The Computer and the Clerk

Enid Mumford, Olive Banks

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780815387251
• eBook ISBN: 9781351173667
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Economics

Originally published in 1967 and the result of extensive interviews and case studies, this book examines the implications of technical change. Although focussed on the early introduction of computers the kinds of problems discussed in this book are found in technical change more widely and the book therefore continues to have enduring relevance. The book is divided into three parts - an attitude survey of the administrative staff in departments affected by the introduction of computers, a study of the mechanisms of change and a second survey and re-examination of departmental organisation and work flow.

PART I

Offices in transition

CHAPTER 1

Some problems of office automation

Technical change and its problems have been extensively studied by sociologists and others for many years past but, until recently, an examination of the dynamics and consequences of this kind of change has been confined almost entirely to the factory shop floor. We now have studies of technical change and its impact on production techniques, work organisation and human relations in such industries as car manufacture, steel and coal, to mention but a few.¹

Today, however, with the advent of computers and electronic data processing a quite new kind of technical change is becoming commonplace—office automation. This affects clerical rather than production departments, and clerks instead of manual workers; it is to be found in purely commercial and administrative organisations such as banks, insurance companies and local authorities as well as in the clerical services of manufacturing firms.

Technical change in the office may be more difficult than on the shop floor

The novelty of this kind of major technical change in offices leads immediately to a number of difficulties which may not occur or may be more easily overcome when technical change is introduced on the shop floor.

First, the production departments of rapidly developing manufacturing firms have become accustomed to handling and adjusting to frequent changes in technology and many have learned how to do this efficiently and easily. Offices, in contrast, have been used to a much slower rate of change. While the majority today are at least partially mechanised through the introduction of equipment such as typewriters, adding and accounting machines and punched card systems, these developments have come about gradually and caused few problems of assimilation and adjustment. Office automation has now altered this slow moving absorption of innovation. The introduction of a computer can produce quite dramatic changes in an office situation; for example, in the organisation of clerical, information and control functions, in the kind of work office staff are required to do, and in the number of clerks and managers needed to do this. Often these consequences are not anticipated by management involved in the change; they are taken by surprise when what they envisaged as a simple change of system acts like a bomb explosion and causes repercussions that spread through many departments.

Second, not only are production departments more likely to be experienced in handling technical change, management there is usually under some pressure to proceed thoughtfully and carefully. This is because workers affected by the change will almost certainly be union members and they will expect their union officials to be in continual negotiation with management to safeguard their interests. With the exception of local government workers, who are highly unionised, and bank clerks who are likely to belong to either bank staff associations or N.U.B.E., most clerks are unlikely to have this kind of watchdog. They are therefore less protected than the shop floor worker and more at the mercy of the vagaries of their bosses. At the same time, managements which are free from union pressure may be tempted to move rapidly ahead with technical change without thinking through the human relations implications of what they are doing.

Third, whereas change on the shop floor is handled by production managers, engineers and other technical specialists who are well used to this kind of re-organisation, in an office installing a computer for the first time, responsibility for introducing the machine may be given to the firm’s accountant or, if the firm has one, to the organisation and methods department. The former may not be used to handling change at all, the latter may regard a computer as a simple move from one system of work to another. Neither are likely to anticipate or understand the far-reaching organisational and human relations consequences of what they are doing. Again and again in our research we came across examples of firms running into difficulties because the social effects of office automation were not foreseen or planned for, and we found managements were astonished and hurt when their employees refused to co-operate or started looking for other jobs.

Fourth, the shop floor worker is himself more accustomed to change than the clerk and is, perhaps, less likely to be disturbed by it. There has always been some degree of insecurity attached to his job and he has adjusted to this. Not so the office worker who may have worked for years in a secure and sheltered environment and who expects this condition to continue. He receives a rude shock when he finds that a piece of electronic equipment is about to take over his work and he is told that a machine can complete clerical operations more accurately and efficiently than he ever could.

Consequently computers present a considerable challenge to those managers who have to handle their introduction and to those clerks and managers who experience their effects.

