Misc-World War-Hours-2

Hours of Business - 1947 Review

During the Second World War, the Bank's Hours of Business were amended to take account of the difficulties consequent upon the implementation of 'black-out' regulations. The outcome was, as detailed in Hours of Business - 1939 to 1945, different opening hours during the winter months (no evening openings) and the summer months.

After the War, a completely new set of Hours of Business were introduced from January 1st 1946. These hours were subject to a review by the Bank's Committee of Management in 1947. That review is reproduced below, together with the comments made by two depositors in letters to the Birmingham Mail.

Report by H Carver, General Manager (June 1947)

At the meeting of the Finance and General Purposes Sub-Committee held on the 2nd December 1946, a report was submitted on the question of the hours of business, when the Committee decided that the present hours of business should be continued and that a further report should be submitted in six months' time.The present hours of business were adopted by the Committee on and from 1st January 1946, after consideration of a comprehensive report by the former General Manager, Mr J P Hilton, and are as follows:

	Hours of business	Approximate Working hours
Monday	10am to 3pm	9am to 4pm
Tuesday	10am to 3pm	9am to 4pm
Wednesday	10am to 3pm	9am to 4pm
Thursday	10am to 3pm	9am to 4pm
Friday	10am to 3pm	9am to 4pm
and	6pm to 8pm	5:30pm to 8:30pm
Saturday	10am to 12 noon	9am to 12:30pm
	Total 29 hours	Total 39 hours approximately. General Corporation hours 38

The working hours, it will be remembered, were based on an allowance of half-an-hour per day for meal time and a leaving time of 4pm on five days of the week. At larger Branches and Head Office, work is not likely to be completed before that time. At pressure periods the time would, of course, be later. The Committee will appreciate that longer hours are worked at larger Branches and Head Office than at smaller Branches. All officers are required to commence work at 9am, but the time of leaving is left to the Manager, who must be satisfied that essential work has been done.

I give hereunder the total transactions each month from November 1946 to April 1947, showing also the percentage and number of transactions during Friday evenings:

Month 1946/1947	Total No of Transactions, including Evenings	No of Evening Transactions	Percentage of Evening to Total Transactions	No of Friday Evenings
November	315,969	25,993	8.226%	5
December	282,693	18,505	6.546%	4
January	278,003	22,008	7.917%	5
February	236,338	12,642	5.349%	4
March	246,478	15,584	6.323%	4
April	350,048	17,679	5.050%	3
	1,709,529	112,411	6.5755%	25

The pre-War distribution of transactions between day and evening hours of business represent a remarkable contrast, as follows:

Year ended 31st March 1939

Total Transactions	Evening Transactions	Percentage
	Monday: 403,679	12.9%
3,108,059	Friday: 461,412	14.8%

During the week ended May 17th 1947, a record was taken at Head Office and 16 Branches of the number of transactions spread over the week, and the averages are as follows:


	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Total
10 - 11am	58	61	47	55	39	78	338
11 - 12 noon	74	56	44	47	32	90	343
12 - 1pm	40	36	50	26	25		177
1 - 2pm	37	27	31	24	27		146
2 - 2:30pm	25	20	12	17	18		92
2:30 - 3pm	34	30	14	20	25		123
6 - 7pm					43		43
7 - 8pm					39		39
	268	230	198	189	248	168	1,301

From the above figures, and from general enquiries I have made, the public does not seem to take full advantage of the Friday evening opening. There is no doubt that the staff could easily handle a larger number of transactions on Friday evening than at present.

As stated in my previous report, the explanation may be that many people pre-War did their shopping on Friday evenings, and called at the Bank, whereas, today, with earlier shop-closing, there is a tendency not to make special journeys to the Bank in the evening. Moreover, the increased number of workers enjoying the five-day week has resulted in some of the depositors visiting the Bank on Saturday morning instead of Friday evening.

Despite the comments of these depositors, the Bank's opening hours continued to be those adopted as from January 1st 1946. The hours were not changed again until December 31st 1958 - this 13 year period being the longest in which there was no amendments made to the Hours of Business.