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The
Control Office
The
Control Office was the office of the
firm's Comptroller of the Clerical
Department and was the home of the
Assistant Comptrollers. The Office, as the
name implied, co-ordinated the work of the
general offices in the Clerical Department
and, in particular, assisted management to
carry out staff policy. Other members of
its staff acted as advisers on personnel
matters, saw to the engagement of new
staff, and organised staff training and
preparation of certain personnel records.
All staff employed in the Cadby Hall
offices were engaged through the Control
Office. A list of vacancies was kept to
show which offices wanted clerks and for
what job, and constant contact was
maintained with employment exchanges (now
called job centres), youth employment
committees and local agencies, which were
all probable sources of staff. These
contacts were supplemented with
advertisements which were placed in local
and national newspapers.
Applicants
were interviewed and given appropriate
tests for arithmetic, typing, office
machine operation and/or general
intelligence. The results of these tests
were taken into account at the interview
to help staff engagers to decide where the
applicant might be most useful. Quite a
different approach from today when
interviewing is more of a two-way process.
Transferring existing staff (perhaps
promotion) to other jobs in other offices
was carried out in the same way. At the
initial interview for new staff, Income
Tax forms had to be completed and an
Insurance Card obtained. A medical
examination was carried out by the firm's
doctor and a photograph of the applicant
was taken which would remain on his/her
record card.
The
clerical staff numbers at Cadby Hall in
the 1950s was in excess of 2,000 and the
Control Office had to keep abreast of the
general conditions of employment and rates
of pay offered by others firms in the
area. This was carried out in a number of
ways: by discussions with the staff
applying for, and leaving for other jobs;
by consultations with other firms in the
area; by studying press advertisements;
and by comparison with such analyses of
clerical rates that were published from
time to time.
In
addition the Control Office also provided
a secretarial service for the Clerical
Staff Committee and its various
sub-committees, working in close
conjunction with the office committees and
arranging regular supervisors' meetings
during the winter months. It produced, and
maintained, the Clerical Staff Handbook,
and also published an in house magazine
called The Journal. Weekly staff changes
were made to the Comptroller and every
quarter a report of general staff
statistics was produced.
The
Training School, which was the
responsibility of the Control Office,
carried out all centralised clerical
training and maintained a library of
technical books which could be borrowed
for study or reference by any member of
the Clerical Department through the office
manager. Nearly all staff were given
induction training on the Company's
history and organisation. Tuition was
given by the training staff in shorthand,
typing and machine operation and other
courses as required. There was also a
special course for Group Leaders and
Supervisors.
When
the company began its decentralisation
policy in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s the
work of the Control Office was reduced as
departments and subsidiaries began to take
responsibility for their own recruitment.
Modern technology too needed different
employment skills and the Control Office
was not in a position to provide this.
Dictaphones, word processors, computer
programmers, systems analysts, computer
operators, tape librarians, to name a few,
changed office procedures forever. Right
up until the 1970s office staff was less
expensive than computers. Now of course
labour costs far outweigh the cost of
technology.
Some
interesting statistics were thrown up in
the 1951 Census, the first since the
Census of 1931. During the 20-year span
between them, the number of clerks almost
doubled. In 1951 there were 2.3 million
clerks employed by British industry; the
increase since 1931 being equivalent to
the whole population of Birmingham at that
time. One in ten workers were
clerks.
©
Peter Bird 2005
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