Our approach

There is a great need for systematic information on what happens when a firm installs a computer, on the kinds of problems that are likely to be encountered and on the kinds of strategy that must be adopted in order to avoid these. At the moment this information is patchy and one-sided. There are many articles and books on the technical aspects of computer introduction, virtually nothing on the organisational impact of the extensive use of computers involved in integrated data processing—although industry must adopt an integrated approach if it is to use computers effectively—and very little on the social impact of computers on the clerical labour force.

This book attempts in a small way to provide some systematic information on the social aspects of computer installation by describing how two firms introduced computers and the problems they encountered in doing so. Our data is presented as follows:

Chapter 2 provides some background information on clerks and office automation and sets out the hypotheses that our research is designed to test. Chapters 3–6 will present the situation in our first firm, the Royal Exchange Bank, describing the sequence of events associated with the introduction of the computer and analysing the interview data which we obtained from staff in four automated branches and in one branch which underwent only a very slight change. In Chapters 7 and 8 the same outline is followed for our second firm, Carters. Chapter 9 examines the consequences of the change for the two firms and the clerks working there and compares our research findings with similar studies in other countries. Chapter 10 attempts to identify those variables which influence clerical attitudes to change and, from this analysis, we will try to arrive at some general conclusions concerning the management of change. Chapter 11 presents a strategy for change which, it is hoped, will provide managers with some pointers on how to avoid stress, anxiety and opposition to change from developing in their employees.

Some introductory points

The impact a computer has on a firm will depend very much on what it is used for. Firms which merely automate existing clerical procedures and use their computers as high powered accounting machines may find that no fundamental organisational changes are caused by the new system. In contrast, firms which introduce comprehensive integrated data processing systems and use their machines to rationalise various business functions are likely to find that the structure of their company has been dramatically altered. Departments may be eliminated or combined and the content of both managerial and clerical jobs will be greatly changed. But, however a computer is used, and in Britain so far the practice has been to adopt the first approach, the move from one system of work to another must lead to the abandonment of old methods, practices and ideas and to the adoption of new ones. These new procedures alter the traditional office situation; they will be seen by office workers as affecting their present jobs and their future careers, and both clerks and managers are likely to react to them in a very ambivalent way.

Staffing problems

The first and crucial problem for the clerk is that most computers are introduced to cut labour costs. They therefore have the potential of causing redundancy and throwing the clerk out of work. The clerk knows this and despite assurances from his employers that this will not happen, he is usually a worried man. This worry is not because he sees his colleagues in other firms losing their jobs—for the amount of redundancy caused by office automation in this country is negligible—but because he is now subjected to a great deal of propaganda about machines taking over his work. There are jokes in Punch, television programmes showing offices without clerks, warnings from white-collar unions, articles in almost every journal he picks up, and so on.

This current nervousness about job security means that any firm contemplating a computer must find out at an early stage exactly how and to what extent the machine is going to affect its labour force. It must give reassurances about redundancy as soon as the machine is ordered and, if some reduction in staff numbers is likely to occur, it must work out comprehensive advance schemes for running down the labour force through natural wastage. Fortunately the majority of clerks affected by a computer are usually young women. Women today get married at an early age and there is a high labour turnover in this group. This means that the problem of reducing staff numbers is not a difficult one for management provided plans are made and implemented well before the computer arrives.

Even though redundancy can be avoided, a firm is still left with the problem of staff displacement. Unless work is expanding at a proportionate rate, the introduction of a computer must reduce the numbers of staff required by an affected department, and this will mean that plans will have to be made for transferring staff elsewhere in the organisation. This presents its own problems; suitable jobs must be identified, re-training will be necessary and the firm may have to make special provision for this, while the staff themselves may object to being moved. Firms seem to have little trouble with their young clerks who are adaptable and have, as yet, little job investment. Elderly clerks can often be retired early, perhaps with a golden handshake. The difficulty lies more with the middle-aged clerk or departmental supervisor who can have spent twenty years in the same job. He may find it very difficult indeed to pick up new knowledge and skills at this late stage in his career. Re-training, particularly of the older worker, seems a problem warranting far more investigation than it is receiving at present.

