OVERTIME IN OFFICES.

Marlborough Express, Volume XXXV, Issue 168, 23 July 1901, Page 4

OVERTIME IN OFFICES.

THE NEW LEGISLATION.

Tup provisions of the Shops and Offices Bill, so far as it relates to the hours and the pay of office hands-r-" office" being defined'its any building in which any person is employed, directly or indirectly, to do any clerical work in connection with any mercantile, commercial, or professional business or calling carried on therein by the occupier thereof—are, shortly put, as follows : —

The office must be closed nob later than 1 p.m. on Saturday and 5 p.m. on oilier days, Office assistants shall not be employed for more than half an hour after closing time, excepting in the case of a cashier for the purpose of balancing his cash where a daily balance is usual, and in the case of a ledger-;keeper for

the purpose of the poriodical balance of his ledger,

If brought back for the yearly or half-yearly balance^ or to. write up tho books for the day's transactions, or to clear up arrears of any office work, the assistant shall be paid overtime at the rate of half as much again as the ordinary rate.

An old banker, whose opinion the Dunedin Star values very much, writes to that journal as follows :—I am satisfied that a great deal of the late night work is caused by the want of system. The ledgerkeepers are tho officers who have tho extra Monday night work. The tellers, the branch ledgerkeepers, and the bill clerks, are generally done about 4.30, and they sail away as soon as they are finished. Custom lays it down that they have no share of tho troubles which vex the ledgerkeepers till all hours at night. That system, or want of system, s'.iould be and could be altered; A belter plan prevails in some of the branch offices, and spealqng of what I know I say that this better plan could be adopted in main offices. I will show you how. In a main office there will be six ledgers. TKere slvtuld also be six " strike books,'■ into which all the balances would go down from the ledgers ; and what I propose is that of the qfljooßs who ijcjw get away early three should be told off every Monday to take out the balances from the ledgers into the strike books. By (his means you would have six men doing the work now allotted to threo, and by working straight on the six would in most we3ks be away by 6 p.m. The same principle could be employed to largely reduce the extra work of the half-yearly balance, by telling off men to work up the supplementary returns. I know what tho real objection to this will be. Managers like their returns for the Board tq bp in the bes|; penmanship, and to that they prefer them to be in one hand. That is all very well, but Boards do not really want beautiful writing—all that is needed is that it shall be plain ; and I am satisfied that if this were conceded and the system introduced o? making all hands fairly share tho work tho bulk of this wretched and unnecessary extpa work opuld be ayfllflpd.

The following appeared in ovr second edition lamt issue: —