somehow central to his beliefs. In all the time that I was there the box remained firmly rooted to the same part of the floor. Notably, some months after our conversation, the individual concerned injured his back and, if I had placed less value on my front teeth, I would have asked him if he intended to volunteer for a pay cut now that the box moving was no longer part of his skill set. Work issues The main thrust of our activity involved paying staff employed in schools and it seemed to involve a disproportionate amount of time and resource being devoted to dealing with absences caused by sickness. Schools and colleges in the city were required to submit a paper absence return every week. Every day of absence was manually transcribed on to an absence record and each month we tried to assess the amount of state sickness benefit that each absentee was entitled to receive. (This was prior to the advent of statutory sick pay.) Sickness benefit was claimed by the individual directly from the Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS) and, to prevent staff being better off by going sick (and to save money), the sickness benefit received was deducted from salary. Just
to make the process even more labour intensive, we would write and ask the employee concerned for evidence of the rate of sickness benefit receivable (form BS12 as I recall, issued by the DHSS to each recipient). For each full week of absence an employee was excused a National Insurance contribution and instead entitled to a credit from the DHSS. This too required a payroll adjustment. ...the important role that kindness and consideration can play... Perhaps the most momentous event that had to be dealt with in my early payroll days was the conversion to decimal currency from pounds, shillings and pence or ‘£sd’ (abbreviated from the latin librae, solidi and denarii). It makes me feel quite old to note that this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the conversion which took place on 15 February 1971. In the lead up to ‘D-day’ we issued payslips in dual currency, with all payments and deductions in £sd and the decimal equivalent in brackets. This was reversed in the months that followed with £sd finding itself relegated to the bracket. In more recent years I thought that a similar process would need to take place if we were to convert to the Euro. Another example of my being genned and ready for something that never happened. The mid 1970s also saw the end of the National Insurance (NI) stamp and fixed rate contributions. Everyone had a NI card and an adhesive stamp was to be applied for each week for which a contribution was paid. As a large employer we were let off messing about with gummy stamps and instead submitted a proportion of mainly blank cards to the DHSS each quarter. (Based on the NI number suffix, ‘A’ suffix cards were returned after March, ‘B’ after June, and so on.) The only information we marked on cards was a ‘C’ for a credit for a full week of sickness absence or start date or date of leaving. The cards were then subjected to quite a rigorous reconciliation process.
included carbon paper (yes, I am pre- photocopier), blotting paper (great for soaking up coffee spillages), a book of tables that helped you divide numbers by twelve (there were also other so called ‘ready-reckoners’) and an eraser. Perhaps the most interesting piece of serious kit that was in common use was the comptometer. It looked a little like a typewriter with numbered keys arranged in rows on a slightly inclined plane. Learning to use these wonderful objects and becoming a comptometer operator took considerable training. They were used for a range of calculations, often the addition of large columns of figures. If a comptometer operator checked and rubber stamped your work, you knew that it was the ultimate seal of approval. The introduction of LED desk calculators led to an interesting debate. There were two schools of thought – those who regarded them as a supplement to efficiency and accuracy and those who thought that they would attract the ‘wrong sort’ to payroll offices (people who couldn’t add up). One of my more literary colleagues described them as “weeds of progress flowering in the ancient beds of culture”. I saw them as vital devices that might help me hold on to my job. People We were quite a mix of characters with a largish contingent who had served in the armed forces during the second world war. They instilled a mixture of quiet discipline and comradeship to the way things were done. It was not until many years later that I came to appreciate and respect the commitment that many of my older colleagues devoted to the development of their younger colleagues. Bill spent much time and effort guiding me toward some meaningful qualifications and gave me the odd push when he thought I needed it. He also took pity on me and, in his kind and diplomatic way, moved me away from payroll (which, in all honesty, I not was not great at) towards an involvement in pensions administration. He was probably one of the most thoughtful people that I have ever worked with and we stayed friends throughout retirement. From him I learned so much about managing people and the important role that kindness and consideration can play in our organisations. n
Equipment Essential equipment in those days
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| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward |
Issue 70 | May 2021
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