Those staff remaining in departments taken over by the computer will, of course, be considerably affected by the new system and there may be changes in the content, skill requirements and status of their jobs. Some clerks, for example, will be transformed into machine operators punching tape or cards for the computer. In a later chapter we will show how girls in Royal Exchange Bank were changed from accounting machine operators to punched tape machinists. They believed this new job to be less skilled and more monotonous than their previous one. They also complained of a lowering of job status and compared themselves with some bitterness to factory hands. This last reaction was a subjective and emotional one, as in the bank’s eyes their status had not altered at all.

Departmental supervisors trained in traditional office routines are likely to find the new technology hard to understand; they may find their functions reduced in range and variety and they may have considerably fewer staff to control. It can prove difficult to convince this group that an automated system has any advantage over traditional methods.

Staff reactions

Our research findings will show that our two case study firms—and we found this in other firms visited during the course of the investigation—had difficulty in introducing the kind of rapid technical change associated with electronic data processing. They made mistakes in their handling of the change process and in the policies they adopted, and because of these they evoked anxious and hostile reactions in some of their staff. There would, of course, have been some fear and antagonism even if the change-over had been handled perfectly, but imperfect strategies for change did seem to magnify the problem.

Anxiety was not confined to clerks but occurred at every level in the firm. Middle managers saw their status and autonomy threatened, junior management resented the rise of the new specialist computer groups, while clerks were anxious about their jobs, their security, and the nature of their new work. Although Royal Exchange was able to secure the co-operation of its staff, other firms were less fortunate and we came across instances where clerks believed that in accepting a computer they were ‘cutting their own throats’. Both our firms suffered greatly from the production of corrupt input data in the early days. In Royal Exchange this was largely a technical problem due to machine and tape defects, but in Carters there was some evidence that clerks in affected departments were not motivated to produce accurate information.

Why was there anxiety and antagonism about office automation? We identified a number of reasons for this. The first was management’s unawareness of the social implications of the change they were introducing. In one firm the principal innovator was an organisation and methods expert, in the other, an accountant. This meant that electronic data processing in both companies was seen primarily as a systems change and its consequences for human relations were either ignored or not understood.

The second was that the two managements were defective in their communication and consultation policies. One firm did not wish to let staff know what was going to happen, the other tried to inform staff but was only partially successful in doing so. Rumour was everywhere given as the principal source of information, yet Royal Exchange management was trying hard to keep its staff informed of what was taking place and we found that those clerks who recalled hearing about the computer from official sources were more likely to react approvingly than those who said they had heard unofficially.

The third was that the pressures of the change period were themselves a source of stress and anxiety. In both firms the preliminary time estimates for the completion of the changeover proved wildly unrealistic. Computer staff became worried because they could not meet deadlines and were subjected to pressure from senior management who believed they should be able to. Computer breakdown caused plans to fall behind schedule and a backlog of work to accumulate. This in turn led to continual overtime work in the evenings and at weekends. Both computer personnel and clerical staff in affected departments suffered from a tremendous increase in work during the change-over period and this caused physical and mental stress. Staff became tired and with certain individuals this led to a drop in morale.

Our investigations led us to the conclusion that the introduction of a computer can only be carried through in a calm and ordered way if the changeover is preceded by meticulous planning. In our final chapters we discuss the different factors which we believe influence employee attitudes to change and which therefore must be taken into account if successful plans are to be made.

Our main conclusions

We hope that this study will bring out three main points of importance to the practical manager.

1 That introducing a computer is not merely a simple change...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Tables
• Acknowledgements
• INTRODUCTION
• Part I Offices in Transition
• 1 Some problems of office automation
• 2 Clerks and social change
• Part II Our Case Study Firms
• 3 The Royal Exchange Bank—The development of the new computer centre
• 4 The Royal Exchange Bank—Work organisation and staff attitudes before the change
• 5 The Royal Exchange Bank—The new work system
• 6 The Royal Exchange Bank—An analysis of attitudes after the change
• 7 Carters—The introduction of a new system
• 8 Carters—The accounts department
• Part III The Analysis of Change
• 9 Change and its consequences
• 10 The management of change
• 11 A practical approach
• A. Methodological problems
• B. Rurditch City Council—A communications strategy
• Bibliography
• Index